John Senior and the Restoration of

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 Advance Praise for
John Senior and the Restoration ofRealism
" fohn Senior and the Restoration ofRealism is a book that should be in
J the hands of every educator and parent. It is all about education-
and to educate, as Plato already saw twenty-five centuries ago, is a task
of such dignity that only the very best are good enough. We must be
grateful to Father Francis Bethel for writing a life of this noble Don
Qyixote whose love of beauty led him to the One Who Is Truth, Beauty,
and Goodness."
-Alice von Hildebrand, Dame Grand Cross of the Pontifical Order
of St. Gregory the Great and author of Memoirs ofa Happy Failure

"John Senior's impact on culture has been profound, though largely

unsung and unnoticed. His ability to open the eyes of his students
to the wonders of the cosmos and the presence of God that it signifies
was nothing less than astonishing. It is high time that someone sang his
praises and high time that someone introduced his vision of evangelical
aesthetics to a new generation. Father Bethel's book is, therefore, to be
not only welcomed but celebrated."
-Joseph Pearce, Author of Beauteous Truth:
Faith, Reason, Literature and Culture

"John Senior said every man was either a cowboy or a sailor. His
purpose in saying this was that once people realize who they are, they
might better realize where they are and what they should be doing there.
Father Bethel's book brings John Senior and his insights back to the
world so that a new generation may be born in wonder. Dr. Senior was
one of the most important Catholic minds of the past fifty years-a man
who taught that, though we cannot restore reality, we can restore our
vision of it and vocation to it, and thereby restore realism."
-Scan Fitzpatrick, Headmaster, Gregory the Great Academy

"In our era of cultural degradation, learned people of faith are

increasingly discontented with the present and the future. That is all
the more reason to read Francis Bethel's account of one of the intellectual
and cultural giants of this epoch. Without John Senior and the movements
he spawned, there would, in fact, be little hope for the future."
-Kevin D. Roberts, President, Wyoming Catholic College
"John Senior was the teacher modernity desperately needed---and needs.
His learning, wisdom, faith, and eloquence supplied the essential
corrective to our era's withered soul and imagination. In this intellectual
biography, Father Bethel effectively restores Senior to us and makes us see
again both the man and the poetic reality he grasped so firmly."
-David M. Whalen, Provost and Professor
of English, Hillsdale College

"John Senior was a gifted professor of classics, a writer, poet, thinker

and a student of culture. He was my godfather and, more than anyone
else-besides Our Lady and the Holy Spirit, of course-he led me into
the Roman Catholic Church. He used to tell his students: "I am simply
the janitor. It is my job to open the door and show you the riches and
treasures of the best that has been written and said down through the
centuries."Dr. Senior loved his students and we loved him. Father Bethel
has written a book that unlocks the mystery of the man who was John
Senior. His spiritual and intellectual journey is fascinating. Father Bethel
has given a synthesis ofJohn Senior's insightful views on education and
culture, and has traced how his philosophy and this synthesis grew out of
Senior's own life.John Senior was a realist, but he pondered the perma-
nent things in life with a curiosity and childlike wonder. John Senior was
well aware that we are all broken creatures, living in a wounded and sinful
world. Oscar Wilde once said that, "we are all in the gutter, but some of
us are looking up at the stars."John Senior was always looking up at the
stars, and he helped all of us to turn our gaze upwards, toward the stars. I
highly recommend this book not only as an introduction to John Senior's
thought, but also as an important message, especially in our times, about
education and culture."
-Most Reverend James D. Conley, Bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska and
Founder of the Newman Institute for Catholic Thought & Culture
JOHN SENIOR
AND THE
RESTORATION
OF REALISM
JOHN SENIOR
AND THE
RESTORATION
OF REALISM

FATHER FRANCIS BETHEL, OSB

a monk of Clear Creek Abbey
Copyright© 2016 by Thomas More College Press

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy,
recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be
invented, without the permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer
who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion
in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file with the Library of Congress

ISBN 978-0-9973140-0-7

Published in the United States by

Thomas More College Press
Thomas More College of Liberal Arts
6 Manchester Street
Merrimack, New Hampshire 03054

Thomas More College Press SAN 990-1108

 The publisher wishes to thank
Gareth Genner
Frank Hanna III
Charlie McKinney
for their roles in helping to establish
Thomas More College Press
To all the students efJohn Senior
 Contents
Foreword by Alice von Hildebrand xiii

Introduction Made for the Stars

but Rooted in the Soil

PART I TWO PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHIES 11

Chapter 1 The Cowboy and the Scholar 13

Chapter 2 The Way Down 31

Chapter 3 The Real Is Really Real 47

Chapter 4 The Real Presence of He-Who-ls 63
Chapter 5 The Contemporary Form of
the Perennial Heresy 83

PART II NURTURING REALISM 105

Chapter 6 The Man and the Teacher 107

Chapter 7 A Gradual Education 131

Chapter 8 Learning How to Gaze on Reality 153

Chapter 9 The Poetic Mode of Knowledge 171

PART III THE GYMNASTIC AND MUSIC

OF CHRISTIAN CULTURE 193

Chapter 10 The Death of Christian Culture 195

Chapter 11 The Restoration of Elemental

Things 211

Chapter 12 The Restoration of Innocence 235

Chapter 13 Sources of Inspiration 259

PART IV MAY THEY BE BORN IN WONDER 283

Chapter 14 Features of the Integrated

Humanities Program 285

Chapter 15 A Fundamental Battle

at the University of Kansas 313

Chapter 16 Realist Pedagogy Taken Seriously 333

Chapter 17 Love Stronger Than Death 359

Conclusion A Risk of Certainty 387

Endnotes 397

Bibliography 427

Index 433
 There is something destructive-destructive of
the human itse!f-in cutting us ojffrom the earth
from whence we come and the stars, the angels,
and God himselfto whom we go.

-JOHN SENIOR,
The Restoration of Christian Culture
 Dictatorial Relativism

fOHN SENIOR and the Restoration ofRealism is a book that should

J be in the hands of every educator and every parent. It is all about
education-and to educate, as Plato already saw twenty-five centuries
ago, is a task of such dignity that only the very best are good enough.
Gardeners treat their flowers with tenderness and wisdom. We cannot
set the bar too high for gardeners of the human soul, made to God's image
and likeness.
Great things are never easy, Plato tells us and, alas, great educators are
rare. Many are mediocre; some are poisonous and if they happen to have
rhetorical talents, they are like vampires that suck the blood out of their
victims. Nobody better than Chesterton has pinpointed this deadly dan-
ger. He writes:" ... the dangerous criminal is the educated criminal. We
say that the most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern
philosopher. Compared to him burglars and bigamists are essentially
moral men; my heart goes out to them." 1 The so-called philosopher he
is referring to, far from being "a lover of wisdom" is an impostor for he
views objective truth as his deadly enemy. He is the man who, knowing
that religious and philosophical truths demand obedience, shuns them
with dread while trying to convince his hearers that he is offering them
a broader view of life, a more "advanced," a more "modern" and "liberating"
approach to intellectual problems. His gospel is "all truth is relative."
Acceptance of this leaky philosophy should be enthusiastically endorsed
in a world of conflicts: for it offers the only possible way to peace and
harmony. Tolerance, understanding for "other points of view," they say,
testifies to a generous broad-mindedness. After all, is it not arrogant and
 FOREWORD

pretentious to claim that one has the truth? Any intelligent person should
understand that "my" truth need not be "your" truth. The president of a
large secular university told me that she had "become a much better per-
son" the day she discovered that "everything is relative."The poison of
Relativism is rampant in many societies, but there are historical moments
when it conquers schools, colleges and universities and inevitably leads to
the demise of those societies.
Born in 1923, John Senior could not escape being influenced by
Relativism, for which, in the best of cases, any affirmation can only be
"relatively true." Like most people of his generation, he had to struggle
and make detours before his gifts were liberated from the nets of confu-
sion and error. Even though the cancer called Relativism was not appar-
ent at the beginning of the twentieth century, the poison was already
spreading in schools and universities before its destructive power con-
quered society at large through the news media.
Richly endowed, deeply longing for truth, moved by beauty and sen-
sitive to goodness,John Senior nevertheless had to struggle long and hard
before finding the meaning of life. His sense for beauty attracted him to
nature early in life. Aged thirteen, he ran away from home to escape to a
ranch in North Dakota, where he shared the lives of cowboys whose
stories had fascinated him. When finally found and back with his family,
his parents convinced him to pursue his studies, while allowing him to
spend his summers in the west, doing hard work on a ranch, and enjoying
physical contact with the earth.
As might be expected, the generous young man was attracted to Marx-
ism and the promise of working toward the realization of a better world,
a world of peace and justice. He gave it a chance and was disappointed.
He seems to have looked also toward Freud for a time, but greater things
were awaiting him.
He attended Columbia University in New York, and was fortunate to
take the courses of Mark Van Doren, whose eminent teaching talents were
universally recognized. English literature was Senior's field, and the young
man nurtured and deepened his passion for poetry. In those days, he
discovered Plato, who convinced him of the reality of the spiritual.

xiv
 FOREWORD

Married young, he started teaching while still pursuing his graduate

studies. His hungry soul was seeking further. Most universities at the time
were under the sway of Oriental mysticism; its mysterious poetry was
exercising a powerful influence on the young: it emanated a strong per-
fume that had a note of enchantment, mystery and depth. It had a power-
ful appeal for starving souls. John Senior indeed flirted with Hinduism
but discovered that its glow of spirituality was in fact a fata morgana.
Oriental mysticism was an escape from the dry scientific approach to life
he detested. It was a tempting illusion, but soon the sincere and truth-
hungry young man discovered that it actually led to nihilism. Ultimately,
being and nonbeing were identical, and he found himself as hungry as
before. The Oriental spirituality suffered from a metaphysical "thinness"
that left him starving.
He found the intellectual harbor he was seeking in the philosophy of
Thomas Aquinas, whose realism and conviction that truth is objective and
could be found finally led him into the Catholic Church. At the age of
thirty-seven, while teaching at Cornell, he, with his wife and three children,
entered the blessed Ark of the Bride of Christ. He was home at last.
Allergic to the noise and increasing industrialization of the East coast,
he decided to accept a teaching position in Wyoming. But rightly disap-
pointed upon the appointment of a new president-clearly not made for
the job--he moved to the University of Kansas. It is there that his extraor-
dinary talents were to blossom fully.
A teacher-like a doctor-must first and foremost make a right
diagnosis of his "patients."The task was both sad and easy: fed on mate-
rialism, impregnated by Relativism and blase, the average student escaped
into cheap enjoyments. Not recognizing the deep hunger for truth within
themselves, like starving people who are not given healthy food, they
gulped down spiritual junk food that made them fall into the illusion that
their hunger had been satisfied. Students suffered from a sickness that we
might call "spiritual obesity,"which prevented them from growing wings,
and ascending toward the stars.
Today the task of the educator is arduous: the young plants coming
into his hands are often wilted. To quote the psalm: "they have eyes and

