Remembering Irving Howe

Lionel Trilling once told how he had been looking for an appropriate word to characterize George Orwell, whom he wished to eulogize. It finally seemed to him that a very old-fashioned word was most appropriate, the word virtue. This word seems to me also most appropriate to characterize Irving Howe. He was a virtuous man, one who tried to live up to self-imposed moral standards and moral duties.