[LC]

In the pages that follow, some of William Yandell Elliott's students have tried to convey part of what he has meant to Harvard. Four of his tutees contribute personal memories of his impact upon them. The editors have asked Louis Hartz to forego the pleasures of reminiscence for a more general assessment of Elliott's achievement as a teacher. The collection is prefaced by a summary of Elliott's career.

— THE EDITORS

May 15, 1963

[LC]

ON PROFESSOR ELLIOTT'S RETIREMENT

*(The following account of Professor Elliott's career first
appeared in the Crimson for December 21, 1962.)*

After more than thirty-five years at Harvard, William Yandell Elliott, Leroy B. Williams Professor of History and Political Science, will retire this spring from his position here to become University Professor at American University in Washington. This will not be the first time Elliott has left Cambridge for the capital — he has held a great variety of advisory and administrative positions there — but this final departure will remove from the Harvard scene one of the most powerful and influential of its political scientists.

Elliott, a native of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, began his distinguished career in the teaching and practice of government after many years of the study and practice of philosophy and poetry. As an undergraduate at Vanderbilt during the late 'teens, he was a member of a group of poets and critics — made up of students and faculty members both — who met for weekly discussions of life, letters and the South which have since become celebrated in the literary histories. Many of the members of this group were later described (with varying degrees of accuracy) as "the Fugitive poets," from the title of a magazine they published.

They shared, in addition to exceptional talent, a profound
concern with the fate of the values they believed defined the
mind of the South — a concern for personal moral responsi-
bility, a belief in the necessity of a vital relationship with the

5

soil, and an urge to build strong ties between small groups of men (such as themselves). They feared that these standards were disappearing as a result of the corrosive influence of industrial civilization. Among their number were many who remained students of literature — John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, Donald Davidson — and others who went on to other careers.

Elliott, though he remained concerned with the crisis in values which troubled the Fugitives, left literature for political science. He began teaching government upon his arrival at Harvard in 1925. After leaving Vanderbilt, he had served with the A. E. F., completing his service as a first lieutenant, and then studied at the Sorbonne and, as a Rhodes Scholar, at Balliol College, Oxford, where he received the D. Phil. degree. At Oxford with him were many of his Vanderbilt generation, and the discussions continued, with such English men of letters as Robert Graves joining the little band.

Elliott studied at Balliol with A. D. Lindsay, Master of the College, and one of the great political theoreticians of the century. He also edited several collections of Oxford Prize verse. After Oxford, Elliott returned to this country, to teach English at Vanderbilt and then at the University of California.

At Harvard, Elliott has taught a variety of lower-level and graduate courses, including Government 1 and seminars in diplomacy and political theory. He has always devoted the greatest part of his energies to his students, especially his tutees. He has stated that nothing can be more gratifying to a man than to have a part in bringing a good mind to fruition. His former tutees include Lincoln Gordon '34, U. S. Ambassador to Brazil, and Professor Henry A. Kissinger '50.

However, Elliott's new post (to which he was invited by Dean Ernest Griffith, a fellow Oxonian) has only minimal teaching duties connected with it, and will permit him time to complete several books he has been working on intermittently over the last few years. These include a work on systematic political thought; a discussion of the relationship between

6

Congress and the formation of foreign policy; and an inquiry
into the possible moral bases of foreign policy.

Elliott has published an enormous number of books and
papers during his long career. Perhaps the most important of
them to an understanding of his own political views is *The
Pragmatic Revolt in Politics*, which was published in 1926.
Since then, his titles have included *The New British Empire*,
*The Need for Constitutional Reform*, and *Industrial Mobilization and the National Security*. The second of these presented
Elliott's prescription for curing what he believed to be the
serious ills of the American political system — ills he believed
had become apparent in the strained period of the Depression.

The work on industrial mobilization is only one of many
which grew out of his work in Washington; in 1942, Elliott
was made director of the stockpiling and transportation division
of the Office of Production Management. He was later appointed
vice-chairman of the War Production Board for civilian require-
ments.

After the war, Elliott was staff director for the Colmer
committee of the House of Representatives on the problems of
economic reconstruction in Europe. In this capacity, he partici-
pated in negotiations with numerous heads of state, including
Josef Stalin. From 1947 to 1948, he was staff director for the
select committee on foreign aid (the Herter committee), and
staff director for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

He has also been special assistant to the director of the
Office of Defense Mobilization, consultant to the Under Secretary
of State, and a member of the Business Advisory Council of the
Department of Commerce.

