(From the Indiana years)

One of my favorite scenes from Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird occurs when Calpurnia, the African-American servant of Atticus Finch, describes how she learned to read.  People automatically assume that she learned from reading the Bible, but she replies that she learned to read from Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England.  Aside from the subtle criticism of religious fundamentalists, this scene is profound. 

For those of you unfamiliar with that text, the Commentaries is arguably the greatest legal text ever written.  It greatly influenced the jurisprudence (legal philosophy) of the United States and that of other countries.  Judges over the ages have granted great deference to Blackstone’s ideas on how the law is to shape society. 

When Blackstone wrote the Commentaries (they were originally lectures), however, he was considered to be a failure.  He was a fat and unsuccessful thirty year old lawyer at the time.  When he delivered the lectures for the first time, he acknowledged that he was of no consequence.  

I like the scene about Calpurnia from To Kill a Mockingbird because it cautions against presumptions.  That point can also be made about Blackstone.  Sir Ian McKellen (Gandalf, Magneto), stated recently that at the age of 64, he is finally in the prime of his life and that there is no need to fret about when or whether things will happen.  Tolkien appropriately concludes, “All that is gold does not glitter; Not all who wander are lost…”