In the Introduction to Remembered Past (see below), we found this beautiful but somewhat depressing passage:
With somber fortitude, Lukacs continues to remind us of a world, very different from our own, that rested on the cultivation of manners and morals, on a luxuriant inner life, on the ideal of the gentleman, and on a sense of place and permanence. By calling to mind that lost and discarded world, Lukacs . . . may have afforded us a little time to rethink the world that we have made, time to face ourselves, time to slow the descent into the monstrous and inhuman Dark Age that now approaches, and time, perhaps, to rekindle the lamps of civilization in the West that, one by one, have begun to flicker and go out.
We don't know who wrote it, since the Introduction has two authors, Mark G. Malvasi and Jeffrey O. Nelson. So we hereby commend both of them, and they can fight over it.
Nelson, by the way, is the son-in-law of Russell Kirk, one of Eric Scheske's favorite authors. Eric actually talked with Russell Kirk on the phone once. At Kirk's urging in Enemies of the Permanent Things, Eric bought Eric Voegelin's five volume Order and History and started to read it. It didn't go well. For those unacquainted with Voegelin, he's an acquired taste, to say the least. He writes in fairly technical language (often using terms he invented himself) and presumes a lot of general background knowledge in his readers, something the young Eric largely lacked, despite two degrees.
Anyway, frustrated that he'd spent $100.00 on a set of books he could barely understand, he thought to himself in his youthful presumptuousness, "This is Kirk's fault. I'll just call him and ask him to explain a few things." Eric called the information directory for Mecosta, Michigan and, to his delight, Kirk's number was listed. He called Kirk, who was more than accommodating. Through much additional toil, Eric was able to finish the volumes and to compile notes in the margins and underlinings, along with at least a small degree of understanding.
In retrospect, Eric is embarrassed that he bothered the man. On the other hand, Kirk honestly didn't seem to mind. In an ironic turn, two years ago, Eric stayed at Kirk's house in Mecosta, Michigan, an invited guest of Annette Kirk, a delightful host that Eric keeps meaning to visit again but, as with many such intentions, it has been repeatedly brushed aside by the pressing immediacy of family life.