Through it all, Elliott has retained the individualistic out-
look of a man of the soil and a poet. He himself ascribes his
ideas and convictions to his rural youth and his intense personal
experiences at Vanderbilt. He is proud that he still operates a
large farm, Hidden Valley Farm at Haywood, Virginia, and
notes ironically that he is the only ex-Fugitive to own one —
although many of his fellow poets went on to become philo-

7

sophical agrarians.

He discovered this distinction in 1957, when a "Fugitives' Reunion" was held at Vanderbilt. Almost all the old bunch returned — Ransom, Davidson, Hirsch, Merrill Moore and Elliott among them. They talked about their early dreams and their lives — none of them had written the American epic they had once dreamed of; they discussed in the perspective of thirty years the ideals of friendship, personal loyalty and sectional pride they had once thought they were rescuing from the creeping anonymity of the twentieth century. They re-read their poetry, and for several days picked up where they had left off the endless discussion of life and art they had begun forty years ago and more.

— MICHAEL W. SCHWARTZ '63

8

Elliott as a Teacher

The great influence of Professor Elliott as a teacher lies in his intellectual creativity and in his power to communicate the process of mind which this involves. There are men who have the gift of communication but lack an imaginative spark, and there are original minds who somehow cannot involve others in the experience that they have. Elliott is a combination of virtues. But this is peculiarly a matter of example and not in the simpler sense a matter of "teaching" at all. To the countless students whose minds he has captured at Harvard, Elliott has not tried to communicate a set of rules for thought, a guidebook for creative endeavor. What he has done has been to involve them by contagion in his own intellectual effort, to recruit them to the process of his own enthusiasms. He has taught them political theory by making them political theorists themselves.

The energy for such a relationship comes necessarily from a personal dedication, not merely to the intellectual enterprise as such but to the results which it achieves. The distinctive positions that Elliott has taken in political science are well known: the co-organic concept of politics, the need for constitutional change, the defense of a strong foreign policy. What Elliott has accomplished as a teacher through these convictions has not depended on whether his students have agreed with him, and indeed he has been the last to insist on agreement. Their meaning has been to communicate the purposive nature

9

of any intellectual endeavor, the notion of a beginning
and an end. Elliott has not imposed his own commit-
ments but he has taught, in a superlative way, the
meaning of commitment itself.

In his own case this concern has had a peculiarly
moral quality, associated with the intellectual tradition
out of which he emerged and which he has carried
forward at Harvard. That tradition in the broadest sense
is the work of the Oxford Idealists, of whom A. D.
Lindsay, Elliott's own teacher, would have to be ranked
as the last great English representative. Elliott has made
the moral preoccupations of that school a legend of the
Government Department at Harvard, and even when a
man has drifted far away from the specific issue of those
concerns, into empirical work of the most concrete kind,
he has rarely forgotten their meaning. For a generation
Elliott has been the conscience of political study at
Harvard, forcing it always back to the ethical assump-
tions which it involves.

If Elliott's power as a teacher has lain in his capacity
to bring others with him into the enterprise of theory,
this has involved a peculiar ability to increase the con-
fidence of his students. In a world where so many
teachers are prostrate before the thinkers they study, and
so many students before their teachers, it is a rare talent
to be able to impart the kind of independence that
original thought demands. "And I too am a painter,"
said Correggio: the phrase was quoted by Montesquieu
and after him Holmes. Perhaps the greatest achievement
of Elliott as a teacher is that he has inspired his students

10

[LC]

to make that declaration, and he could not have done so if he had not been able to make it himself. In the end it is a quality of sheer intellectual courage which has been the most precious thing that Elliott has imparted to those who have worked with him.

All of this is to say that Elliott is a teacher in the great tradition, a man whose influence has been associated with the force of his ideas and the distinctiveness of his mind. In the case of such a person it becomes finally impossible to separate the contribution as a scholar from the contribution as a teacher, for the one is the pre-requisite of the other. Above all it becomes impossible to separate either from the man who makes them, for they are both projected on the highest level, where the individuality of a human being is always evident. Bill Elliott is one of the greatest of all the figures that the Government Department has produced. His impact has entered permanently into the study of politics at Harvard.

— LOUIS HARTZ '40

11

"A desire to convey understanding . . ."

