On Solzhenitsyn

Democracies do not take kindly to prophets. On the coins of the United States, we read: “In God we trust.” I have always taken this to mean: “In no one else.”

My colleague George Will has coined many phrases that I like, but one especially: he describes certain persons as not simply conservatives but “stained- glass conservatives.” This designation captures neatly enough the protest of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn against modernity.