The Merely Very Good I was conscious of

The Merely Very Good

I was conscious of his superiority in a way which was embarrassing and led to trouble. n I knew that Oppenheimer was a man of great talent, but his way of showing his talent at my seminars caused uneasiness and resentment among people, especially among his fellow students.

Pitted against these excellent reasons for my not going to the conference were two others that finally carried the day. n There were two reasons for my going to the conference set against the reasons for my not going and they become decisive in my final decision.

He is, for me, one of those people whose writing about their writing is more interesting than their writing itself. n According to my view, Spender belongs to the group whose writings about their lives, experiences, that is whose autobiographies, are more interesting than their literary works.

Auden’s Dirac-like lucidity, the sheer wonder of the language, and the sense of fun about serious things… were to me irresistible. n Like Dirac, Auden was outstanding in clarity. He was also outstanding in the powerful use of the language and the sense of fun about serious issues. All these greatly fascinated me.

Spender’s journal entry on his visit is fascinating both for what it says and for what it dose not say. n Spender’s record of his visit is interesting not only because of the things he mentions but also because of things he does not say.

When the author was invited to lecture at a writers’ conference, why did he want to turn down the invitation at first? What finally made him accept the invitation? n n n My weekends were precious and the idea of getting up before down on a Saturday, renting a car, and driving across the entire state of New Jersey to deliver a lecture was repellent. As I recall, the honorarium offered would have barely covered the expense. Furthermore, a subject had been suggested for my lecture that, in truth, no longer interested me.

n n n Pitted against these excellent reasons for my not going to the conference were two others that finally carried the day. In the first place, I was in the beginning stages of a love affair with a young woman who wanted very much to write. This aside, I had read in the tentative program of the conference that one of the others tutors was to be Stephen Spender. His autobiography was related to W. H. Auden, and I appreciated Auden’s poetry very much, so I become fascinated by Spender’s obsession with Auden.

What are the similarities and differences of Dirac and Oppenheimer from this article? n n Both were young, in their twenties. Both were physicists, working on quantum mechanics. But when Oppenheimer was showing his talent in doing calculation better in the quantum theory, Dirac had invented theory. Dirac was already famous. Dirac concentrated on physics while Oppenheimer also wrote poetry. Dirac concentrated than Oppenheimer.