Father Bloom,
I did a search for a reference to Will and Ariel Durant's The Story of Philosophy and hit your essay/review. I was raised Catholic but am as lapsed as one can get. However during my tenure at a boarding school for gifted children, run by Jesuits, as a 5th grade student, I began a lifelong interest in the answer to the question "What is the good life?" Today I was doing research to provide an interim content piece for our new website debut. After all the readings and youthful intellectual pursuit of several years, I too, later in life, found his book (to be fair Ariel did some of the drudge work and research) a gem for my time constraints as a father of two with a career that left no leisure. Your critique made sense as I was already a fan of the "Old Glass Grinder", and found his work appealed to my then new found Objectivist perspective. I am no longer able to recall, 38 years later, all the intricacies of the different philosophies and felt a little sad to realize that I could not even remember the differences between them. Your review was stimulating and rekindled some of that old spark. I still have to write the intro piece to our philosophy page, that will be taken over by another as soon as we find that other. I enjoyed your "voice" and your observations.
Thank you
Derek and Lynda Gore
Livingston, TX.