xv
 FOREWORD

do not see; they have ears and do not hear." They must first be purged of
the poison on which they have been fed in our anti-culture. To put it dif-
ferently, let me quote C. S. Lewis: "... a hard heart is no infallible protec-
tion against a soft head." 2 Lewis further laments the fact that "the task of
the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts." 3
John Senior was fully aware of the immensity of the task to which he
was called. A faithful instrument in God's hands, he trusted in His help.
The first step was to liberate his students from the world of artificiality
in which they lived. Cheap books, vulgar music, loud fun, alcohol and
drugs kept their souls and their minds in a state of stupor. Like a talented
violinist, he knew how to vibrate the chords of their souls and to attune
them to the beauty for which they were yearning.
God brought John Senior to forge a friendship with two other KU
professors oflike mind: Franklyn Nelick and Dennis Qyinn. They, too,
knew how serious the educational crisis was. Animated by the same love
for "the true, the good and the beautiful," they took the opportunity
offered them to start a "college within the college" on the model of Oxford.
It was approved by the dean, and a new program was started: the Pearson
Integrated Humanities Program. At first, it was limited to some twenty
students, but soon the news spread that three professors had enkindled
in them enthusiasm for learning and for life. The professors were on fire
for "truth, goodness and beauty," and had an extraordinary talent to com-
municate their love. And the PIHP quickly drew more students.
Starting with great classical works (Homer, the Greek tragedies) the
students-for the first time in their lives-discovered that there was
beauty, poetry, nobility that were veiled in the gray world in which they
had been living. For the first time, they were led out of the "dark den" of
Plato's Republic (book VII) and into the light. They were encouraged to
learn great poems by heart, to watch the stars, to establish a living contact
with "the real."They were taught to read the book of nature-as St.
Bonaventure put it. They were given real bread. In no time the program,
which had started modestly, attracted two hundred students. One would
expect that such success would meet with approval. Those who naively

xvi
 FOREWORD

assume that this was the case have little knowledge of university life where
mediocrity is honored. Anybody who stands out is a living reproach to
his colleagues. One only need recall the world of Shakespeare in Othello
on "the green eyed monster ofjealousy."Jealous people always spy on those
of whom they are jealous. Soon, the rumor spread that the three professors
were injecting religion into their teaching. They were imposing their ideas
upon their gullible students, convincing them of the objectivity of truth.
They were therefore sowing narrow-mindedness; they presented their
personal ideas as the one and only truth; this was unprofessional and
arrogant. Other points of view were anathematized.
Worse was to come; some of the students entered the Roman Catho-
lic Church. This was serious: the separation of church and state was being
sinned against. A hypocritical way of stopping this outrage was to deny
the program the right to fulfill credit requirements for the students taking
the course. Inevitably, the number of students who would have loved to
enter the course of the three culprits hesitated to do so. Eager to graduate,
they did not want to prolong their student days. When it was discovered
that some ofJohn Senior's students had gone to a venerable old Benedic-
tine abbey in Fontgombault, France, and that-horror of horrors-some
of them were considering becoming monks, all hell broke loose. The news
media expressed their outrage at the brainwashing that was being permit-
ted at KU. The noble work of the three lovers of truth was doomed.
It is noteworthy that when students lose their faith while in college
(years ago, the chaplain of the Newman club at Hunter College confided
to me that 65 percent of Catholics lose their faith by their senior year),
no one objects or even bats an eyelid. After all, the world tells us, colleges
should open the minds of their students, and help them to get rid of
their childish prejudices. Had students joined an oriental sect, become
Buddhists or adepts of New Age, the news media would have remained
silent. Had many of them shifted from one Protestant sect to another,
it would not have been worth mentioning. But to become Roman
Catholic, to enter into this dark fortress that robs people of their free-
dom and plunges them into a world of darkness and medieval ignorance:

xvii
 FOREWORD

this was scandalous. Such people must be "saved" from intellectual

slavery. The work of the three professors-whose crime was to believe
in the objectivity of truth and the universal validity of moral values-was
destroyed.
Were these three professors surprised? Faithful followers of Christ,
they knew that disciples should not be better treated than their Master,
who had dared proclaim that He was the Truth. They had sown the good
seed; they knew it would blossom in some mysterious way.
But such grief would not be the only one suffered by John Senior in
his later days. This ardent Catholic who had a holy love for the Bride of
Christ, her holy teaching, her sublime Liturgy, her Sacraments, was to
witness the devastation that took place in the wake of Vatican II. Many
of us-like him-shed abundant tears over the desecration: the icono-
clasm, the irreverence, the hatred of sacred traditions. He suffered and he
prayed. The sublimest act on earth, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, was
too precious of a treasure for him to bear to see defaced.
Before his death, however, he was to experience a great consolation.
In April 1999, he learned that a group of his KU students who had
become monks in Fontgombault twenty-five years previously were now
to establish a monastery in nearby Oklahoma. He passed away to Eternity
before this happened, but from Heaven he certainly prays for this founda-
tion, in some ways the fruit of his own labor of love. In their turn, the
monks of Clear Creek Abbey pray daily for a man whom God used to
bring them into the Holy Ark of the Church.
We must be grateful to Father Francis Bethel for writing the life of
this noble Don Qyixote whose love of beauty led him to the One Who
Is Truth, Beauty and Goodness. The book is strongly recommended. It
had to be written, and will benefit all those who-like St. Augustine and
John Senior-long for truth.
-Alice von Hildebrand

xviii
 Made for the Stars
but Rooted in the Soil
N 1999, thirteen Benedictine monks from France arrived at the
I backlands of Oklahoma to establish a monastery along a remote
streamlet, Clear Creek. While they issued from the venerable abbey of
Notre Dame de Fontgombault,* one could say that the beginnings of their
foundation lay, in fact, in the United States, not so far from Clear Creek,
shaped by Providence in the halls of the University of Kansas and set in
motion when two of its students knocked at Fontgombault's doors
twenty-seven years before. In many ways the monks' foundation was the
final outcome of a quest that had begun in the 1970s, when some of the
same men, immersed in the anti-culture of the day, entered the univer-
sity's Integrated Humanities Program (IHP). Designed and conducted
by Professors Dennis Qyinn, Frank N click, and John Senior, the program
was built upon a most revolutionary tenet: reality is real. And the means
for communicating this fact was quite simply Western culture-prose
and poetry, music, architecture and art-bolstered by the book of Nature.
This volume focuses on the life and work of perhaps the most influ-
ential of the Kansan professors,John Senior, whose own quest-begun
in the occult and ended in the arms of the Catholic Church-impacted
the lives not only of the repatriated American monks, but also of hundreds
of other IHP students, each one in his or her own way.

• The Benedictine abbey of Our Lady at Fontgombault was founded in 1091. After flourishing in
the 1''1iddle Ages, it suffered decline in the eighteenth centur;· and was closed even before the
onslaught of the French Revolution. I\ lonasric life was reestablished there in 1948 bv the abbey of
Saint Peter ofSolesmes. Fontgomhault subsequently made four foundations: Randol (1971), Triors
(1984), Donezan (1994) in France and Clear Creek (1999) in the United States. All arc now abbeys
in their own right. In 2013, Fontgombault also took over the monastery of St. Paul ofWisqucs.
 INTRODUCTION

At the time they enrolled in the Integrated Humanities Program, most

were typical students of the 1970s, their vision molded by the deconstruc-
tionist trends of the day, believing Western ideals and institutions to be
outmoded and empty conventions. They knew not where to turn except
to what the moment had to offer. Scarcely any realized the immensity of
what awaited them; yet very early in the coursework, something awoke
in their slumbering souls. Led on by their professors, they discovered, to
their surprise, that the old Western tradition was full of treasures, a deep
goldmine to be explored. They came to recognize that there are true, good,
and beautiful realities which give meaning to life-that indeed there are
things greater than self which are worth living for. For a multitude of
students, the IHP class was a turning point in their lives. They acquired
convictions that continue to guide and stimulate them in their decisions
even today.
There are some rather spectacular statistics pointing to the religious
effect of this program taught in the context of a secular university. An
unofficial count numbers some two hundred among its students who
entered the Catholic Church, as well as dozens who returned to the
Catholic Faith they had abandoned. Among IHP graduates, as of 2012,
there is an archbishop, a bishop, an abbot, a prior and a prioress; two
have been religious superiors, another the rector of a seminary; three
have been novice masters; one served the Holy See's Congregation of
Catholic Bishops for ten years. The secular world has also profited.
Former students include a judge, lawyers, school principals, teachers and
medical doctors; one alumnus was the head of a U.S. presidential coun-
cil. Flourishing schools have been inspired by the program; many groups
have tried to imitate it. And of course many large, healthy families have
sprung up from it.
How did the IHP bring about the extraordinary and unexpected
intellectual and spiritual flowering of young lives? Qyinn, Nelick and
Senior were in agreement regarding the basic needs of education, given
the prevailing crisis in learning and culture. In particular, they recognized
that Relativism was at the root of the students' disorientation. Most of
their generation had fallen into the prevailing philosophy of the times:

2
 INTRODUCTION

the conviction that there is no permanent, universal truth. Each so-called

"truth," they assumed, was subjective, restricted to one's own choices. Allan
Bloom began his book on university education, The Closing ifthe Ameri-
can Mind, with this attestation:

There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost

every student entering the university believes, or says he believes,
that truth is relative. If this belief is put to the test, one can count
on the students' reaction: they will be uncomprehending. That
anyone should regard the proposition as not self-evident astonishes
them as though he were calling into question 2+2 = 4. These are
things you don't think about. 1

Given this state of affairs, the three professors knew that the first thing
needed was a "conversion" to truth as such, to reality itself Nothing con-
structive in education could be accomplished until students would accept
the fact that there is a difference between truth and error. In fact, the entire
IHP project can be summarized as a nurturing of Realism, taking this
latter term not in the sense of a particular philosophical system or school,
but simply as the conviction that there is an absolute truth, that the exte-
rior world can be known in itself, and that the mind depends on the senses
to know it.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, two other movements of
religious conversion were likewise set in motion by efforts toward an
intellectual return to reality. In France, Henri Bergson worked to show
his students that human knowledge is not limited to measurements, that
there exists something deeper than quantity. And in Germany, Edmund
Husserl longed to escape from centuries of philosophical idealism and
"get back to things themselves," as he put it. By breaking down the
mental barriers that artificially separated their students from things,
Bergson and Husserl enabled them to rediscover the taste for reality
and truth. This led many students, through various paths and by God's
grace, to accept Christ and enter His Church. It was the case, for exam-
ple, with Bergson's students Jacques Maritain and Charles Peguy, and
 INTRODUCTION

Husserl's Edith Stein (St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross) and Dietrich
von Hildebrand.
Whereas these European conversion movements grew from philo-
sophical studies, the three IHP professors had to operate at a more ele-
mentary level. Relativism had been ingrained in their students, not only
by their education and by modern culture in general, but also by the
artificial world in which they moved. Immersed as they were in an elec-
tronic universe of television and rock music, the students were largely cut
off from tangible reality. They first had to realize that "stones are hard and
water is wet," as the professors liked to say quoting Winston, a character
in George Orwell's 1984 (who kept repeating this to himself in order to
maintain his sanity under Party propaganda). 2 They had to get a feel for
concrete things and thus regain the innate, spontaneous conviction of the
existence of reality. They had to rediscover that things are real.
The program took as the means for this rediscovery not philosophy,
but the great imaginative literature and poetry of the West, and activ-
ities such as song, dance and stargazing. In their teaching, the professors
brought out vital human questions present in the readings-what is a
home, what is friendship, what is justice, what is healthy work, what is
the happy life-dealing with them in concrete ways. They told perti-
nent stories and quoted literature and poetry, striving to invite their
students to taste the mysterious beauty at the heart of these values more
than to be able to define them. Above all, they had to instill in this
youth the awareness that things are delightful and wonderful, beautiful,
good and true.
To understand the IHP adventure, one must delve into John Senior's
thought and what led him to help start such an institution. He alone of
the three professors elaborated in some detail the theory of this pre-
philosophical, pre-scientific education.
Senior wrote about culture in general, of which academia is only one
aspect. For him, the pre-philosophical need to reconnect to reality extended
far beyond the boundaries of the classroom. He recognized that our whole
life-in the home, in the community, at work-must return to reality. When

