On Matthiessen's Death

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

The last day of the month marks the first anniversary of the untimely death of Professor F. O. Matthiessen. Everything important about him was said by way of eulogy. All that is demanded for him now is the continued tribute of respect.

No one of his generation deserved less to die, for the quality of his vision about what literature is and what life can be should have been sufficient to protect him against the severe climate of our time. That it was not is his tragedy just as surely as it is also that of the society in which such a man perishes.

If his politics were not congenial to many they may be dispensed with, but his insight into the potentialities our country has as a feeling and responsible nation cannot be conveniently put aside. As an exercise in devotion let us turn up any chapter of the American Renaissance. It will tell us more keenly than any praise what irreparable loss we have suffered by the death of F. O. Matthiessen. Robert E. Rockman 2G