American Scholar, January 1st, 2003
In 1936, I read Christopher Morley's Human Being, a book that is, at least for its time, unusual. It's a literary hybrid, the result of a coupling between a pair of more conventional forms--the novel and the essay. I was moved enough by that reading to carry over the decades a memory of its effect upon me, though I've never come across a mention of the book.
In rereading Human Being after a passage of sixty-six years, I was surprised to discover that it had served as a guidepost to my future as teacher, critic, and writer--for that matter, to the self that at fifteen was uncertain of what i...
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