4
 INTRODUCTION

his two books on culture* were first published, in the late '70s and early '80s,
some readers thought Senior ranted rather excessively about the woes of
our times. However, one can perceive now that he was in fact a prophet of
the practical nihilism that has issued from the drastic cultural decline he
chronicled. He also provided a radical remedy for it. Although he saw the
crisis in contemporary society as one of faith, he had a firm grasp of the
principle that grace builds on nature and recognized that natural order and
reason are gravely compromised today. He made this comparison: "Faith
perfects reason in a manner analogous to the way a sculpture perfects a
stone-but if the stone is pulverized, the form is empty air." 3 We need
Realism for the good use of our reason and ultimately to provide a healthy
ground for faith: "The facts of Christianity," he wrote, "are not real to us
because nothing is real to us. We have come to doubt the very existence of
reality." 4 And to attain to Realism, we must reconnect sensibly and emotion-
ally with reality. We must restore a healthy imagination.
Similar conclusions had already been drawn by two of the most well-
known Catholic converts of the last two centuries. Blessed John Henry
Cardinal Newman grasped the importance of imagination and emotion
in rendering Christ real to modern man, in helping him realize that He is
a living person. Senior considered Newman something of a prophet in
that the latter foresaw the almost complete absence of Christ from the
twentieth-century imagination and the grave danger entailed in this: "It is
not so much reason that is against us as imagination," the cardinal wrote
125 years ago, referring to the difficulty of the modern scientific mental-
ity to partake in the world of the Bible. 5 Coming a little later than
Newman, G. K. Chesterton, like Senior, had first to devote himself to lead-
ing people to the reality of things themselves. Senior quoted Chesterton:
"Insanity is not losing your reason, but losing everything else except your
reason."6 A madman may remain quite logical, but he has lost common-
sense contact with reality. His mind turns in a disconnection with things.

• The Death a/Christian Culture (New Rochelle, NY: Arlin1,>1:on House, 1978; republished Norfolk,
VA: IHS Press, 2008) and The Restoration if Christian Culture (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1983;
republished Norfolk, VA: !HS Press, 2008).
 JNTRODlJCTJON

Newman, Chesterton and Senior all agree that we must restore a culture
that forms our imagination and emotions in accordance with reality and
Christ.
Senior's doctrine is vigorous and clear, simple and practical. Many
have recognized that it contains a crucial message for our day. Here are
appreciations, not from some local friend, but from two Frenchmen of
worldwide renown who knew Senior only through his books. Writing
about Senior's The Death of Christian Culture, the philosopher Marcel
Clement had this to say: "We have here a great book. Each sentence or
almost is a lesson of wisdom .... It is a most remarkable diagnostic of
the intellectual state of the West." 7 And Father R. L. Bruckberger, OP,
noted of The Restoration of Christian Culture: "I read John Senior's book
in one sitting. I was so far from expecting a book of this quality that I
am still stupefied. I have my classifications of books, of great books. I put
this one in the category of The Imitation of Christ .. .. I truly love the
United States where I spent eight years that were decisive for me. Never,
never could I have imagined that one day an American would write such
a book." 8
John Senior's work has also served as an inspiration to the Spanish
writer Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera, whose recent novel The Awakening
ofMiss Prim has become an international bestseller. The novel features a
main character who rediscovers the Faith of his childhood and decides to
take up residence in a remote European village near a Benedictine abbey-
this, after participating in a seminar at the University of Kansas. Fenollera
reveals her indebtedness to Senior in an interview: "The reference to the
University of Kansas is a discreet homage to John Senior, an exceptional
figure who directed a Humanities program outside of the ordinary and
whose lucid vision of western culture seems to me absolutely brilliant and
finds an echo in my book." 9
John Senior certainly did not intend to frame a new theory. Qyite
prudently in our revolutionary and uprooted day, he held that "nobody in
his right mind would want to be 'original' or 'innovative' at a time like
this." 10 Avoiding novelty was also a matter of conviction: "In the large
sense, philosophy and theology have been done; granted there are still

6
 INTRODUCTION

important disputed areas, but the continents are spanned, the lay of the
land has been mapped." 11 It often happens, however, that the person who
wants only to be a disciple is the one who truly advances doctrine. Senior's
deep and ardent assimilation of Western masters enabled him to draw
from tradition certain fundamental points that needed to be elaborated
and applied to the circumstances of our times.
I was a student of Senior's in the early 1970s. I kept up friendly con-
tact with him all through the years by correspondence, and avidly devoured
his writings as soon as I could get my hands on them. I have always
reflected on what I received from him and the IHP, especially in the light
of my later studies in philosophy. Although Senior regularly laid out
philosophical principles in class, he did not teach philosophy per se or write
a treatise. His writings were, rather, poetic or rhetorical. He modestly
considered himself only an amateur philosopher, teaching elementary
things presupposed by philosophy: "The ordinary is the province of the
schoolmasters like myself who from their low vantage, while in the high
and palmy ways of science and theology they know little or nothing, know
the things that everybody must do first." 12 Nevertheless, a well thought-
out philosophical framework supported his doctrine. The goal of the
following pages is to unfold that doctrine.
Senior once said that Shakespeare's plays, in relation to the lyric poetry
they contain, are like a Gothic church that exists for its stained-glass
windows. Qyotations from Senior are certainly the stained-glass windows
of the present work. I will proceed mainly by quoting the professor and
then providing commentary that will mostly demonstrate how the philo-
sophical synthesis behind his teaching is rooted in Plato, Aristotle, St.
Thomas Aquinas and Newman. I will occasionally develop a point on my
own, because the ultimate goal of the present work is not simply to under-
stand Senior's thought, but to advance in Realism ourselves. Senior should
be less the object than the guide for a study of Realism to encourage our
own ascent to the stars.
While this book is not a biography in the strict sense of that term but
rather a study of John Senior's thought, it will nevertheless have a bio-
graphical character, as his deep convictions and doctrine grew out of his

7
 INTRODUCTION

personal intellectual and spiritual journey: from a Marxist materialism

that denied spiritual realities, through an Oriental spiritualism that strove
for the spiritual stars by discarding man's roots in sensible realities, to
Realism and ultimately to the Catholic Church. The title of this introduc-
tion-Made far the Stars but Rooted in the Soil-represents the pivotal
philosophical point of that pilgrimage as well as the crux of all of Senior's
thought. He realized by his own experience that the human plant, in order
to tend to the stars, must be nourished in the soil of this world. His turn -
about and then his work with students deeply impressed on him that we
must ground all intellectual and affective life on the experiential and
imaginative level. This concrete way of nourishing Realism underlay
everything he taught and the way he taught it. It is the key to entering
into a deep understanding of his doctrine.
Part I of our book will follow Senior through the 1950s, from his
youth through his first teaching assignments and the completion of his
doctorate. His intellectual and spiritual conversions will give us the oppor-
tunity to uncover the principles behind the two fundamental positions of
human thought: "Realism," and what can be termed "Anti-Realism," the
first holding that the real is real, beautiful, good and true, the latter, that
it is an illusion. With Senior, we will examine the history of the war
between these two spheres, starting with the ancient Greeks but focusing
in detail on what has led to our contemporary Anti-Realist climate. Parts
II and III will refer especially to the 1960s, when Senior's positions on
education and culture matured at the University of Wyoming. Part II
considers the theory of Realism itself and how Senior came to it, while
Part III covers Senior's ideas for applying the theory in the home, school
and general culture. Part IV discusses how Senior, with Professors O!iinn
and Nelick, implemented his educational ideas in the 1970s at the Uni-
versity of Kansas and describes the fate of the IHP, an episode that so
aptly illustrates the perennial war between Realism and Anti-Realism.
The reader already may have noticed that the many references to cited
works are provided in endnote form, while notes providing content of
more immediate interest are denoted by asterisks and appear as footnotes.
This has been done so as not to interrupt or distract the reader.
 INTRODUCTION

I want to thank those who looked over all or part of the manuscript
at various stages of its development, notably Katie Miller, with whom I
discussed ideas as well, Chris Owen, who much encouraged me, and
Charles Pendergast, as well as Kelly Boutross, Annie Calovich, and Ken
Craven. Also, my special gratitude goes to Kirk Kramer for some zealous
research and to Maria Gerber for always being so available to help with
editing. I thank William Fahey for shepherding the book to publication,
and his wife Amy for the final editing. I also thank Senior's colleagues
and students of before my time who told of him in the 1950s and 1960s,
and members of his family who gave me views of Senior's life outside the
range of a student's experience, especially his daughter Penny Fonfara and
his late sister Mary Cornish. Finally, I express my gratitude to Father
Abbot and the monks of Clear Creek for bearing with me during these
long months.
Let me close this introduction by applying to this present work a poem
Senior wrote in conscious imitation of Geoffrey Chaucer's own famous
Retraccioun to usher in his book of poetry:

Retraction
If any of these rhymes
sownen· into sin,
blame it on the times
that let such notions in.
If it's on the poet's part,
commend him to the Sacred Heart.

• The l\liddlc English sownen, Senior noted, comes directly from Chaucer's Retraffioun and means
"lead someone into."
PART I

Two Perennial
Philosophies

Because it is rooted in duality, the Christian

tradition is opposed to the Oriental There is nothing
and there is something; and they are not the same.
-The Death of Christian Culture
John Senior, circa 1958. Co11rlcsy ofA11111111ci<1tio11 ,\1011mterv of Clear Cr,d <111d l',·1111v Fo11j:m,
 CHAPTER ONE

The Cowboy and the

Scholar
The immediate (practical) purpose of drinking a
cup of ref.fee is to wash the biscuit down. Its proxi-
mate (ethical) purpose is the intimate communion
of, say, cowboys (they do exist; Will j a mes was
right!) standing around the sullen campfire in a
drenching rain, water curling ojJ Stetsons, over
slickers, splashing on the rowels of spurs, as they
draw the bitter liquid down their several throats
into the single moral belly oftheir comradeship. The
remote (political) purpose ofcef.fee at the campfire,
is the making ofAmericans-born on thefrontier,
free, frank, friendly, touchy about honor, despisers
offences, lovers ofhorses, worshipers ofeagles and
women . ... The ultimate purpose is spiritual. For
a boy to drink a can of cef.fee with cowboys in the
rain is, as Odysseus said ofAfcinous's banquet, some-
thing like perfection.
-"The Restoration of Innocence"

O NE day in 1936, a boy in his early teens, tired of the mecha-

nized and comfortable life of Long Island, put together a few
things and the little money he had saved, sneaked away from home, and
hopped onto a Greyhound bus going west, telling the driver to take him
as far as his money would allow. A couple of days later he was wandering
 JOIIN SENIOR AND THE RESTORATION OF REALISM

down a road in South Dakota while a storm was brewing. A truck pulled
up and the driver pointed in the distance, shouting: "Kid, there's a tornado
brewin'. Get in!"Thus began John Senior's first season as a cowboy.
Senior always said he had had a great youth, referring especially to his
days in a rugged life out west. The cowboy ideal, with its nobility, chivalry
and healthy comradeship, caught his fancy as a boy and never left him. This
man, steeped in European culture, would always be proud of nineteenth-
century "free, frank, friendly" America. His adventure in the Dakotas is
emblematic of Senior's life. Already as a boy he fled from whatever he
found artificial in search of reality.

