the Bolsheviks of our day. InnRussia of today, as in France ofnthe day before yesterday, we seenthe same systematic andndetermined attacks on thoseninstitutions which hitherto havenbeen regarded as the very pillarsnof civilised society; I mean theninstitutions of private property,nthe family, and religion.nReligion, which was false doctrine andnfoolish practice in 1894, is now a pillarnof civilized society. In his obituary ofnRobertson Smith, Frazer had predictednthat insofar as our ethics rest on religiousnor theological foundations, thenunsettling of those foundations wouldn”call for a reconsideration of the speculativenbasis of ethics.” He had not thennthought of the practical ramifications ofnthis reconsideration. Ackerman reportsnthe quotation I have given as “Altogethernit seemed as if Europe in the 1930!snresembled France in the I790’s, withnonly a change of names needed to makenBurke’s anti-Jacobin tirades directly applicablento Soviet communism.” A biographernwho can translate the phrase,n”The words of fiery eloquence in whichnEdmund Burke, wisest of politicaln28/CHRONICLESnthinkers” into “Burke’s anti-Jacobin tirades”nis not likely to be reliable in otherninterpretations.nFrazer seems to have changed hisnmind about religion in his old agen(Hyman in The Tangled Bank assertsnthat Frazer became a Christian Unitariannlate in life). We know he changed itnin his youth. Both events are missed bynAckerman. In his last decade, Frazernwrote a touching memoir of his parentsnwhich is all praise and nostalgia. Thisnleads Ackerman to assert that Frazer,nwho came from a strongly Evangelicalnfamily, never underwent “that characteristicallynVictorian experience of ‘deconversion,’nthereby disavowing theirnfamilies and their religious upbringingsnby identifying them with ignorance,nsuperstition, hypocrisy, and the deadnhand of the past.” Ackerman’s evidencenis the memoir, written in then1930’s, and Frazer’s habit of spendingnhis vacations with his family in Scotland.nThe contrary evidence is volumenafter volume Frazer wrote identifyingnthe religion of his family with ignorance,nsuperstition, hypocrisy, and thendead hand of the past.nMurray may have changed, too. ButnSeptember Fruitnby Floyd SklootnThis autumn my daughter discovered plums.nShe found pineapples, figs and blackberries,nlearned to savor the pleasure that comesnfrom such summer fruit as sour cherriesnin late September. I saw her eyes turnninward, closing round a vision of lushncasaba. Soon she grew her thick auburnnhair longer. She began to love the hushnof held breath as her body welcomed newntastes, risking flame tokays and tangerines.nI saw there was little for me to donbut stock apples and pears too. At fifteen,nshe felt the world become hers to harvest,nwelcoming each new flavor as though blessed.nnnneither biographer really shows us theirnheroes’ facing up to the effects of theirnirreligion and progressivism. It is as if anlife of H.G. Wells left out his last book.nMind at the End of Its Tether. In thendays before the Great War, the futurenseemed so bright. The force of liberalnpublic opinion made “old wrong meltndown, as if it were wax in the sun’snrays.” “O but we dreamed to mendnwhatever mischief seemed to afflictnmankind” — superstition, hard liquor,nand the German emperor. If peoplenwould only turn away from revelationalnreligion and devote themselves to ethicsnand science, the worid would soonnbe perfect. “We fed the heart onnfantasies,” Yeats wrote about that age.n”The heart’s grown brutal from thenfare.” Housman, too, was skepticalnabout the future, but even he neverndreamed what nightmares were in storenfor a Europe that so easily gave up itsnChristian heritage. Gilbert Murray andnJ.G. Frazer learned their lessons toonlate. We who read their lives maynunderstand and even forgive, but wenshould not pity them. I say unto you,nthey have their reward.nn