Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2936

Newspaper clipping of a book review with a brief penciling by Heath

No date

[Raymond English titled his book review of Russell Kirk’s A PROGRAM FOR CONSERVATIVES, “The First Job is Criticism.” This title evidently came from a quote from Kirk half-way through the review, “The first task for the imaginative conservative is the hard duty of frank criticism…”. Heath briefly penciled in the margin, “No — S.H.” Heath had cultivated Kirk (and been a guest,  accompanied by Spencer MacCallum, at Kirk’s home in Mecosta, Michigan), attempting  to interest him in a vision of a “dynamic conservatism” (see letters in this Archive).  Kirk was more than a little cordial and seemingly receptive, saying that he intended to address that in this book he was then working on. But when the book came out, it was as if Kirk had heard nothing of what Heath had tried to get across to him.]