Something from 1950

[RuthWeiner@AOL.COM]

My daughter works at the Folger Shakespeare Library and sent me the attached.  It's a little off-topic, but I thought it would amuse everyone:




    Some denizens of Capitol Hill cry in their beards that atomic

destruction is imminent and civilization is hardly worth salvaging, much

less studying. We take no such gloomy view. If the Big Crash comes, it

will find us here going about our business, which is to make the best

possible institute for the study of the history of the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries-the period which saw the origins of the modern

world. Nor do we see much virtue in fleeing to some God-forsaken

Patagonian refuge. The really safe spots are going to be crowded with

people we won't like. We'll just stay here and keep our air conditioning

going as long as it will run, and read solid Renaissance sermons on

innate depravity-a theme which somehow cheers us.

                    Louis B. Wright, January 4, 1950



Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

ruthweiner@aol.com