The Boy
Professor Senior's great-grandfather, also called John Senior, had
come from England to settle in New York, but traveled several times
back and forth between the Old World and the New so that John's
grandfather, Frank, spent some time in England during his young years.
Frank was inventive, something of a self-made man. The youngest of
seven children, he worked his way through medical school, notably by
designing jewelry. He was a well-known personality in Brooklyn, an
involved Republican who ran for sheriff. When one of his two sons,
John's father Roy, began medical school, Frank hoped he would continue
his own practice. However, while Roy enjoyed the scientific aspects of
his studies, he did not appreciate its practical application and soon
withdrew from the school. As an alternative, his father helped him and
his brother Harvey set up an automobile dealership, aptly called The
Pathfinder.
The Senior line, then, was of English stock, but Frank's wife, Mary,
was a Kip-an old New York Dutch family (there is a Kip's Bay in the
borough of Manhattan, New York). The Kips were related to other
Dutch families in the area, notably the Roosevelts, who were less well
known than the Kips before Theodore appeared on the scene. A Dutch
ancestor of John Senior's had fought as a general under Washington in
the Revolutionary War.

14
 THE COWBOY A ND THE SCHOLAR

Evelyn White,John Senior's mother, was also English on her father's

side, while her mother was an Irish Catholic. Though Evelyn was baptized
a Catholic, she became an Episcopalian like her father as her mother died
when she was only four. Dr. White and his family lived in Manhattan,
where he had a dental practice, but would regularly visit the Caribbean
for his health and for the culture of the English colonies. The Whites
considered themselves English indeed, but the Irish blood received from
John's maternal grandmother would always be especially dear to him.
While training as a nurse in Brooklyn, Evelyn White met Harvey
Senior, the husband of a fellow nurse trainee, eventually coming to know
his brother, Roy. The two, Evelyn and Roy, were married in 1917 and moved
in with the hospitable Dr. and Mrs. Frank Senior in Brooklyn. Their first
son, Hereward, was born in 1918, followed by a daughter, Catherine Mary,
in 1920. When Evelyn's sister Clare came to stay with them, Roy and
Evelyn thought it best to find their own home. They sublet a house that
Harvey had rented for hunting purposes in Stamford, Connecticut, moving
there with the children and Clare. Roy kept his job in Brooklyn, coming
home only for the weekends. Thus,John Senior, the New Yorker, was in fact
born in Stamford, Connecticut, on February 21, 1923, the third and last
child of Roy and Evelyn. When John was still a toddler, the family moved
to Hempstead, on Long Island, soon afterward settling in a little fishing
village called Christian Hook, about six miles from the ocean.*
John's relatives on the Senior side were quite active; they were well-
coordinated and good at sports, sung in key, and liked to joke and have
fun. Roy in particular was known for having a great sense of humor. The
Whites, on the other hand, were inclined more toward culture and liked
to sit around and discuss serious subjects. Roy's business often took him
out of town, so Evelyn and her sister Clare managed the household and
initiated the children into all aspects of high culture. In particular, the two
women read to the children often. They helped them learn nursery rhymes
by heart and introduced them early on to nineteenth-century English

• For glimpses into Senior's childhood, one could take a look at the poems of Pale Horse, part V, "A
Second Childhood's Garden." He spoke of Aunt Clare in "Valencia," Grandfather Frank in "Kip's
Bay" and Uncle John-his mother's brother-and his wife Tess in "At the Con\'alescent Home."

15
 JOHN SENIOR AND THE RESTORATION OF REALISM

classics, such as Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson and Sir Walter
Scott. They took the children on excursions to Shakespeare plays at an
outdoor theater near Columbia University. Music, as well, was an integral
part of Senior family life, as John would describe: "My father, in an ama-
teur way, had a fine baritone voice and one of the warmest memories of
my childhood is of him singing, '.And for Bonn Annie Laurie I would lay
me doun and dee' and 'I would die for love of thee, 0 Mavoureen.' And
he would put his arm around my mother's shoulder as she sat at the piano
with the children."'
All three children were avid readers. Hereward was interested in history
and army life;John, in cowboy stories and poetry. He learned to play guitar
and sing cowboy songs, some of which he wrote himself, as he had started
writing poetry and songs at an early age. Senior characterized his boyhood
formation thus: "I was brought up on what was left of nineteenth-century
English culture and the popular stuff of cowboy movies and moralizing
boys'books." 2 Nevertheless, he was not overly bookish as a boy, nor was he
a loner; on the contrary, he was popular and a natural leader. Although he
was well coordinated,John was slightly built and somewhat asthmatic, shy-
ing away from traditional American sports. He liked to ride bicycles, fre-
quently went swimming in the ocean and would practice lassoing for hours
at a time. His love of acting-second only to his thirst for the cowboy's
life-landed him several leading roles in high school plays.
One activity missing in the household was religion: none of the adults
practiced any faith. Rather on their own initiative, the two older children
attended Sunday school at a neighborhood Episcopalian church, but John
did not go with them. Mary was baptized at age thirteen, Hereward at a
later age,John not at all-although it is obvious that he knew the Epis-
copalian minister fairly well, because Senior tutored the minister's son and
was allowed to ride a horse that belonged to him.*
John and his brother held odd jobs throughout their school years. His
sister tells that John was never very successful at his little jobs, but was
certainly persistent. On one such assignment, he was to sell ice cream bars.

• Senior wrote a poem about this minister: "In the Time of the I lcaling of the Nations,'" Pale Horse,
39-43.

16
 THE COWBOY AND THE SCHOLAR

He strapped an ice chest on his bicycle and armed himself with a little
bell to inform children of the ice cream boy's approach. It was a very hot
day and things did not go well. At about noon, his parents sought out the
young salesman and tried to convince him to come home. But he reso-
lutely persevered to the end. When he finally did return, he was exhausted
and beset with bad cramps. The family had to call a doctor.
Working was partly a necessity for the two boys. During the Depres-
sion, people did not buy cars. John's father had to forfeit his own car
dealership business and take on employment, first as a salesman and then
as a civil-service welfare inspector, each position bringing in considerably
less pay. The Seniors eventually had to give up their home and rent an
apartment.
Perhaps John's flight west was undertaken in part to ease the family's
financial burden, something not uncommon in those days. But mostly,
John was dismayed at seeing Long Island lose its farms and open spaces
because of the economic slump and steady urbanization. His home town
even changed its name from Christian Hook to Oceanside in order to
attract development. A life close to nature was fading away. He touched
on that experience in ''A Second Childhood's Garden'':

When I awoke on attic cot

I looked across a Camelot
of red and green, steep-slanted roofs
and heard the milkman's horse's hoofs;

And now the fields conglomerate

into suburban real estate;
where the landscape, days and nights,
is cacophonies of lights;

When the wind no longer whispers

there will be no Lauds or Vespers;
when there isn't any dawn,
chanticleer will not go on. 1

17
 JOHN SENIOR AND THE RESTORATION OF REALlSl\l

Thus it was that, at the age of thirteen, the impulsive youngster sought
the cowboy life that he had dreamed so much about. In his words:

Having had from childhood an urge for good times lost, I satis-
fied it first with poetry and then with cowboy stories ... and at
thirteen ran away from home and the encroaching city which by
the 1930's had metastasized suburban cells in our rural fields. But
by that time fenced farms had pretty much destroyed the open
range ... so it was something of a miracle that as late as 1936 I
found a ranch in the Dakota Badlands where cowboys still rode
horses on roundups. 4

It was a Norwegian, Morgan Tinzer, who had picked up the young

New Yorker as a tornado formed not far away. At his invitation,John
stayed in Tinzer's summer house and for a time assisted him in strip min-
ing coal. He eventually wrote his parents-who were understandably
frantic and had authorities looking for their son in several states-but did
not tell them where he was. Tinzer finally contacted the Seniors and
informed them of the boy's whereabouts. Roy hurriedly flew out to South
Dakota, rented a car, and drove across a roadless prairie to retrieve his son.
Upon John's return back home, his siblings would not speak to him, being
all the angrier that he had not even been punished!
Fearing that their son might run off again, the Seniors consented to
his going west every summer, provided he return home afterward to
continue his schooling during the winter. Through various connections
they found a job for him with another Norwegian, Vic Christensen, on a
ranch in the Red River Valley, near Grand Forks, North Dakota. This
arrangement proved to be a perfect compromise.John could still live much
as his cowboy heroes had, riding horses, drinking coffee at the campfire
and sleeping in the bunkhouse with the hands. "In those days it was the
real thing," he said. "They had roundups and horses-none of the modern
conveniences."5 He went on cattle drives of more than sixty miles that
often lasted two or three weeks. Mr. and Mrs. Christensen had no children
except an adopted son and readily accepted the young New Yorker as a

18
 THE COWBOY AND THE SCHOLAR

member of the family, letting him lounge about the house and read in the
library during his free time.
Senior later recounted some anecdotes from his days in the Dakotas.
The hands used a trolley with a grapple hook powered by horses to carry
big piles ofloose hay into the barn. One day,John was given the task of
guiding the hay by a rope. He accidentally pulled on the trip rope and the
whole load fell right on the foreman.John heard a muffled voice scream-
ing furiously from underneath the hay. The hand next to him cried out,
"Get out of here, you little idiot. He's gonna kill you! Get lost for the rest
of the day!" John did as he was told and only that evening crept back
quietly to the bunkhouse. He concluded the story with: "I learned then
that I'm no durn good with machinery!"
Another time he was charged with taking provisions to some workers
about five miles away. He was proud to be given such a responsibility and
was happily singing to himself as he went along driving the horses, listen-
ing to the birds and looking at the flowers. Unexpectedly, he heard a horse
wildly galloping and a man yelling, "Can't you see what you're doin'?!"John
looked back and had the spectacle of sacks of flour and cans of pork and
beans strewn along the road behind him. He had forgotten to close the
wagon's clapboard.
Of course, much of the experience was less poetic and romantic than
John had dreamed-they did, after all, use trucks!-but he persevered
year after year. These five or six summers at the ranch provided him with
a rich experience of nature, animals, weather, men and hard work. He once
mused that WillJames's book Sand, about a boy who practically fell out
of a train in Montana and became a man among the cowboys, was the
story of his own life.

