A Man of Destiny

It was said of Edmund Burke that if one had met him, unknown, taking shelter from the rain under a shed, one would have thought: “This is an extraordinary man.” … In the office where I worked, another woman whose desk stood nearer the door enquired: “Do you mind telling me who was your caller, the man who just went out?” I told her, and added: “Why did you ask?” She had never before put such a question. She said: “I was sure he was somebody.”

That was Pierre Lecomte du Nouy. To describe such a man is all the more difficult. Details do not convey the impression of active intellect, intense vitality and unaffected charm, which were borne out by the diversity of his talents and accomplishments. His life is equally impossible to summarize. The one who knew him best, his wife, has told the story as briefly as it can be done (The Road to “Human Destiny,” by Mary Lecomte du Nouy, Longmans Green, $5.00), exquisitely economical in three hundred odd pages, a portrait in silver point. Given only the space of a review, what can be said? A friend declared that “he was twenty men rolled into one.” Nevertheless, he exhibited a rare consistency, and in the end a clear pattern emerges. Even his two ambitions were interwoven; he wished to make a lasting contribution to human progress, and to realize a great love, and his various and brilliant gifts were brought together to serve both purposes.

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Isabel Paterson

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It was said of Edmund Burke that if one had met him, unknown, taking shelter from the rain under a shed, one would have thought: “This is an extraordinary man.” … In the office where I worked, another woman whose desk stood nearer the door enquired: “Do you mind telling me who was your caller, the man who just went out?” I told her, and added: “Why did you ask?” She had never before put such a question. She said: “I was sure he was somebody.”

That was Pierre Lecomte du Nouy. To describe such a man is all the more difficult. Details do not convey the impression of active intellect, intense vitality and unaffected charm, which were borne out by the diversity of his talents and accomplishments. His life is equally impossible to summarize. The one who knew him best, his wife, has told the story as briefly as it can be done (The Road to “Human Destiny,” by Mary Lecomte du Nouy, Longmans Green, $5.00), exquisitely economical in three hundred odd pages, a portrait in silver point. Given only the space of a review, what can be said? A friend declared that “he was twenty men rolled into one.” Nevertheless, he exhibited a rare consistency, and in the end a clear pattern emerges. Even his two ambitions were interwoven; he wished to make a lasting contribution to human progress, and to realize a great love, and his various and brilliant gifts were brought together to serve both purposes.