The question about the best lecture I received at Columbia resonated with me, because I remember it so well.

Let me start by saying that I had many great lectures. But the one that stands out so starkly was delivered by Steele Commanger, the Latin professor and son of the famous historian Henry Steele Commanger. I had taken a great deal of Latin in high school, and already several courses at Columbia, and was able to read it readily. But it was still a dead language to me; my command of Latin consisted of reading and translating it.

It was the first day of a class on Catullus. Prof. Commanger said, in essence, that until we could appreciate the beauty of the spoken language we weren't "getting it," and that the value of Catullus was not in the translation, but, as with any great English poet, in the art and artifice of how he said what he said. Then he began pacing back and forth, reciting the poetry from memory, with bits of English commentary "placing" the poem thrown in.

On about the third poem, I suddenly got it. The poem was about the afterglow of lying with a lover in a beautiful spot. As he recited, the language and the image of the experience merged for me, and I "heard" Latin for the first time. With that, I realized that the power of language did not rest only in English, and that what those conversant in other languages heard when the use of their language was inspired was what I head when I read great English prose or poetry.

I majored in Comparative Literature, with Latin literature primary. And to this day I can vividly recall that moment on a hot fall afternoon high up in Hamilton Hall.