Obviously, my purpose in mentioning the Crillon\u2019s valet service was to comfort Abe for spilling the Flore\u2019s strongest coffee on his brand-new jacket. But Abe didn\u2019t want me to console him for being what he was. He would have thought better of me for laughing at his sputtering reckless slobbering, his gauche eager tremors. He liked broad comedy, old vaudeville routines, wounding remarks, brashness, and raw fun. So he didn\u2019t think well of my weak, liberal, let\u2019s-make-it-all-better motive\u2013my foolish kindness.<\/p>\n
Abe took no stock in kindness. When students didn\u2019t meet his standards he said, \u201cI was wrong about you. This is no place for you. I won\u2019t have you around.\u201d The feelings of the rejects didn\u2019t concern him. Better for them if they hate me. It\u2019ll sharpen their minds. There\u2019s too much therapeutic bullshit, altogether.\u201d \u2026<\/p>\n
Of course my needs were different from Ravelstein\u2019s. In my trade you have to make more allowances, taking all sorts of ambiguities into account\u2013to avoid hard-edged judgments. All this refraining may resemble naivete. But it isn\u2019t quite that. In art you become familiar with due process. You can\u2019t simply write people off or send them to hell.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Obviously, my purpose in mentioning the Crillon\u2019s valet service was to comfort Abe for spilling the Flore\u2019s strongest coffee on his brand-new jacket. But Abe didn\u2019t want me to console him for being what he was. He would have thought better of me for laughing at his sputtering reckless slobbering, his gauche eager tremors. He […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[310,290,1278,127,121,1279],"class_list":["post-10474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","tag-academia-nuts","tag-all-of-life-is-a-choice-of-genre","tag-allan-bloom","tag-conservatism-considered-as-a-helix-of-semiprecious-stones","tag-doctors-and-policemen","tag-saul-bellow"],"yoast_head":"\n
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