Thoughts at a Birthday Party

Happy BIRTHDAY

In 1957, a conservative journal of opinion celebrated its second birthday by publishing the National Review Reader; and an editor of a prominent weekly observing the Reader predicted the rapid disappearance of the magazine—presumably by direct intervention of an angry God. I reflected at the time that my intellectual life, and that of many others, would be a good deal less stimulating if this prophecy came true (though— considering the source — there was little chance it would).