dual personalities

As you know, lately I’ve been binging on worthy comfort literature from the middle of the last century. I just re-read Assignment in Brittany, Helen MacInnes’s 1942 novel about a British agent in France just after Dunkirk — I recommend it without reservation and naturally had to find out more.

According to Wikipedia, the book was so accurate that it became required reading for allied agents during the war. Many surmised that MacInnes got her information from her husband, renowned classicist, Gilbert Highet, who served in MI6, but of course that is highly unlikely as it would have been a big breach of the official secrets act. She was just smart and observant and knew a lot of interesting people, including her husband, who was also her one true love.

They were both Scottish and met at university (he does have a nice Scottish face, don’t you think? It’s the eyes). During the ’30s, they became so repelled by Hitler and so appalled at British apathy that they moved to the U.S. where Highet became a professor at Columbia. When the war broke out he had only been there for a couple of years, yet despite his career and his young family, without hesitation he took the train to Canada and enlisted. He was called up to active duty in 1940 and served throughout the war. Later, they both became American citizens.

In addition to being a prolific classical scholar, Highet wrote about teaching and literature. Some of his pithier remarks are widely quoted on the internet:

He even wrote some poetry. I particularly like his ‘post-obit’ that was recently discovered among his papers:

What will you think of me when I die,
Helen? There won’t be an official life —
a paragraph at most. But you alone
could write a volume. Most is secret;
and that you will not write. The rest is public,
covering fifty harsh laborious years,
and unimportant. Please remember me
as we lived secretly and happily.
“He was a merry man, God rest his soul;”
he was a merry man, and loved you well.

You can read more about Gilbert Highet here. I found the poem in an article, “The Correspondence of Gilbert Highet and Helen MacInnes,” by Robert J. Ball, Classical World 101 (2008): 504-531.

Thanks to Helen MacInnes and Gilbert Highet for improving my week immensely. May we all be as merry and love as well!