WILLIAM PHILLIPS
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doubt where she stood; and anyone who took her on in debate
knew he had taken on a heavyweight and usually found out that
he was overmatched. She would begin in a low-keyed, pedagogic
tone, and in a gravelly voice, "Now listen here," and then go on
to demolish her opponent in a mesmerizing combination of
persuasion, wit, intellectual authority, and a logic that I can
characterize only as a kind of insistent rhetoric.
Hannah Arendt had the quality one thinks of as originality,
the ability, that is, to put ideas in a fresh form. Occasionally,
this led to quirkiness or one-sidedness, as those with positivist
or Marxist leanings, on the one side, and conservatives, on the
other, have been quick to point out. But this might be the price
one has to pay for originality. And perhaps it is ungenerous to
emphasize her shortcomings at a time when so few figures come
near the range and depth she strove for in her thinking.
In her personal habits, Hannah could be described as old–
fashioned, almost like one's parents, without any of those affecta–
tions of style or tastes for luxury cultivated these days by success–
ful intellectuals. Even her apartments looked quaintly European,
like the apartment of someone who had not acquired the new
American ways of living. (They reminded me of the immigrant
look of my parent's house.) Her living rooms were small, and
there was no attempt to create any decor beyond coziness and
comfort. She lived quietly and modestly and did not go in for
flashy or fashionable forms of experience or amusement. Nor
did she make a show of gourmet cooking and serving. The last
time I had dinner at her house-for about ten or twelve people–
the meal was catered, but very simply, and the main course was
a filet. She believed in such outdated values as friendship and
loyalty, loyalty to a community as well as to people. Not long
before she died, I saw Hannah at Lionel Trilling's funeral ser–
vices. She did not say much, but her hurt and resigned look was a
comment on the sadness of the occasion. She was not a close
friend of the Trillings; in fact, they had many sharp disagree–
ments. But I assume she felt she should be there out of respect for
Lionel and a sense of belonging to the same little world.
Her thinking, however, was a coalition of opposites. She had
an uncanny sense of contemporary issues and moods, but she
reflected her early philosophical training by going back to tra–
ditional subjects and categories. In her basic social outlook,