Studies and First Teaching Posts

John had excellent marks in high school and received a scholarship to
attend Hofatra, a small but high-level suburban liberal arts college in Long
Island. His brother was studying there, and the two Senior boys were on
the debating team together. John was a natural orator. His brother

19
 JOHN SENIOR AND TIIE RESTORATION OF REALISM

recounted, "He could talk off the top of his head while I always had to
prepare my debate."John also continued participating in drama and wrote
a play that was performed with some success. He nevertheless focused on
his classes in literature and philosophy.
After completing two years at Hofstra College,John served in the
army during World War II. He was never sent overseas, but because he
knew some German, he helped with the interrogation of prisoners who
were being held in the United States. Fortunately,John later reminisced,
most of the prisoners knew some English; in fact, he was able to have
excellent conversations about English literature on several occasions!
While John was still at Hofstra, before the war began, he had met a
high school senior named Priscilla Woods. They had a mutual interest in
the outdoor life and animals, especially horses. Priscilla intended to
become a veterinarian. Soon after the war, on September 3, 1945, the two
were married in the American Episcopal Church, with John's brother
serving as best man. After a honeymoon in the mountains of northern
New Mexico,John's sister ceded to the newlyweds the apartment she and
her husband had in Greenwich Village, a rather Spartan place with no
running water in the kitchen-a deprivation that appealed to the adven-
turous young newlyweds.
Priscilla was a woman with abundant and down-to-earth common
sense, always a private and discreet presence in Senior's life. She accom-
panied him in all his adventures, sometimes entering into them whole-
heartedly and sometimes simply putting up with them. Mrs. Senior was
the practical and firm woman her husband needed. She helped to keep
her husband's feet on the ground, steering the somewhat quixotic intel-
lectual through the concrete realities of life. An anecdote that Senior
liked to tell brings out the play between their two temperaments. One
evening at table, he was going on and on about the beauty and riches of
silence. After a while Mrs. Senior broke in: "If you like silence so much,
why don't you be quiet!?" Senior closed the story commenting that she
was, of course, right.* In the acknowledgments of one of his books he

• He wrote a humorous and affectionate poem for his wife: "Nocrurn," in Pale Horse, 13.

20
 THE COWBOY AND THE SCHOLAR

wrote of "one to whom the debt is measureless: Mulieris fortis beatus

vir (Blessed the husband of a valiant woman)." 6
The couple would be favored with three children: Penelope in 1947,
Matthew in 1952 and Andrew in 1953. The grounding of a normal, happy
family life played an important role in John's intellectual and spiritual
journey. Its affections, natural joys and often accompanying sorrows kept
his soul anchored in those days when his studies suggested that reality
was an illusion.
John was honorably discharged from the army on September 9, 1944.
Perhaps in the summer of 1944, with the forces already in France, the army
no longer needed him for the interrogation of prisoners. An accident caus-
ing a serious hand wound may have contributed to the decision as well.
He did not return to Hofstra, as he had been disappointed with the
education offered there. Taking advantage of the GI Bill, upon his release
that fall Senior enrolled at Columbia University, where he continued his
studies, eventually obtaining his doctorate. There, he followed various
courses in philosophy, both ancient and modern, but mostly focused his
attention on literature. Several of his professors were involved in the then
rather novel Great Books movement, which had the audacity to put aside
manuals in favor of the classical authors themselves being read. Thus,
Senior participated in a renowned humanities program in this line, and
then continued in an equally renowned graduate comparative literature
program. He received a decent formation in classical antiquities, notably
from Gilbert Higher, a recognized Greek and Latin scholar. As to litera-
ture, Senior gained a first-rate education from three professors in par-
ticular, well known in the literary world, each of whom stressed that the
aim of literature was truth and love, not merely aesthetics, pleasure, or
recreation: Raymond Weaver, known for his studies on Melville; Lionel
Trilling, a prominent cultural commentator; and Mark Van Doren. Of
the latter, Senior once said he was the greatest man he had ever known,
referring to him on another occasion as his "Socrates."7 As a key figure in
Senior's life, he deserves special mention.
Mark Van Doren was an accomplished poet, novelist, short story
writer and literary critic who, when Senior began studying under him,

21
 JOHN SENIOR AND THE RESTORATION OF REALISM

was fifty years of age and had just received a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
What Van Doren wrote of another applies to himself as well: "He loved
[the world] in all its parts, the great, the small. Nothing was small for him,
and nothing was great; every person, every thing, deserved to exist."8 This
professor and friend imparted to John Senior a sympathetic understand-
ing of individual concrete things, of animals and people.
"There was something magical about it," Senior once said about Van
Daren's teaching. His class was an authentic conversation with the stu-
dents about the great books they were reading, an adventure where both
teacher and students learned. He stayed away from historical and scholarly
analysis, and led students to consider what the author himself was trying
to express. Thomas Merton, who had attended Columbia a few years
earlier, also appreciated Van Doren as one who, "instead of subtly destroy-
ing all literature by burying and concealing it under a mass of irrelevancies,
really purified and educated the perceptions of [his] students by teaching
them how to read a book and how to tell a good book from a bad .... He
had the gift of communicating to them something of his own vital inter-
est in things." 9 Any student ofJohn Senior's will recognize their teacher
in those features. Senior thus found in Van Doren not only a mentor but
also a model for his own teaching. In fact, he explicitly said that when he
would go into a class, he always wanted to sound like his old Columbia
professor.
The two remained in friendly contact throughout the years. Corre-
spondence between them in the 1960s shows Senior, now in his forties
and himself an accomplished college professor, with a charming filial
veneration and affection for the older man. Still, he does not hesitate to
respectfully and humbly let Van Doren know when he does not agree with
him on some point. On the occasion of Senior's reception into the Cath-
olic Church, in 1960, Van Doren wrote "Estate Ergo Vos Perfecti" (Be Ye
Therefore Perfect; see the epigraph of Chapter Two). This same poem
was read at a public lecture given by Van Doren in 1970, when he visited
John Senior at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, during which he
memorably mentioned that his former student was an inspiration to him.
For Christmas in 1968, Senior in his turn wrote a poem to his mentor,

22
 THE COWBOY AND THE SCHOLAR

which he largely reworked at Van Doren's death in 1972, naming it at that

time "The World's Last Lover."In its closing lines, he refers to Van Doren
as "a noble voice," after one of his former teacher's books on poetry, and
in an allusion to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, speaks of
Oberon, king of fairies-the "king of music" as Senior says in a note--who
put magical nectar in people's eyes so that they would fall in love:

now the Noble voice is spent,

now the festival is over;
Oberon's enchanted wood
closes in the world's last lover
whose music was a murmur
in the rivers of our Summer,
and whose eyes,
disappointed, hurt and wise
with philosophic fatherhood,
saw everything (including us) as good. 10

John Senior was an immediate success at Columbia University, both

in and out of class. The 1945-46 school year brought him two poetry
prizes and an editor's chair at the Columbia Review. He also became a
book reviewer for The Nation, perhaps through the mediation of Van
Doren, who had in preceding years been literary editor of the magazine.
After a dozen successful reviews, however, Senior was dismissed because
he had found Up Front, Mauldin's universally acclaimed book of World
War II cartoons, "demeaning and depersonalizing."
In the spring of 1946, Senior received his BA from Columbia. It was
also a time of sorrow, for his father had suffered and died from a stroke,
having faithfully been cared for by Evelyn. The death marked the young
man. Senior later would say that the day one's father dies is the moment
one realizes he too will someday die. He wrote and published a poem
about his father at the time.
Senior continued to be consumed by dreams of a rustic life where he
could leisurely write poetry. One day following his graduation, he and his

23
 JOIIN SENIOR AND THE RESTORATION OF REALIS:\I

wife jumped into their Studebaker, hauling a trailer behind piled high
with their belongings, and escaped to the wilderness. They purchased
some cheap land in the mountains near Taos, New Mexico, obtained some
goats and began settling into their mountain shack. But the adventure
was short-lived. As Senior told it, "The indians stole the goats. And the
winter came along and we almost died. We had to run down from the
mountain. Besides that, our first child was going to be born. I ran all the
way back east again and got myself a job." 11
In 1947, Senior began teaching English in a rather unofficial way at
Bard College on the Hudson River, a small, liberal and progressive school;
for example, it had no grading system. Concurrently, he studied for his
Masters degree, which he received from Columbia in 1948. Senior was
not yet resolved on a teacher's life: ''At that time I was writing poetry, even
novels .... I thought of myself as a creative writer." 12 He did write a novel,
but his wife found it uninteresting so he discarded it. In 1949 he accepted
a teaching position at Hofstra, the small but rapidly growing college he
had first attended.
Still trying to find a more romantic, rural life, he at one point inves-
tigated the possibility of moving to a Caribbean island, and for years
retained the property in New Mexico,just in case. His preference for
living in the country was fulfilled when he was fortunate enough to find
an old farmhouse on a few acres of ground near Huntington, New York,
close to his wife's family.
One of his Hofstra students remembers Professor Senior as being
steady, patient and gentle. He recalls that, one day, the young teacher found
him reading Dewey and asked him, "Why waste your time on second-
class authors? Read the greats!" Writing assignments, which he graded
on his train commute, would come back with neatly written comments
along the margins. Nevertheless, the same student reports that his teacher
"was quite unconventional," remembering how he would sit on two legs
of his chair, leaning against the wall and, from time to time, clack a piece
of chalk on the blackboard to get his students' attention. A former col-
league ofJohn Senior's recalls good memories of stimulating conversations
in the teachers' lunchroom, noting that "John was really into James Joyce