It is difficult — and not a little painful — to realize that over thirty-two years have passed since I first encountered Bill Elliott. Sitting in a crowded New Lecture Hall with almost one thousand other Harvard freshmen and sophomores, I listened to him expound the mysteries of the British parliamentary system. Bill Elliott's lectures were the decisive factor in persuading me to major in government rather than in the physical sciences. It was the influence of Bill Elliott, communicated more by example than by direct persuasion, which led me as a Harvard senior to abandon the idea of studying law at Oxford, and instead to seek a D. Phil. degree there in order to return to Harvard in 1936 as an Instructor in Government.

I also know that Elliott's recommendation was a potent factor in persuading the State and Regional Selection Committees to elect me as a Rhodes scholar. It was an embarrassingly enthusiastic letter from Elliott to that remarkable Oxonian figure, A. D. Lindsay, then Master of Balliol, which led to my admission to the Mecca of Rhodes scholars and to a year of tutoring in political philosophy from "the Master" which was one of the high points of my formal student career.

In the intervening period of more than twenty-five years, Bill Elliott and I have been engaged together in many enterprises. We have had many disagreements, notably when we were defending different concerns as fellow Vice Chairmen of the War Production Board.

13

Since the War, our paths have converged less frequently, as I have shifted my main academic interest to international economic relations and devoted much time to active responsibility in foreign economic and political affairs. But there has never been any flagging in my sense of friendship and esteem for this really great personality with its immense influence in shaping the course of my early manhood.

What were the elements which made so deep an impact, not only on me but on dozens of fellow undergraduates and graduate students? The episodes of personal contact were not so significant in themselves, although I recall with pleasure the Sunday walks in Belmont, the anecdotes of Elliott's Tennessee background and the First World War, the "Crown coordinate, Crown confederate and Crown subordinate" of his course on the new British Empire, the always provocative discussions in seminars on political philosophy and on the turbulent new streams of political thought of the 1930's.

The essential impact was that of a very strong, and above all a very warm personality. There was the Churchillian catholicity of interest in all aspects of social behavior, seen in the sweep of political and intellectual history. It was, perhaps, not very scientific in method, but it was full of insights and perceptions. Elliott approached the understanding of politics as a poet-philosopher, and I confess doubts to this day whether the scientific apparatus of this branch of social studies has yet produced a superior or more rewarding approach. My first reading of *The Pragmatic Revolt in Politics*, as a

14

Harvard sophomore, was an arduous but immensely rewarding experience. Elliott had perceived the essential nature of Fascism with greater understanding and far in advance of most of his contemporaries.

I am sure, however, that what most evoked our regard was not merely Bill Elliott's intellectual brilliance, although that was present in full measure. It was his concern with us; his desire to convey understanding, to make us think for ourselves, and his unstinting generosity of time and effort to draw the new generation forward — or even to push us forward ahead of our time. Here was a great teacher and a great spirit, entirely free of the selfishness or petty jealousies which mar so much of academic coexistence, even in the greatest universities.

To me, the news of Bill Elliott's retirement from the Harvard Government Department, which I first saw in the pre-Christmas edition of the *Crimson*, came as a real shock. For my contemporaries, Bill Elliott was the towering embodiment of the Harvard Government Department. It is a source of great satisfaction to know that he retains an active role in the academic world, from which new generations may draw the same inspiration of deeply humane convictions which has meant so much to my own.

— LINCOLN GORDON '34

15

"The force of what he is . . . "

I first met Professor Elliott when, after almost three
years in mathematics, I became a government concen-
trator. Much to my surprise, I was assigned a senior
member of the department as a tutor. My tutorial with
Professor Elliott was Harvard's greatest gift to me, and I
count myself everlastingly lucky for it.

But what are the bases of my belief, shared by all
enlightened mankind — a class which, I take it, consists
of Professor Elliott's tutees — that he has been one of
Harvard's shining ornaments and great teachers?

It would be presumptuous of me to expatiate upon
his scholarship. Two things only: it was my tutorial
experience that finally convinced me the theory of a
university-college is correct — sound teaching can root
itself only in sound scholarship, and great teaching
flowers only from great scholarship. And I herewith
enter a plea for partial repeal of the laws of the market-
place: must the demand for copies of *The Pragmatic
Revolt* express itself by driving the price to twenty
dollars?

