SOURCE: Buckley, William F., Jr. “Russell Kirk, RIP.” National Review 46, no. 10 (30 May 1994): 19-20.

In the following essay, Buckley laments the passing of his friend and longtime National Review columnist, relating some personal anecdotes and saluting Kirk's accomplishment as a writer.

In the next issue of National Review we will pay appropriate tribute to a figure whose death on April 29 left the conservative community desolate. He was omnipresent, coming at us from every direction. He wrote a seminal book and, for many years, a syndicated column. He lectured, gave speeches, wrote ghost stories and histories, and edited anthologies. Through it all he maintained a special presence as ever so faintly bohemian, the orthodox husband of a beautiful wife, father of four daughters, obdurately professorial in demeanor, yet those who noticed never needed to wait too long before catching the wink, in what he said, and did.

Much of all...