Arts and Manners

The world will be the poorer for the recent deaths, by coronary thrombosis, of Bernard De Voto and Robert Sher- wood. But it is important at this time that the world should know the true value of a couple of .free-wheeling, non – standardized characters. This value had nothing whatsoever to do with the politics which De Voto and Sherwood affected. As card-carrying modern “Liberals” they both misread their own capabilities. De Voto was always out of place as an Adlai Steven- son man, and as for Sherwood, he let his emotions drown out his capacity for an intellectual understanding of the movement of history.

With De Voto, it was a case of the triumph of the sheltered life over what had been a unique and original per- spicacity. A dweller by adoption in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he let the eggheads get him. Just how and why this happened is one of those mysteries of personality. But the original De Voto was anything but an egghead.

JC

About the Author

John Chamberlain

John Chamberlain (1903–1995) was an American writer.

The world will be the poorer for the recent deaths, by coronary thrombosis, of Bernard De Voto and Robert Sher- wood. But it is important at this time that the world should know the true value of a couple of .free-wheeling, non – standardized characters. This value had nothing whatsoever to do with the politics which De Voto and Sherwood affected. As card-carrying modern “Liberals” they both misread their own capabilities. De Voto was always out of place as an Adlai Steven- son man, and as for Sherwood, he let his emotions drown out his capacity for an intellectual understanding of the movement of history.

With De Voto, it was a case of the triumph of the sheltered life over what had been a unique and original per- spicacity. A dweller by adoption in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he let the eggheads get him. Just how and why this happened is one of those mysteries of personality. But the original De Voto was anything but an egghead.