Professor Elliott knows, too, that the end of scholar-
ship is not merely more scholarship. He has heeded Mr.
Justice Holmes: "I think that, as life is action and
passion, it is required of a man that he should share the
passion and action of his time at peril of being judged
not to have lived." His distinguished public life has not
only given the authority of practice to the academy's
theories, but has shown the truth of words Holmes spoke

17

later in his Memorial Day address: "... although desire cannot be imparted by argument, it can be by contagion." I know that Professor Elliott's public career has changed my plans for the future, and I have in hand proof that it has affected others among his students. A list of his former tutees shows that four of them are now stationed abroad in the Foreign Service. And I suspect that the numerous Maryland and Virginia addresses on the list tell a further tale of the impact a great teacher has on the lives of his students.

But Professor Elliott's influence is more personal than these statistics might suggest. In my case, when I became his tutee I was still too much the product of a dogmatic, doctrinaire, illiberal liberalism which had surrounded me before I came to Harvard. My parents had been free of it, but I had not been wise enough to learn from them. To say that Professor Elliott taught me something would be inaccurate and inadequate. The best I can do is to say that he changed me by the force of what he is, and that I am grateful for it.

Professor Elliott recognizes, to extend Maitland's thought, that all knowledge is a seamless web and that with our first sentence we must tear it asunder, but he has taught us to expect that the second or third sentence will begin the job of reweaving. Poet he has never ceased to be, and the bone-knowledge that is poetry's gift has informed all his work. He knows by instinct that scientism, that curse of the half-thinker, is narrowing and degrading. More important, he knows that the serious student of politics must ignore the boundaries

18

that academics establish. In our tutorials, for example,
we wandered often into literature. I remember writing a
paper on the politics of *Hamlet*, and talking often of
novels. For a time, our tutorial sessions ended with book
swaps, and I think I introduced Professor Elliott to
William Golding's novels. I remember thinking that his
preference for Golding's *The Inheritors* was suggestive.
(The novel is about Neanderthal man's displacement by
*homo sapiens*, and it is told through the almost-minds of
the last Neanderthals.) Professor Elliott's sympathies
were caught by the question implied in the book's title,
and I wonder if this was not an echo of the Fugitive's
concern about latter-day New Men.

A further and final thought about the Fugitive: he
is a gentleman in a world where that is increasingly rare.

— JAMES A. SHARAF '59

19

"The turbulence and intensity of passionate thought . . . "

This fall W. Y. Elliott talked to me for an hour about personal things: about his days at Oxford, his memories of the Fugitive group in Tennessee, his emotional and moral struggles with intellectual enterprise, and his reflections on political philosophy. It was a rambling hour, full of reminiscences and aphorisms, yet I have no hesitation in calling it the most memorable and deeply moving I have known at Harvard.

During that session Professor Elliott seemed to be trying to review his contributions as a teacher, to capture in words and anecdotes the intangible lessons he had conveyed. And he seemed to be addressing his remarks to me almost by circumstance, not because I was the worthiest of his tutees but because chance had made me one of the last. "I am speaking to you this way, Lee," he said at one point, "because I shall soon retire. I only had you for a year; I want to be sure you learned what I tried to teach."

What he tried to teach, not just to me but to more than a generation of others, was only incidentally directed to that part of the mind which memorizes, criticizes, and takes notes. Professor Elliott aimed at a more profound level of education: he sought to inculcate passion, a sense of beauty, a sense of involvement, and a sense of honor. He sought to make one ever aware that new thoughts, if they are to be truly learned, must possess more than the intellect. He sought to make one

21

conscious of being something more than a student in a
striped tie who existed only to read tutorial papers once
weekly.

To communicate these lessons during that hour he
drew on his experiences, much as a poet draws on his
stock of images and perceptions or as a painter selects
oils from his palette. He spoke of Sidney Hirsch, that
mystical friend of his who, having pored over Coleridge,
the Kaballah, and the Eastern mystery religions, left
home for a time to fulfill his own conceptions of the
prophet as Wandering Stranger. He talked about the
exciting intellectual life at Oxford and mentioned his
tutor, A. D. Lindsay. He spoke of the power of epic
myths and recalled his own moral struggles, his efforts
to purge himself of pride and pettiness, his agonizing
efforts to push his thoughts deeper and deeper.

From all this there emerged a self-portrait of a man
who had held aspirations greater than any human being
could hope to satisfy, who had lived and thought with
such fervor at some periods of his life as to make the
rest seem a mere commentary, who had, in all, acquired
a depth of insight and range of understanding which
far surpassed any of the achievements by which worldly
success can be measured. Elliott's discursive references
sketched a portrait of one who was at once wise and
restless, who had experienced and could convey the
turbulence and intensity of passionate thought.

