THE PAST AS PRESENT: SELECTED THOUGHTS & ESSAYS
[Pages:428]THE PAST AS PRESENT: SELECTED THOUGHTS & ESSAYS
THE PAST AS PRESENT:
SELECTED THOUGHTS & ESSAYS
PAUL T. RUXIN
COMPILED AND EDITED BY
GORDON M. PRADL & SAMUEL B. ELLENPORT
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY WILLIAM H. PRITCHARD
TRUSTEES OF AMHERST COLLEGE
2017
The Editors thank fellow Amherst '65 Classmates
Don MacNaughton, Bruce Wintroub, Charles Bunting, Mark W. Perry, Lew Markoff, and Paul Ehrmann
for their direct financial support and encouragement. Editorial decisions were aided especially by Don MacNaughton,
along with Classmates Marc Green and Jeff Titon. Various Clubs and Organizations to which Paul belonged were helpful in providing copies of his talks and various essays.
The Editors also appreciate the generous cooperation received from the Ruxin family, who supplied additional materials
included in the book.
table of contents
Introduction (William H. Pritchard)
7
part i: Paul's Reading Pleasures
One Thing Leads to Another
17
Edith Warton and Her Friends
25
The Club
49
Dorando and the Douglas Cause
64
Lord Auchinleck's Fingal
81
An Hospitable and Well-Covered Table
95
Soft-Hearted Sam
110
Review of Boswell's An Account of Corsica
132
Review of Johnson's The History of Rasselas
137
How Sam and Dave Helped Save Bill
140
part ii: Paul's Passionate Pursuit of Books
The Future of Book Collecting
165
Synonymy and Satire by Association
173
Not in Fleeman: A Meditation on Collecting
183
A Serendipitous Acquisition
194
Other People's Books
201
Eleven More Fore-edge Paintings
211
Special Collections Libraries and the Uses of the Past
217
part iii: Paul's Legal Writing and Thoughts
The Right Not to Be Modern Men:
The Amish and Compulsory Education
229
Other Thoughts on the Law
268
part iv: A Miscellany of Paul Speaking His Mind
Sarah Ruhl: The 2008 Robert Frost Library Fellow
283
A Fan's Notes
286
Two Letters to Sam Ellenport
289
Beginnings of the Johnsonian News Letter
294
The Artist Known as Will
298
Joseph Epstein's Ruminations on Our Ultimate Demise
299
Reflections on Professor Theodore Baird
300
Reflections on Amherst College
302
25th & 50th Reunion Self-Statements
343
Further Views and Opinions
348
part v: Remembering Paul (1943?2016)
Adam Cohn
369
Sarah Ruxin
372
Sam Ellenport
376
Linn Raney
380
Robert Baker
383
David Spadafora
388
Jerry Morris
392
Michael Witmore
395
Lew Markoff
397
Don MacNaughton
400
Robert DeMaria, Jr.
402
Paul T. Ruxin '65: Amherst Medal for Eminent Service
407
Michael Pohl and Bruce Wintroub (Amherst Obituary)
409
Chicago Tribune Obituary
411
Carl U. Weitman (For The Rowfant Club of Cleveland)
414
Appendix I: Terminus (Edith Wharton)
417
Appendix II: Letters to Paul from Prof. Theodore Baird
419
Introduction
One of Paul Ruxin's talks to the Rowfant Club in Cleveland was
a profile of Archibald MacLeish, the poet, professor, and public man of many sorts. In it Paul quotes a letter from 1916 that MacLeish wrote to his father after he had spent a year in law school (p. 76):
My two remaining free summers I intend to devote to the great mass of reading I have yet to do and for the doing of which my mind is so thirsty. Law and literature are, of course, incompatible, but I want to acquire a sufficient background so that if I am ever able to turn to the thing I most love I shall be able to undertake creative work at once.
The struggle among these options--teaching, law, and literature--was in MacLeish's later life resolved into a single triple-threat identity: now Boylston Professor of Rhetoric at Harvard; now Librarian of Congress; and during World War II, Assistant Secretary of State for Public and Cultural Relations. I suspect that much of Paul's interest in and admiration for MacLeish's multifarious activities, was his own pull toward both law and literature, the desire to show that, in the story of his own life, they were not incompatible. His passion for books, as demonstrated in the Rowfant talks and elsewhere, was both for reading them, writing about them, and collecting them. In a rash moment he once thanked me for teaching him how to read, and I accepted this over-generous salute even though it drastically simplified the complicated and ongoing story of Paul as a reader.
7
introduction
One of Paul's law-related articles concerns the Amish and compulsory education. This volume's editors point out the "very literate ability" of that essay which grew out of his concern for Energy Policy. They praise Paul for his being able "to see the value of multiple perspectives, even as he is clear about his own vision that he brings to the situation." I am reminded of one of William James's early essays, "The Sentiment of Rationality," in which he acknowledges the human need and desire for "simplification," then puts that desire up against its "sister passion . . . for clearness," the desire to be "acquainted with the parts rather than comprehend the whole." But James was clearly on the side of clearness as against simplicity. He is willing to live with "any amount of incoherence, abruptness, and fragmentariness" as long as the separate facts can be "saved," rather than dissolved into a unitary simplification, however compelling.
In one of the short e-mails to classmates dealing with Supreme Court Justice Scalia's "originalism" in interpreting the constitution, Paul allied himself with the justice insofar as he felt that his own passion was for the close reading he learned to practice at Amherst, rather than for some recent theory about what the text "should" mean. In another, related e-mail, he notes that at Amherst he was, or was told he was, a conservative; while at law school he was deemed a liberal with respect to the same positions. He rejects such labeling as, in William James's terms, the urge to simplify rather than to be clear about things. "Labels are unworthy of the education we were privileged to receive," Paul wrote, and he found it crucial to acknowledge opposition views on a question, each of which has much to be said for it. He notes with regret that certain "demands" made in fall 2015 were unworthy in their fervor to embrace simplification rather than giving the patient consideration of particulars that clarity demands.
One of the best of the literary essays in this volume is "Edith Wharton and her Friends," delivered as a talk in 2003 to the Caxton Club in Chicago. In the essay Paul gives a sympathetic, pointed account of Edith Newbold Jones's early life, a brief treatment of her unfortunate marriage to "Teddy" Wharton, then a glimpse into her friendship with
8
................
................
In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.
To fulfill the demand for quickly locating and searching documents.
It is intelligent file search solution for home and business.
Related download
- the wisdom of dorothy day walter g moss
- equine liability what every horse owner needs to know ebook
- sandra burr creative connections the essay in the context
- common mistakes to avoid in formal writing
- sample rhodes scholarship personal statement student 1
- the past as present selected thoughts essays
- the ghost horse of meadow green kids can press
- essays vanderbilt university
Related searches
- past and present tense worksheets
- past and present tense games
- past and present tense list
- past and present verbs
- past and present word list
- past and present tense words
- spanish past and present tense
- past and present tense quiz
- simple past and present perfect worksheet
- free past and present worksheets
- past simple present perfect pdf
- simple past vs present perfect