“He was the most approachable and most impenetrable of men, easy and delightful of acquaintance, impossible of knowledge.” So Nock appeared to many of his contemporaries; but this sentence is actually AJN’s estimate of his favorite American, Thomas Jefferson. Nock was something of a legend while he lived, seeking privacy as assiduously as most men seek publicity, and the myths he sowed around his person assured his solitariness. Yet, paradoxically, this private man par excellence was a prime mover in the public realm. Not a paradox, really, for it is only when matters truly private are handled individually that men deal competently with things public.
The Memoirs of a Superfluous Man, by Albert Jay Nock. Regnery, $5.95 The Mind and Art of Albert Jay Nock, by Robert M. Crunden. Regnery, $4.95
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