24
Another random document with
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 Elijah Cobb turned the trick without bluster or confusion. It was
the kind of thing he could do extremely well. His portrait is that of a
man very resolute and composed, not much humor in the straight
mouth and steadfast eye, a good deal of the Puritan afloat. In his
sedate way he must have enjoyed what he called “running away
from the Embargo.”
England and the United States were on the brink of war. This final
embargo was frankly intended as a preparation for war. It held
American ships in our own ports and saved them from capture while
a swift pilot schooner was sent to warn American merchantmen in
northern Europe that hostilities impended and they must hasten
home or lie up abroad in some neutral harbor. These signs and
portents seemed to have escaped the notice of Captain Elijah Cobb.
He was oddly unaware of it all, busied with selling his flour in Cadiz
at a profit and buying British bills of exchange to reap more dollars.
Congress had formally declared war, on June 18, while Captain
Cobb was in the midst of his transactions. And when he sailed from
Cadiz for Boston, on July 5, “he never felt himself saffer, on account
of enemies on the high seas.” Peacefully he jogged across the
Atlantic, as far as the Grand Bank, when he was overhauled by a
British armed schooner. The subsequent proceedings must upset the
conventional notions of the sea warfare of bygone days. All British
seamen are presumed to have been ruffianly and outrageous
persons. It will be noted that the interviews between Captain Cobb
and his captors were conducted with courtesy and friendliness.
The merchant skipper was pained and surprised to find that he
had fallen into the enemy’s hands. The enemy endeavored to make
it as comfortable as possible, trusting that Captain Cobb would
“excuse their inquisitiveness.”
You will find the dialogue vastly entertaining and not at all as the
fictionist would fancy it. Mutual regrets and esteem, the prize politely
ordered to St. Johns, the prisoners to be made as comfortable as
possible under the circumstances! And then it is your pleasure to
meet that fine old Port Admiral of St. Johns, Sir John Thomas
Duckworth, who tried to make these unwilling visitors feel at home.
“Supercargoes and Gentlemen passengers” were set at liberty.
 The display of gentlemanly feeling between sailor foemen was not
unique in the annals of the War of 1812. England was well aware
that the maritime interests of the New England coast were out of
sympathy with the war and it was policy to avoid provoking them
more than possible. “Organize a peace party throughout your
Country,” resolved the Massachusetts House of Representatives,
after war had been declared, “and let the sound of your
disapprobation be loud and deep.” The climax came with the secretly
seditious Hartford Convention. The Federalist opposition was
stupidly blind to the fact that the war was a defensive struggle
against the massed resources of the British Empire. The seafaring
population, forgetting the national interests and suffering destruction
and blockade, allowed the politicians to lead it by the nose.
Captain Elijah Cobb stayed at home on the farm until the end of
the war. Then he resumed his voyages to Europe, uneventfully, and
engaged in the African trade in 1818, commanding the ship Ten
Brothers. There was no worse pest hole on earth than the West
Coast and its slave ports, no area so indelibly stained with man’s
inhumanity to man. A land of treacherous surf and steaming jungle,
of tawny beaches and sluggish rivers, the infamies of centuries
cursed the names of Goree and Gambia, the Bight of Benin and the
Bight of Biafra, Calabar, Anamaboe, and the Congo. In 1819 the
slave trade had been outlawed by England and the United States,
but many thousands of the poor wretches were annually smuggled
into the West Indies and the southern ports of this country.
The barracoons and factories were flourishing when Captain
Cobb sailed on his lawful trading voyages to Prince’s Island in the
Gulf of Guinea. Like many another American shipmaster he risked
the deadly fever in order to sell his goods to the natives and carry
home palm oil, ivory, coffee, and gold dust. The most lucrative traffic
was in New England rum, muskets, and gunpowder, but Captain
Cobb makes no mention of these as in his invoice, and it is fair to
give him the benefit of the doubt. Not that it would have discredited
him in the reputable circles of Boston or Brewster. A man could be a
deacon and still peddle Medford rum to the benighted Africans.
 Captain Cobb stocked his ship with the customary trade goods,
gaudy cotton prints, tobacco, beads and brass pots, bandana
hankerchiefs, flour and meal, salt beef, pork, and fish, candles,
tinware, and crockery. His letters are pretty doleful reading. Several
other American vessels were with him at Prince’s Island, their
captains ill or dead of fever, his own ship rotten with it. What they
called fumigation was crude and ineffectual. They suffered grimly. It
was all in the day’s work, and they could only commit themselves “to
a mercifull just God who always acts for the good of his Creaturs, &
happy would it be for us; if we could always bow with humble
submission to His righteous dispensations.”
Even this consolation was not enough to make Captain Cobb
endure more than two voyages to the Guinea Coast. His ship had to
be scuttled at a Boston wharf, so foul she was with deadly fever, and
there was fear that the contagion might spread ashore. This was the
end of his seafaring career of nearly forty years. To a ripe old age he
dwelt in Brewster, a distinguished citizen and active farmer, “tall &
straight of fine figure his face very pleasant to look upon.” The
imperious traits of the quarter-deck were carried into his religious
activities. As a Universalist he played a lone hand for some years,
and “met with violent opposition to his views, yet waxing only the
more valiant in the fight, he came off conquerer.”
It is the wistful desire of every true sailorman to quit the restless
sea and own a farm. This boon was vouchsafed Elijah Cobb and it is
fitting to bid him farewell when “the wind has got around to the south”
and he is just returning from a visit to the young orchard—a
mellowed old gentleman who had lived through the most stirring era
of American ships and sailors and had survived hazards
innumerable to find a quiet harbor! Not a flamboyant career, but
splendidly competent as one reads between the lines. He was one of
the pioneers, blood brother of the men who turned landward to tame
the wilderness.
Ralph D. Paine.
Durham, New Hampshire
April, 1925.
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
The following Biographical sketch; with a few of the incidents of my
life, are committed to paper, for the gratification, and amusement
of my beloved Grand-children. Considering the advanced age of
the writer, on the brink of 75, it must be expected, there will be
imperfections, of various kinds—the old mans trembling hand is
conspicuous at first sight—but even that, may interest, when the
reader reflect, that the hand which pen’d these lines, is now
mouldering in Dust.

