'You Begin to Know What Life Means'

Since late November we have lost Clive James, John Simon, Gertrude Himmelfarb and, on Sunday, Sir Roger Scruton. None was young – Himmelfarb was ninety-seven – and all lived long, productive lives we wish could have been longer. Their productivity is some consolation. By rough count, the quartet published 130 books, almost half of which were written by Scruton. The truest act of literary criticism any reader can perform is to read or read again a dead writer’s books. A friend who died a few years ago once told me that gratitude as an emotion is a fine thing but fleeting and easily faked. More important – more solid and lasting – is an act of gratitude. Time to reread Cultural Amnesia, The Sheep from the Goats, Lord Acton: A Study of Conscience and Politics, and England: An Elegy, not to mention the shelves of Scruton’s books I haven’t yet read.

On the day Scruton died, the Spectator reprinted his final published work, a sort of diary of his life in 2019. About his troubles – slander, disease – Scruton is cool and gracious. His final words:

“Falling to the bottom in my own country, I have been raised to the top elsewhere, and looking back over the sequence of events I can only be glad that I have lived long enough to see this happen. Coming close to death you begin to know what life means, and what it means is gratitude.”