|
|
|
Dedication
|
FOR KITTY PREYER
1925–2005
|
|
|
|
| With the consent of those whose work appears here, and on behalf of the American Society for Legal History, we dedicate this issue of the Law and History Review to our beloved friend and colleague, Kathryn Preyer, who died on April 19, 2005, aged eighty. Kitty Preyer was a distinguished American legal and constitutional historian and professor emerita of history at Wellesley College, where she taught from 1955 until her retirement in 1990. Throughout, her career was marked by scholarship of the finest caliber. But we remember Kitty not only for her life as a scholar but for her kindness and her generosity to friends and acquaintances, old and new, in all walks of life. Kitty was a person of grace and honor, and her presence graced and honored us all. Her scholarship will endure in our histories; her humanity, her wit, and her sparkling intellect in our memories. To Bob Preyer, Kitty's husband, to her stepdaughters, nieces, nephews, and their families, we offer our deepest sympathies. However great our loss we know theirs is greater yet. |
1
|
The poem that appears on the following page is "Thanks, Robert Frost," by David Ray. It is a poem that held a deep personal meaning for Kitty, and we are very grateful indeed to David Ray in so kindly granting us permission to reproduce the poem here. Thanks also to Mary Bilder, Arlie Corday of Wellesley College, Kent Newmyer, Bob Preyer, and Harry Scheiber for their assistance in preparing this dedication.
Do you have hope for the future?
Someone asked Robert Frost, toward the end.
Yes, and even for the past, he replied,
that it will turn out to have been all right
for what it was, something we can accept,
mistakes made by the selves we had to be,
not able to be, perhaps, what we wished,
or what looking back half the time it seems
we could easily have been, or ought ...
The future, yes, and even for the past,
that it will become something we can bear.
And I too, and my children, so I hope,
will recall as not too heavy the tug
of those albatrosses I sadly placed
upon their tender necks. Hope for the past,
yes, old Frost, your words provide that courage,
and it brings strange peace that itself passes
into past, easier to bear because
you said it, rather casually, as snow
went on falling in Vermont years ago.
©David Ray, from Sam's Book (Wesleyan University Press, 1987)
|
2
|
|
|
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|