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commit his body to the deep in sure and certain hope of the resurrection unto eternal life through our Lord. The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make His face to shine upon thee. The Lord lift up the light of His countenance upon thee and give thee peace."
    We bid goodbye to Harry. We promise not to miss our deadlines. We are confident he has not missed his final deadline.

    It is because of Harry, I reflected, that this morning (and Wednesday morning, and Friday morning) I opine for syndication my views on this-or-that. It was nineteen years ago that Harry induced me to write a regular column.
    Ralph Davidson, board chairman of Time Inc., sounded confused when I told him at one of those charity affairs last week that I was sorry I couldn't go to his affair on February 10, as I'd be in Switzerland. He was obviously confused, and it was foolish of me to forget how incessant is the use of useful names in the business of organizing charity dinners. He writes, "Actually I am devastated that you can't come on February tenth! When you threw the date at me last night I must confess that I did draw a blank. For God's sake, anybody who spends eight weeks in the Swiss Alps ought to be able to find more than an hour and a half a day in which to ski. I'm going to send Killy over to whip up your enthusiasm." That was the pleasantest encounter with Time magazine I had all week.
    I had made a note that a formal protest must be made to Doubleday. "Sweet Betty [Prashker]: Would you be so kind as to direct the enclosed to the offending party? Love, Bill." Important to make it clear to Betty that you know she is not to blame. "Dear Sir/Madam: I was appalled to see [in the final, uncorrectable galleys] that the dedication in Marco Polo, If You Can was jumped over onto the copyright page. For sheer tastelessness this one is hard to beat. The casual reader will believe the book is designed to be stowed in the Hugh Kenner [to whom the book was dedicated] Wing of the Library of Congress. Except in mass paperbacks, and then only very seldom, the publisher does not begrudge an entire page to the person to whom the book is dedicated. And, of course, it should happen to perhaps the supreme arbiter of literary taste living today. Yours. . ." With a blind copy to Hugh Kenner.
    There are several matters pending at the office, at which Jerry drops me along with my clerical baggage, taking Olga and Rebeca uptown to the apartment. I walk up the two flights, turn right, open the door, passing by Rick Brookhiser's little office (once it was my secretary's, before that Whittaker Chambers', before that it was shared by my two sisters Maureen and Priscilla). We have occupied these offices since the second year of our existence, and I am reminded that that, now, was quite a while ago. Indeed, a young journalist recently observed that since no national magazine in 1955 was being edited by the same person who edits it today, save here, at National Review , that makes me the senior editor in the United States, if you count only longevity. Meaning? Oh, that your wife, the counterpart of the wife of the Guatemalan ambassador, gets to sit to the right of the Secretary of State if he has a dinner for editors, or that you're the one who says, "Thank you, Mr. President," calling an end to a press conference. The opportunity was perfect for me to answer in the style of George Bernard Shaw when asked did he know that in the English language only two words containing the letters "su" required that those letters be pronounced, "shoo," namely, sumac , and sugar? To which Shaw observed, "Sure, I know." To the journalist's observation I was able to comment, "Sure. And William Shawn?" The editor of The New Yorker has been in the saddle since 1952. Nice try, though.
    I remember that when I put out the offering circular, seeking to raise the capital to begin National Review , I committed myself to ten years' service to the enterprise. My father frowned on this, deeming the