disciples. Or so we are told. Cummingsndoes not cite a source, even annanonymous one. Instead, he identifiesnseveral “friends” who, after somenprompting, “speculate,” “believe,”n”hint,” and hear from “the grapevine”nabout Lowenstein’s homosexuality.nAppropriately, he concludes with “anhowler,” remarking that Lowensteinnknew that he was—how to put it?—soninclined, “but he didn’t spend muchntime wrestling with it.”nSo eager is Cummings to believenevery evil report about Lowensteinnthat he repeats Dennis Sweeney’sncharge that the pied piper once madenphysical advances to him. This, be itnknown, is the same Dennis Sweeneynwho shot Lowenstein to death in 1980nand who believed that the CIA hadnimplanted fillings in his teeth thatnwere addling his brain and controllingnhis will. Like Cummings, who professesnonce to have admired Lowenstein,nSweeney was a former protege and anproduct of the 60’s, one of the possessednwho smoldered and burnedn”with an almost uncontrollable passionnfor social justice.”nCompared with such men as these,nAl Lowenstein appears in a favorablenlight. And yet it is difficult to escapenthe conclusion that his liberalismnhelped to pave the way for latter-daynradicalism. In his last years, he himselfnseems to have sensed this, for as hisnfriend William F. Buckley observes,nhe began to retreat “from the vanitiesnof liberalism.” These vanities includena weakness for a certain kind of sentimentalitynabout (as opposed to a lovenfor) human beings and a tendency tonthink abstractly. Lowenstein was alwaysnrelatively indifferent to realitynand to historical thinking; his confidentlynheld views concerning SouthnAfrica, for example, were almost identicalnwith those recently advanced bynliberals who would prefer to see bloodn(someone else’s) running in the streetsnof Johannesburg than to moderate thendemand that full democracy be institutednimmediately. Like so many liberals,nhe believed that unflagging devotionnto abstract principle, couplednwith determined effort, could remakenthe world, that political and socialndemocracy would triumph over injusticenand evil. Despite, however, thenundeniable popular appeal of thesenheady notions, action predicated onn1.nThe poem is important, butnnot more than the peoplenwhose survival it serves,nIN A MOTEL PARKING LOT,nTHINKING OF DR. WILLIAMSnby Wendell Berrynone of the necessities, so they maynspeak what is true, and haventhe patience for beauty: the weightedngrainficld, the shady street, thenwell-laid stone and the changing treenwhose branches spread above.nFor want of songs and storiesnthey have dug away the soil,npaved over what is left,nset up their perfunctory wallsnin tribute to no god,nfor the love of no man or woman,nso that the good that was herencannot be called backnexcept by long waiting, by greatnsorrows remembered and to come,nby invoking the understonesnof the world, and the vivid air.n2.nThe poem is important,nas the want of itnproves. It is the stewardshipnof its own possibility,nthe past remembering itselfnin the presence ofnthe present, the power, learnednand handed down, to seenwhat is presentnthem almost always results in mischief,nbecause it is untempered bynhistorical consciousness and by a recognitionnof the stubborn perversity ofnhuman volition.nNot all liberals, of course, are asnnaive as Lowenstein was, Walter Bernsnbeing a case in point. His essays inndefense of liberal democracy are impressivennot only in their want ofnillusion, but in their intellectual so­nnnand what is not: the pavementnlaid down and walked overnregardlessly—by exiles, herenonly because they are passing.nOh, remember the oaks that werenhere, the leaves, purple and brown,nfalling, the nuthatches walkingnheadfirst down the trunks,ncrying “one! one!” in the brightnessnas they are doing nownin the cemetery across the streetnwhere the past and the deadnkeep each other. To remember,nto hear and remember, is to stopnand walk on againnto a livelier, surer measure.nIt is dangerousnto remember the past onlynfor its own sake, dangerousnto deliver a messagenthat you did not get.nWendell Berry lives on a 7S-acre farmnin Henry County, Kentucky. His volumesnof poetry include The BrokennGround, Findings, The Country ofnMarriage, and The Wheel. He isnalso author of The Unsettiing ofnAmerica and The Gift of GoodnLand.nphistication. A distinguished studentnof constitutional law presently associatednwith the American Enterprise Institute,nBerns is critical of many of ournmost prominent public nuisances:njudges who seek to transform the Constitutionninto a personal credo; opponentsnof capital punishment who “donnot understand the connection betweennanger and justice, and betweennanger and human dignity”; universitynJULY 1986/33n