What more dare I say than it has been my privilege
to have studied under such a man? I shall remember
him, not as one commonly remembers old teachers, for

22

eccentricities and quips but rather, as one remembers
those one loves, for human qualities. And I shall
remember that when his secretary interrupted our
review session with the reminder that there were four
people waiting in the outer office, I noticed that Pro-
fessor Elliott's eyes were moist and bright — as bright
as my own, though he was more than forty years my
senior.

— JOSIAH LEE AUSPITZ '63

23

[c]

"Epics are prescriptions for action . . . "

It is not a simple assignment to describe in a few
pages what Bill Elliott has meant to me. I can recount
how I met him and some of what we did. But these are
only little segments of the texture of a life which has
become unimaginable without the influence of Bill Elliott.

I first met Bill Elliott in the fall of 1947. I had
come to Harvard after spending four and a half years
with the Army (one of them in civilian status). Harvard
was a new world to me then, its mysteries hidden behind
studied informality. I did not know what to make of the
experiences I had had or what relevance Harvard's values
would have to my life. It never occurred to me that I
would never really leave Harvard again.

I stayed — first as a graduate student, then on the
faculty — because of Bill Elliott. Whatever I have
achieved I owe importantly to his inspiration.

The first time I saw Bill Elliott he was shuffling
papers with a weary air, sitting at a desk which at any
moment threatened to topple under the weight of the
documents covering it. I had penetrated into his study
because his secretary was out of the office. My purpose
was to ask what I now recognize as a sacrilegious ques-
tion: whether, in view of my Army experience, it was
necessary for me to take Government 1. The question
seemed to magnify Bill's melancholy. None of his
students need to be told his answer: I took Govern-
ment 1a.

Today I do not remember a single lecture, yet my

25

future intellectual life was shaped by that course.
Obviously, Bill Elliott cared. Political theory to him
was not an abstract subject to be studied historically or
to be used as a demonstration of dialectic brilliance. It
was an adventure where good and evil were in a con-
stant struggle to give meaning to existence, and where
epics seemed to be prescriptions for action.

A year later I became Bill Elliott's tutee. When I
reported this fact to him he intimated that his duties
were growing excessive. He said I should return after
reading Kant's *Critique of Pure Reason*.

This was not a simple assignment for someone with
little training in philosophy. As a result, it took me until
the term was half over to finish my paper. Bill made me
read it to him, and somewhere in the middle of it his
seeming indifference disappeared. He suggested that I
work on political theory, not as an historian but as a
creative philosopher. This idea had never occurred to me.

From then on we met every week for many years.
Bill Elliott made me discover Dostoievski and Hegel,
Kant, Spinoza and Homer. On many Sundays we took
long walks in Concord. He spoke of the power of love,
and said that the only truly unforgivable sin is to use
people as if they were objects. He discussed greatness
and excellence. And while I did not always follow his
words, I knew that I was in the presence of a remark-
able man.

There are not too many things one man can
ultimately do for another. We intellectuals often place
too much stress on words. And we lack categories for

26

the intangibles.

I do not know, therefore, how to describe the inspira-
tion which Bill Elliott has been for those of us who
studied under him and loved him. Much of what I have
written here sounds like the familiar tutorial relation-
ship. Some of it is consistent with easy and cruel stereo-
types. But those of us whose life was changed by Bill
Elliott know better. We know that we were guided by a
genuine and a profound man. His convictions are so
deep, his compassion so strong, that his words sometimes
do not do justice to his quality. But this is a tribute to
the scale of his purposes, not a reflection on his pro-
nouncements.

His students were moved because they never saw him
do anything second-rate. They were inspired because
they came to recognize that this seemingly so pugnacious
man had the kindest of hearts. I never heard him say
anything malicious. He is one of the most unselfish men
I have known. He believed in his students often before
they believed in themselves. And he therefore gave them
the strength for the loneliness inseparable from creative
effort. He had the courage to affirm his views while
smaller men snickered and even his friends let him fight
his battles alone.

As the years went by I saw less of him. But he had
made his mark on me, and frequent contact was not
necessary. I knew what he stood for and I knew, too,
that he would stand fast, whoever else might falter.

Of course, Bill Elliott had his detractors. After all,
he has been a *grand seigneur* in a world where eminence

27

has become a technical achievement. But his tutees know
that he is an aristocrat in the best sense. His nobility
does not require constant affirmation: it is independent
of where Bill Elliott is or what he does.

