The Summing-Up

Abstract

There is more than a little presumption behind any effort of one human being to evaluate the life of another. In one of her novels May Sarton has a character say, “We cannot know what is occurring inside someone else’s marriage. In fact, we probably aren’t wholly clear about what’s happening in our own.” This study cannot claim immunity from similar criticism. But both Eleanor Roosevelt and Adlai Stevenson possessed qualities so rare in their breadth and depth in woman or man in any age in human history, we may safely predict that generations hence there will be others eager to explore the sources of their strength and the power of their example.