| Author Quoted | Samuel Nathaniel Behrman |
| Title Quoted | Portrait of Max: an Intimat Memoire of Sir Max Beerbohm |
| Date (Year/Month/Day) | 1961/01/22 |
| Imprint | New York : [s.n.]. 1960 |
| Quotation | I know what really annoys me about the Behrman book-he is finally, completely, dedicated to the illusion that Max was to be treated as some kind of ultimate reality, as an ens per se [being existing by itself]. The total acceptance of shadow for substance, the conservation of accident for its own sake. One can and should enjoy Beerbohm's humor, his comments on his time and on his contemporaries, but to solidify him into something eternal, just in what was precisely transient about him, this is sentimental and idolatrous and therefore it is very boring. |
| Quotation Source | Turning Toward the World: The Pivotal Years. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 4, 1960-1963.; Edited by Victor A. Kramer. / San Francisco : Harper Collins. 1996, p. 90 |
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| Notes | |
| Link to Merton's Copy |
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