As far as his tutees are concerned, Bill Elliott will
never leave Harvard any more than he can be separated
from their lives. If they fail to communicate what his
departure means to them, it is because true devotion,
and generosity, and human greatness are mysteries to be
experienced but not to be described. And they know too
that, finally, their testimony to Bill Elliott cannot be in
anything they say but, perhaps, if they live up to his
teachings, in the quality of their lives.

— HENRY A. KISSINGER '50

28

William Yandell Elliott

I stayed -- first as a graduate student, then on the faculty --
because of Bill Elliott. Whatever I have achieved I owe importantly
to his inspiration.

The first time I saw Bill Elliott he was shuffling papers with
a weary air, sitting at a desk which at any moment threatened to
topple under the weight of the documents covering it. I had penetrated
into his study because his secretary was out of the office. My purpose
was to ask what I now recognize as a sacrilegious question: whether,
in view of my Army experience, it was necessary for me to take
Government 1. The question seemed to magnify Bill's melancholy.
None of his students need to be told his answer: I took Government 1a.

Today I do not remember a single lecture, yet my future intel-
lectual life was shaped by that course. Obviously, Bill Elliott cared.
Political theory to him was not an abstract subject to be studied
historically or to be used as a demonstration of dialectic brilliance.
It was an adventure where good and evil were in a constant struggle
to give meaning to existence, and where epics seemed to be prescrip-
tions for action.

- 2 -

This was not a simple assignment for someone with little
training in philosophy. As a result, it took me until the term
was half over to finish my paper. Bill made me read it to him,
and somewhere in the middle of it his seeming indifference disap-
peared. He suggested that I work on political theory, not as an
historian but as a creative philosopher. This idea had never
occurred to me.

From then on we met every week for many years. Bill
Elliott made me discover Dostoievski and Hegel, Kant, Spinoza
and Homer. On many Sundays we took long walks in Concord.
He spoke of the power of love, and said that the only truly unfor-
givable sin is to use people as if they were objects. He discussed
greatness and excellence. And while I did not always follow his
words, I knew that I was in the presence of a remarkable man.

There are not too many things one man can ultimately do
for another. We intellectuals often place too much stress on
words. And we lack categories for the intangibles.

I do not know, therefore, how to describe the inspiration
which Bill Elliott has been for those of us who studied under him
and loved him. Much of what I have written here sounds like the
familiar tutorial relationship. Some of it is consistent with easy
and cruel stereotypes. But those of us whose life was changed by
Bill Elliott know better. We know that we were guided by a genuine
and a profound man. His convictions are so deep, his compassion
so strong, that his words sometimes do not do justice to his quality.
But this is a tribute to the scale of his purposes, not a reflection
on his pronouncements.

- 3 -

Of course, Bill Elliott had his detractors. After all, he has been a grand seigneur in a world where eminence has become a technical achievement. But his tutees know that he is an aristocrat in the best sense. His nobility does not require constant affirmation: it is independent of where Bill Elliott is or what he does.

Henry A. Kissinger '50

(Henry A. Kissinger)

I first met Bill Elliott in the fall of 1947. I had come to Harvard after spending four and a half years with the Army (one of them in civilian status). Harvard was a new world to me than, its mysteries hidden behind studied informality. I did not know what to make of the experiences I had had or what relevance Harvard's values would have to my life. It never occurred to me that I would never really leave Harvard again.

I stayed--first as a graduate student, then on the faculty--because of Bill Elliott. Whatever I have achieved I owe importantly to his inspiration.

Today I do not remember a single lecture, yet my future intellectual life was shaped by that course. Obviously, Bill Elliott cared. Political to him theory/was not an abstract subject to be studied historically or to be used as a demonstration of dialectic brilliance. It was an adventure where good and evil were in a constant struggle to give meaning to existence, and where epics seemed to be prescriptions for action.

-3-

Of course, Bill Elliott had his detractors. After all, he has been a grand seigneur in a world where audience has become a technical achievement. But his tutees know that he is an aristocrat in the best sense. His nobility does not require constant affirmation; it is independent of where Bill Elliott is or what he does.

As far as his tutees are concerned, Bill Elliott will never leave Harvard any more than he can be separated from their lives. If they fail to communicate what his departure means to them, it is because true devotion, and generosity, and human greatness are mysteries to be experienced but not to be described. And they know, too, that finally their testimony to Bill Elliott cannot be in anything they say but, perhaps, if they live up to his teachings, in the quality of their lives.