Quine's Autobiography

I have been reading Quine's Autobiography. Several passages have so far resonated with me, but the following especially hit the spot.

My study of German in Vienna yielded lavish dividends in Prague, for my dealings with Carnap were in German. It was my first experience of sustained intellectual engagement with anyone of an older generation, let alone a great man. It was my most notable experience of being intellectually fired by a living teacher rather than by a book. One goes on listening respectfully to one's elders, learning things, hearing things with varying degrees of approval, and expecting, as a matter of course, to have to fall back on one's own resources and those of the library for the main motive power. One recognizes that the professor has his own work to do, and that the problems and approaches that appeal to him need not coincide in any very fruitful way with those that are exercising oneself. I could see myself in the professor's place, and I sought nothing different. I suppose most of us go through life with no brighter view than this of the groves of Academe. So might I have done, but for the graciousness of Carnap.

A problematic virtue.

Some of Saki's stories aspire to that strange literary criterion to which I pledged myself in my youth. Any sentence taken in isolation from the whole is enjoyable as an atomic, stand-alone unit. I am in the process of transcribing my favorite passages from all of Saki's works (as if to somehow siphon some of their worth by physically writing them myself, in addition to simply further ingraining them into my consciousness) and some of his stories I have trouble not transcribing in full, line by line. A problematic virtue.

Note>

I just thought of Max, and realized I love him dearly and cherish him as a friend. I'll write the Irvine log blog in a bit.