Arts and Letters

Edith Hamilton was born of American parents in Dresden, Germany, on the 12th of August 1867. She died May 31, 1963.

Inevitably one thinks first of the long span granted her, but what counts is, of course, not how long one lives but what one does with one's life. Miss Hamilton put every moment of hers to good use. She was already reading Latin at seven and thus launched upon her life work as student and interpreter of classical literature, classical thought, and the classical way of life. After graduating A.B. and M.A. from Bryn Mawr in 1894, she spent part of the next two years studying in Leipzig and Munich; she immediately thereafter began her long career (1896-1922) as head mistress of the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore.

The two books by which she is best known, The Greek Way and The Roman Way, were published in, respectively, 1930 and 1932. Though she published a number of other significant works, including a translation of Three Greek Plays (1937) it was The Greek Way and The Roman Way which best exhibited her special interests, her special approach, and her special (indeed unique) talent. Many others had described what it is conventional to call "our debt to Greece and Rome." Miss Hamilton did that but she also did something much more difficult. She brought to life in the minds of her readers a shared experience by making a "way" of thinking, feeling, and judging understandable and attractive rather than merely "interesting." Few scholars have ever been so little the mere antiquarian. Her special talent was to establish with the ancient world what our psychological jargon calls an "empathy." She admired as well as understood much of the Greek way and the Roman way and she taught her readers to admire them also.

Soon after she began her career honorary degrees and other distinctions began to be showered upon her. Among the latter were, of course, election to the Institute in 1955 and to the Academy in 1957.

So far as I know Miss Hamilton never exercised the privilege of all who reach her age by telling others how they might do likewise. But if one may judge from her own case the rule is simple: Discover what you can do best and with most satisfaction to yourself; then do that with an unremitting dedication. Perhaps the best inscription for her monument would be: "The gods approve the depth, and not the tumult, of the soul."