In the year 1802, I was in Yarmouth, a sea port, in the East of

England; and by one of those casual events of life, was favoured
with an interview with an aged Gentleman, a Port admiral, by the
name of Isaac Cobb—lea[r]ning, that I was an American, and my
name Cobb, he expressed a desire to know the names of my
ancestors, as far back as I could recolect; I could only give him, to
my great Gr. Father Jonathan Cobb—he then told me, that it was
clear to him, that my ancestor originated from Harwich in England,
that he had been at the seat, where he was born, many times,—that
Silvanus Cobb, had 4 sons. viz Jonathan, Eleazer, Silvanus, &
Benjamin, that the two first named embarked for America in the May
Flower[1] that Silvanus followed them some 2 or 3 years after; & that
Benjamin remained with his Father untill he died, & then followed his
Brothers to America.
 He then produced a very lengthy Biography of several
generations, & read many particulars of the Cobb families, and
among them—that Jonathan, son of Silvanus, setled upon Cape Cod
—Eleazer, somewhat further westward—& Silvanus, some distance
north of Boston—and that I was, no doubt, a decendant from
Jonathan.
The old gentlemen ordered his secretary, to make a copy, of such
parts of the biography, as related to my ancestry, but circomstances
obliged me leave, before I received it.
So much for Admiral Cobb.
Ancestry I remember, perfectly well, when I had five
Grand Parents alive, 4 on my Fathers side, & one,
on my Mothers—viz. my Great G’d Father & g’d Mother Cobb—my
Grand Father & g’d Mother Cobb, & my G’d Mother Freeman, my
Mothers Mother, I cannot trace my ancestry beyond my Great g’d
Father Cobb—there were three, of his family, which I perfecty
remember—viz. Jonathan, Eleazer, & Benjamin—the female part, I
have no knowledge of—my G’d Fathers family consisted of 10
children, 6 sons, & 4 daughters, viz Elijah, Scottow, Isaac, John,
Seth, Elkanah, Mary, Sally, Hannah, Betsey—my Grandmother
Freemans name was Mary, she was Sister to Revd. Nathl. Stone the
first ordained Minister in this Town, then Harwich—she married
Barnabus Freeman, of eastham, he was a sea Captain, & died at
about 40 years of age—my mother, was their only child, & was only
12 years old when her Father died—at 17 she marreid my Father,
Scottow Cobb, their family consisted of 6 children, viz. Huldah,
Barna, Elijah, Reliance, Judith, & Sally—three, have already paid the
debt of nature; & the united ages of the three alive, is 224 years.
My Father persued a seafaring life for subsistance; was Master of
a Brig, & died on his passage from Cadiz to Quebec, in the 33d year
of his age—leaving my Mother with 6 infant children, the oldest but
10 years of age, and the youngest, born after Father left home, the
last time,—For the support of this helpless flock; was a small cape
cod farm, a small house & barn, and one cow—I have heard my
Mother say, that she never received 100$ for my Fathers effects—
 Under such circomstances; it was not posible to keep the family
together—to support & educate them, with the means in her power,
was out of the question—some of us, must leave the perternal
dwelling & seek subsistance among strangers—my Bror., being the
Elder, was tried first, but wou’d not stay, & came home crying—I was
then, in my 6th year, & altho” too young to earn my living, a place
was offered me, & I left my dear mother for that subsistance among
strangers which she could not procure for me.
I continued from my Mother, except at times visiting her, untill in
my 13th. year, when by an imprudent attempt, to lift beyond my
strength, I broke a vessell in my stomack, which entirely disenabled
me; and I was sent home to my Mother, incapable of labour of any
kind.
I remained with her; under the care of a skilfull Docter, about a
year, when he advised me, to be sent to sea, as the best method to
regain my health.
Seeks a Voyage Accordingly, in the fall of 1783, I was fitted out
for Boston, to look for a voyage—My whole
wardrobe, was packed in a gin case, for a trunk; a tow bedsack, filled
with rye straw, & a pair of, home-made, blankets, for sleeping
appuratis, with two bushels of corn, to pay my passage to Boston—
and acquipted thus, I left the family circle, with buoyant sperits and in
full confidence that I should work myself thro” life, with honour &
credit—I embarked, at Skaket, in a small Schooner of only 25 Tons,
called the Creture; & after going into Provinctown, & laying there
during a gale of wind, we reached Boston, in about three days.
At the time, I am speaking of, there were more men, than could
readily find employ, & frequently, the best of seamen, were distitute
of voyages—several of our neighbouring young men, had been to
Boston, that fall, previous to my leaving home, & had returned
without giting employ, they told my Mother, that I would only spend
the two bushels of corn, & return to her without giting a voyage—but
their predictions were set at naught; for the first time I went down the
long wharf, & stood gazeing at a new vessell, wondering, & admiring
her monstrous size, her great cables & anchors &c—a gentleman
stept from her deck & thus accosted me! My lad, do you want a
voyage—. Yes Sir—will you go with me in this vessell—where are
you bound Sir—to Siranam—I am told Sir, that all flesh die, that go
there—well my boy, to prove, that you have not been told the truth, I
have been there 13 voyages, & you see I’m alive yet—well Sir, I
should like to go, what wages will you allow me—do you know how
to cook—not much Sir, but I can soon learn—well my boy, if you
think so, I presume you will, I like your candour & will take you, &
give you the customary wages of a boy; half of Seamens wages
$3.50 pr month, but you must go immediately on board, & git dinner
for the men at work—& thus I commenced my duty as cook & cabin
Boy.
When the men broke off work, at night, they all went away; the
Capt. then asked me, where my bed & cloaths were—I told him, on
board the creture, in town dock—well, you must go & git them, & I’ll
keep ship untill you return, you must sleep on board to night—who
else will sleep on board—nobody, there is no one belongs to the
vessell, except you & myself—not liking the idea of sleeping on
board alone, I took the liberty of asking him, where his mate was—
he said, he had not got one yet—I told him, I gessed, I knew a good
man, that would like to go—who is he—I said, My Uncle, who came
up, in the creture to look for a voyage—has he ever been mate—Yes
Sir, & prise mastre too, in the war—well, you go after your things, & if
you see your Uncle, ask him to come down & see me, in the morning
when I got on board the creture, my Uncle was there, and by way of
a reprimand, asked, where I had been all day—why Uncle, said I, I
have shipped myself, & I beleive I have got a voyage for you also.
Voyage to To make a short story, my Uncle went down in
Surinam the morning, & shipped & went the voyage.—I then
wrote to my Mother, that I had got a voyage for
myself & Uncle, & if those young men would come to Boston before I
sailed, I would ship them off, rather than have them stay at home
Idle, & upon expense all winter.
The vessell was soon loaded, & we went to sea—my inexperienc,
& being very sea-sick, for a while, rendered my situation very
unpleasant, but I soon surmounted those deficulties; & began to
injoy my new mode of life; after the opperation of David Jones’s
medecine (sea-sickness) I felt my health improved, & by the time we
arrived in Surinam, I felt quite well, and I found I was able to give
pritty good satisfaction in my line of duty.
My perticular attention to the officers, procured me some
presents, by wh I was enabled to purchase a Barrel of molasses, &
some fruit, for an adventure back to Boston.
Nothing meterial took place, during the remainder of the voyage,
worth noting; we returned to Boston in the spring of 1784,
discharged our cargo, mollases, was paid our wages & seperated,
each to home. My wages amouted to 21$, & by the sale of my bbl of
Molases, & some my fruit, I was enabled to git myself a new suit of
sailors cloaths, from the Slopshop, & carried home, & put into my
Mothers hands, 20 silver Dollars—probably, the largest sum of
money she had possesd. since she had been a widow—& that, from
her poor little sick Boy—her tears flowed freely, upon the occasion,
but they were tears of gratitude to our heavenly Father, for his
mercies to her child, in permitting his return home, in the injoyment
of so much better health, than he left it—my own feelings, upon the
occasion, can be better imagined than discribed.
I tarried at home but a short time, before I returned to Boston, in
persuit of employ; & spent the summer, with a Capt. Lombard, in the
coasting business. In the fall I shipped, as a common sailor, & made
several voyages to the W. Idies—returning from a voyage, in Decr.
1786, I was informed that my Brother, had fallen from mast-head, in
the Delaware Bay, had Broken both his legs, one thigh, & put out of
joint, one shoulder—and was then, in the Pensalvinia hospital, with
one leg amputated.
The Season was then so far advanced, that the navigation, was
about closing with Ice, consequently, I was compelled to relinquish
my visit, to my unfortunate Brother, untill the spring opened the
navigation.
 Prehaps you will ask! why, G’d Father did not go on by land—but,
my dear G. children, the mode of traveling then, was quite different
from now, we had no railroads, no, steam conveyance, and scarcly,
a carriage—even the mail, was carried upon horses—a stage coach
was not known—
Brotherly Love I consequently, engaged a birth, for the spring,
with my uncle John Cobb, in the employ of Benja
Cobb & Sons, of Boston, in the Philadelphia trade, went home, &
attended School, about 2 months, when I was call’d upon, to go on
to Boston by land to join the vessell. I accordingly started, in
company with 3 others, for the same object, & walked to Boston. We
there joined the vessell, loaded her, & saild for Philadelphia—on our
arrival, I procured a permit, as soon as posible, & visited my poor
Brother in the hospital—affectionate Brothers & Sisters, can better
imagine, our feelings at meeting, than I can discribe it—suffice it to
say, he was not well anough, to leave the hospital then, but t’was
thought he wou’d be, by our next trip—our trips, only took up about a
month, & according the next time, he came on with us to Boston, & I
sent him home to our Mother.
I continued in the employ of B. C. & Sons, about a year, when
they premoted me to the office of mate—and in that capacity I
served them, under many different captains, between 6 & 7 years,
untill I felt myself qualifid. to command a vessel, & seeing no
disposition on their part to indulge me, I left the employ; went to
Baltimore, & made two voyages to Europe, in the capacity of 1st.
mate of a ship—after which, I returned to Boston; and got the
command of a Brig, in the employ of Edwd. & Willm. Reynolds—
Captured by the After making several voyages, to Virginia, & one
French to the West Idies; in April 1793, I went to the cape,
& got married; I was then in my 25th. year—. I
continued in the employ of the Messrs. Reynolds’s; principally in the
virginia trade, about two years longer, when they concluded to send
me, on a voyage to Europe—their object was, to cadiz; but at that
time, the algerines were at war with America; & it was reported, that
their crusiers were outside of the streights of Gibaralter—in
consequence, it was recommended that I should clear my vessell for
Curruna, a northern port in spain, and there essertain, whether it
would be safe, to proceed to Cadiz—I was however, spared the
trouble of enquirry, by falling in, with a French Frigate, who capturd,
& sent me to France. x x x x & here commences my first trouble &
anxiety, as a ship Master—having under my charge, a valuable
vessell & cargo, inexperienced in business—carried into a foreign
port, unacquainted with the language, no American consel, or
merchant to advise with—and my reputation, as a ship master,
depending upon the measures I persued &c &c.
The time, that I arrived in France, was during the french
Revolution, and in the bloody reign of Robertspeire—all was arnachy
& confusion—the galliotine, in continual opperation, & their streets &
publick squars, drenched with human blood—I minuted down, 1000
persons, that I saw beheaded, by that infernal machine; and
probably saw, as many more, that I did not note down, men, women,
preists & laymen, of all ages—and finally, before I left the country; I
saw Robertspeirs head taken off, by the same Machine—But, to
return to my induvidual, and embarised affairs—all my papers,
relative to my ship & voyage, had been taken from me, on board the
Frigate, at sea; I concluded they were put in possession of the prise
Master, who brought me in, but he, was not to be found; neither
could I find any clue to my papers, and without them, I could not
prove, any demand for redress upon the government, for their
violation of our neutrality—it was true, my vessel was there; but her
cargo, Flour & Rice, was taken out, & was daily made into bread,
soups, &c &c, for the half starved, populace—and without papers, I
could not, even substanciate my claim to an empty ship—they
meerly condecended, to send me to a Hotell, to board; & those of my
ships crew, that were sent in with me, were also, provided for.
In this very unpleasant perdicerment I remained about six weeks
—I had, however, in that time, written to the american charge des
affairs at Paris, & received an answer, but it contained nothing
definite, he regreted my situation, & that of my countrymen generally,
in France, & that it was owing to the disorganized state of affairs in
the country; and that, I must exercise patiance, & the government wd.
do what was right in time.
In about six weeks, as before observed, I was called upon, at my
lodgings, by an officer, of the tribunal of commerce, bringing, a copy
of the judgment, of said tribunal, upon my vessel and cargo, & a
linguister to explain it to me.
Thus, had they tried me, & passed sentance without my hearing,
or even knowing that I was on trial—but, in that way, all business
was managed in France at that time.
The decision of the tribunal, was, however, so favourable, that it
gave a spring to my feelings, & a sensation that gave new life.
A Promise to They declared, my vessell & cargo, to be new-
Pay trial property; & that, as the cargo was at my
disposition, I should be paid for it, by the
government, at the prices that might be fixed upon, by myself & the
agent of the government, and an adequate endemnification, for my
capture, detention, expenditures &c &c
I was then waited upon, to the agent of marine, to sell my cargo;
when it is presumed, there was not a pound, of the flour, or rice in
existance—and after battleing, in words, three days in succession,
we fixed the prices, as follows, viz—Flour $16.50, & Rice $5.50—
this, was a good begining, being over 200 prcent on the invoice.
but a long altercation now insue’d, relative to the payment—
money, was out of the question, for if they had it, to pay, there was a
law against bringing it away from the country—goods, also, were out
of the question, as well as bills on England or America—finally, I
agreed to take, government Bills of exchange, on Hamburg, payable
60 days after date, and was promised, by the Agent; that I should
have my bills, in 12 or 14 days—I waited patiently a month, but no
bills came; & finding that no confidence could be placed in their
promises, & feeling doubtfull, as to obtaing any thing for my Cargo; I
thought it advisable to send my vessell home, under charge of the
mate—consequently, I ballased her, & sent her away; writing to my
owners, that I was determd. to persevere, untill I obtained
satisfaction.
My mind being releived, from seing my vessell laying Idle, & at
great expense; I came to the determination of going to head
quarters, Paris—but many deficulties were to be surmounted, in
order to attain this object—1st. the road was dangerous to travail; the
adherents of royalty, were reduced to mere scurmaging parties, that
committed their depradations under cover of the night, in solitary
places, upon travellers, & the peaceble inhabitants—and as all
horses were taken into requisition by the government, except those
that conveyd. the national dispatches; there was no other mode of
travelling; and it was conterary to law, for them to take a passengers
—but my mind was fixed upon going, as the only chance of ever
accomplishing my business with the French government. I therefore
called upon the Minister of Marine, & got an official copy, of my
demands on the government, and had them recorded (a
precautionary measure) as I had lea[r]ned, that loseing a mans
papers, was one of their methods of procrastination, to keep far off a
settlement.
After this, I procured an interpreter, & waited upon Jean Con. St.
Andre, a man, holding high offices under the Government, &
reported to be, favourably disposed to Americans—to him I made
known my situation—the treatment I had received, the praplexity I
was in—& the necessity of going to Paris—& praying him, not only to
grant me a pasport, but to grant a special permitt, to one of the
Coureirs, to carry me there—after a long demur, with himself, &
repeatedly feeling of his neck, to see how it would bear the knife; he
returned a favourable reply—viz. that I must call upon him the next
day, when he would make the necessary arrangments &c
On to Paris Accordingly, in two days, I was underway for
Paris, in one of the national coureirs with
government dispatches, the Master of which, did not speak one word
of English, & myself, but a few words of French, of course, we were
not very sociable—we were furnished, each with a pair of pistals,
with a blunderbus, loaded, in front, our carraige, was musquet shot
proof, except in front; drove, by a postilion outside with from 5, to 9
horses, according to the road, which at best, was very indifferent.
And thus we drove on, Jehu like, without stoping, except to
exchange horses, & mail; taking occasionally, as we run, a mouthfull
of bread, and washing it down, with some low prised, red Burgendy
wine—as to sleep, I did not git one wink during the journey, of 684
miles. But la maitre de les despach, would sleep, during the day,
pitching about the carriage, for the roads were very rough, to my
very great anoyance—but, during the night, his anxiety kept him
awake, through fear, altho” we had a guard, of, from 12 to 24,
mouted horsmen each night, from sunset, to sunrise, to preceed, &
follow—and as a demonstration, that the precaution was necessary,
on the 2d morning, after leaving Brewst, just before our gaurds left
us, we witnessed a scene, that filled us with horrow.—the remains, of
a Coreir, laying in the road, the Master, the Postilion, & 5 horses
laying dead, & mangled by it, & the mail mutalated & scatered in all
directions. We were informed, afterwards, that the Coureir, was
without an gaurd, that the evening previous; there was an alarm in
the visinity, that had called out, all their fources to supress,
consequently, at the last stage, there was none to supply; & it was
death by law, for national despatches to stop, therefore, the Master
proceeded, without a guard, and met the fate, as discribed.
The next night, at about sun-setting we came to a stage, where
we expected to receive our guard, & there was none for us, however,
the next stage, was only five miles, & not considered very
dangerous; we therefore proceeded on, atho” not without great
anxiety; & preparation of our fire arms, in case of an attact.
A Word of In the very neat village of Alan[‘c]on, in
English Normondy, I had the first, & only, word of English,
sporken to me, during the journey, we stopped to
exchange horses & mail, when the Maitre, as usual, was called to an
account for having a passenger, & a foreigner too, in the Coureir;
and while he was making his justification, shewing pasports &c; a
man in a tattered uniform, came up to the door of the Carraige, &
reaching out his hand, said in quite good english; for the love of God,
my dear Sir, do permitt me to shake hands, with one, who comes
from that country, where, the great, and beloved Washington resides
—he only had time to say, ‘that he went to America with, la Fayettee,
and had the honour of having served under the best man God ever
made, even the great Washington.
Nothing interesting took place untill we reached Paris. It was at 4
[o:] Clock, of a beautifull June morning, that the Carriage stopped

before the gate of Hotel de Boston, & the bell rung, having been just
74 hours from the gates of Brest—during which time, I had not lost
myself in sleep, taken nothing warm upon my stomack, nor used
water, upon either hands or face—thus covered with dust, &
exhausted with fateague; I was received by the Porter, conveyed to a
chamber, providd. with washing apparatus, where I soon freed myself
from dust, applied clean linnen, and enscons’d myself in an excellent
Bed, saying to myself, soul take thine ease in sleep—but, it
appeared, that sleep had departed from me, I laid untill the clock
struck 10, without being able to obtain a doze, & then rose, &
attended, thro” the day, to finding out a train of my business, through
the American Consul &c, retired to Bed again at 9 [o:] Clock, heard
the Clock strike 12, and knew nothing after, untill 11 [o:] Clk the next
day; when awoke, feeling like myself again; although I slept very
sound the next night, for 9 hours without awaking.
Hope Deferred After essertaining where to apply, my first object
of attention was, to scearch for my Accounts, sent
on from Brest—the result was, they denied, at all the offices, ever
having received them, or heard of such a Brig, as the Jane, nor of
her comander, Capt. Cobb—well, “as I before observed, I prepared
for this event, before I left Brewst; by procuring a copy of my
Accounts &c &c, accordingly I laid an official set before them, and
thus introducing the Jane, & her commander—I was told, to call the
next day, & they would let me know, when my Bills wou’d be ready. I
therefore, was obliged to exercise patiance & wait; but when I called
the next day, my papers were not to be found in the office—no one
had put them away, no one could tell any thing about them—and
finally, after a long French jabber, it was concluded, that they must
have been left upon the counter, brushed off, & burned, among the
lose papers.
 This was too much, for my already perplexed, agitated, mind. I
knew of no way, but to write back to Brest, for another set—& they,
probably, woud. meet the same fate, as the two preseeding ones
had. I was now fully conveinced, that the whole was designed, for
the purpose of procrastination & putting off pay day as long as
possible—but it was a severe trial for me, in my inexperienced state.
I consulted with our consul; & with our Minister at the court of
France, but the only satisfaction was; git another set of papers, & we
will guard against another loss—
While seting, with writing meterials before me in my chamber, in
the act of writing for another set of papers—a French gentleman,
who occopied the next room, & who spoke good English, passed my
door; I asked him in, & related to him my greivances—after he had
thought for a few moments; he advised me, to endevour to obtain an
interveiw with Roberspeire, & make known to him my greivances;
assuring me that he was partial to Americans, & had no doubt, but
he would give me such advice as would be servicable to me—But, I
asked, will he, the leader of this nation, condesend to listen to a
private induvidual, & interpose, in meely, a commercial transaction—
yes, if the business is managed right, I am confident he will. But, how
shall I obtain an interveiw—simply by writing him a billet yourself, in
the republican stile, an American cetizen, to citizen Roberspeire, &
send it by a servant of the Hotel, requesting an interview upon
business.
Interview with After duly considering upon the subject, I wrote
Robespierre the following, & sent it by servant.
An American citizen, captured by a French
Frigate on the high seas, requests, a personal interveiw; & to
lay his greivances before citizens Roberspeire.
Very respectfully
E. Cobb
In about an hour, I received the following note, in his own hand
writing.
I will grant Citizen Cobb an interveiw to morrow at 10 A M.
 Roberspeire
This, gave a spring to my feelings, and banished that depression
which had held me in chains, for some days previous. I was puntual
to the time—sent my name up, & was admitted into the presence of
the great man. He pointed me to a seat without speaking; there was
one man, only, in the Hall, an enterpreter, who told me that, Citizen
Roberspeire whished me, to commince my relation, at the time of my
capture, and to tell the whole, up to this time—I accordingly
proceeded; and, thro” the interpreter, related my Capture &
treatment, up to that time—upon my closing the detail; with a waive
of Roberspeires hand, the interpreter left the hall, and he, R—e,
began conversing with me, in very good English, questioning me,
upon some perticcular points, of the former conversation; but more
perticurly, about the loss of my papers, since I arrived in Paris—
finally, he told me to call at an office, in Rue St. Honorie, called the
office of the 2d department, & demand my papers, I told him, that I
had been there repeatedly, & that I was forbid to enter the office
again, upon my telling him that, he exclaimed. Sacra coquin—go,
said he, to that office, & tell cetizen F. T., that you came from R—e,
and if he does not produce your papers, & finish your business
immediately, he will hear from me again, in a way not so pleasing to
him. Observing at the same time, that he regreted that his name
should be made use of, in a mercantile transaction, but that my case,
absolutely demanded it.
I tendered my greatfull thanks for his services, & left him; after
receiving his injunctions, to call & let him know how I succeeded—I
went direct to the aforesd. office; and, by the previledge of making
use of Roberspeirs name, I was kindly recd. an opology made, for
former abuses, and my business compleated the next day—but as
my exchanges were drawn, payable sixty days after date, & the
tribunal had decred, demurage &c, untill I received my Bills, I refused
to receive them in Paris, as my pay wou’d then stop, but insisted on
their being sent to the agent in Brest agreable to contract—my object
was, not to receive them untill 12 or 15 days before they were due,
consequently I remained in Paris about 3 weeks after my bills were
sent to Brest. and during that time, the great man, who had so
assentially befreinded me, was beheaded by the Galliotine.
Various This event, very meterially changed the aspect
Pleasant Towns of affairs in France; my exchanges, which before, I
could have readily sold at par value, now, would
not bring 50cts. on the dollar—this induced me, to go on to Hamburg
with them myself & know the result; and having a desire to see more
of the country, & could travell, principally, at the expence of the
nation, having full time, before my bills wou’d become due—I took
my seat in the accomodation stage for Burdeaux, visited that City,
tarried 5 days, again started, visited Nantes, Loreong,[2] & various
pleasant towns in La Vanda,[3] & arrived at Brest, 20 days before my
bills were due.
The agent of Merine, expressed a little disapprobation at my not
calling before for my Bills, having had them about 20 days—but I
setled with him, quite amicably; and found a small vessell, bound
direct for Hamburg, in her, I secured a passage, & embarked 3 days
after. We had a long passage, but I arrived the next day after my bills
became due.
Welcome And here, I will relate, one of those casual
Advice events, which frequently take place, to the benifit of
man—the vessell in which I took passage, stopped
at Gluxstad, a town on the river Elbe, about 30 miles below
Hamburg; the Captain & myself went on shore, & engaged a
carraige to take us up to the City; but night overtaking us before we
reached it, the gates were shut & we could not enter (the gates were
always shut at sunsetting, & upon no occasion, were opened untill
sun-rise) consequently, we turned back, about a mile, to the Danish
city of Altony, where put up for the night, at a famous Hotel, & there I
found a number of american ship Masters merchants &c; at the
supper table, various questions were asked me, by which they
learned that I was from France, that I came as a passenger; but I
discovered that curiosity was wide awake to know my business—I,
however, thought proper, to keep that to myself; having my fears,
relative to my Bills—after riseing from the supper table, a gentleman
came to me, & asked me into his room; being seated; he introduced
himself as follows.—I am Sir, an american, from New York, my name
is Loyle, I noticed the curiosity of our countrymen, at the supper
table, to know your business; & Sir, I was pleased to notice your
prudent reservation, upon the subject—I do not ask you; but
conjecture what it is, and if it is, as I think; I can be of service to you,
by way of advice, probably.—my conjecture is, that you have French
government Bills on their agent in Hamburg; if so, I advise you, to let
no man know it, but go & present your demands, in person;
otherwise, they will be protested; for their agent De çhapeaurouge,
has already been prosecuted, for paying French claims, I think,
therefore, if you conveince him, that no one but yourself, is privy to
the transaction, that he may pay them. I tended to Mr. Loyle my
thanks, for his information & left him, and the next morning, I entered
the city, and by enquiry soon found the office of the said agent, &
presented my Bill—he cast his eye upon it, without speaking, then
gave me a very scrutenizing look, & said, how came you in
possession of this draft—I received, Sir, from M. V. la Fontaine,
Minister of Marine at Brest—did you receive it in person, or thro”
other hands—I received it myself—has it been in your possession
ever since—it has—who are your freinds in this city—I have none,
nor even a corispondent, nor ever was in the city before, &, Sir, your
office, is the first, & only building I ever entered in Hamburg,—where
did lodge last night—I now told him, that I came a passenger from
Brewst, that the vessell stopped at Gluxstaad, that I landed & hired a
carriage to bring me to Hamburg, that we were too late to enter the
city last night, that the driver landed me in Altona, at Lants’s Hotel,
where I lodged & Breakfasted this morn”, that I came alone into the
city, & by enquiry had found his office—He then observed, it is an
unusual mode of negociating bills, it is generally done thro” some
resident merchant, especially by a stranger, like yourself—I told him,
that in so simple a transaction, as that of presenting a draft for
acceptance, I felt myself competant to the task, and thereby save
paying a commission—well, ‘said he you have acted discreetly, took
a pen & wrote accepted, across the face of the Bill—He then said;
your money is ready for you; but this draft, must not go out of my
hands again; for if it does, it never will be paid by me.
 This embarrassed me extreemly; what could I do, with 40,000
crowns in silver, in my situation, an entire stranger, in a strange City.
After a moments reflection, I said to him, will you, Sir, give me
your due bill, & allow me to receipt the draft—certainly, said he, I will;
and accordingly, it was done. This, I knew, was exchanging the
obligation, of a great & powerfull nation, for that of a private
induvidual; but I thought, that circomstances justified the Act.
I then asked him, if he would name to me, a house of
entertainment, frequented by Americans, & he ordered a servant to
conduct me to Lilbons Hotel—and thus closed the important
interveiw with De’ chapeaurouge; & I found his due Bill, as good as
Cash.
The Ways of Thus, how fortunate the circomstance of my
Providence interveiw with Mr. Loyle—but for his kind
information & advice, I shou’d, no doubt, have put
my draft, into the hands of the American Consul for collection; the
consequence would have been, a protest; and another tour to
France, to seek redress. And all this saved, by the Gates being shut
before I reached them. How often, my dear Grand Children, do we
repine and murmer, when disappointment, affliction, and trouble
come upon us; & even distrust the goodness of our Heavenly Father;
when we, very frequently, afterwards, realize that it was for our good.
It was somewhat so with me, I felt, very much put out, at the gates
being shut, & chided the driver for his dilatoryness, when he knew
the city gates closed at sun-sett—but this very circomstance, was
the means, of freeing my mind from a burden, which had weighed it
down for months,—it was the means of a happy, and prosperous
termination of my labourous voyage—for nothing now remained to
be done, but to remitt the funds to T. Dickerson & Sons, London; & to
take passage for Boston myself, & give an account of my
stewardship to my employers. And all this, I could do, with bouyant
sperits, having made them an excellent voyage.
I was not long in closing my business in Hamburg, & took
passage for Boston in the ship Warren, Capt. Hodgkins, where we
safely arrived after a passage of 54 days.
 My arrival, gave great relief to my owners, for, from the accounts
they had from France, they doubted the validity of my Bills on
Hamburg, & expected I wou’d have to return to France.—
The fortunate close of this tedious voyage, and my return; being
the first instance of the kind, under the then state of things in France,
produced, no small, excitement among the merchants of Boston,
who had property in France; and applications was continually made
to me, for all the whys & wherefores, relative to the fortunate result of
my business; and the consequence was, it added greatly to my
fame, as a ship master.
Another Voyage Another voyage was immediately planed, by my
to France owners for France, & I was only allowed a very few
days, to visit my family,—although, our first child
(now Aunt Sampson) was but 24 hours old when I left home—when I
return’d, could say, my par. But short, endeed, was the time allotted
me, for injoying the objects of my affection, I must leave them; and
persue the road marked out, for obtaining that subsistance for myself
& family, which nature required, and reason dictated.
After staying at home 4 days only, I returned to Boston, fitted out
my vessel, & sailed for Alexandria, & there purchased a cargo of
Flour & sail’d for France—on my arrival in Harvre de grace; I found
that government purchased all the flour that came to market
Consequently, I sold my cargo to the governments agent, at 20
crows pr bbl, under a promis, that I sho’d have my pay, in 40 days
after delivery.
But I found, to my sorrow, that no confidence could be placed in
their pledges; & that I was again subjected, to a tedious altercation
with the agent & his government. After dancing attendance upon
them about 2½ months, my vessell, at the same time, laying Idle & at
a great expence, I again concluded to send her home, under charge
of the mate, & stay myself, & fight it out. Accordingly, I dispatchd the
Brig, & went on to Paris, prepared for the seige & expecting a long
one.
In about two months more, I received, about one third of my
demand, in Ingots of silver, & made a trip over to London, &