[laughter] but lionel trilling is a 50-foot-tall giant compared with the sociology department at columbianiversity. [laughter] >> you know, i've got -- i looked at that quote by trilling, and i actually use it in my book that comes out this spring called "the death of liberalism." and i went over that quote. it didn't ruffle my feathers terribly, and i think that were he alive today, he'd be completely on our side. i think he was talking about a kind of conservativism that he couldn't quite imagine. within two years, of course, it had popped up in the person of bill buckley. and then i wonder what he would have got -- i'm sure he was more generous towards conservativism in the end than he was in the beginning. >> not as i recall. [laughter] >> all right. let's invite the audience into the discussion. you must come down to one of these microphones, please. and make your question brief, blunt and then, as roger suggests, you may be gone. [laughter] thank you. >> something ms. kimball said got me to thinking about the whole question of herd instinct. at the beginning of this century when ans

i mean, if--lionel trilling, a great columbia teacher and critic, used to say, 'the book reads you.' turn it around. it finds you not terribly interesting at 18, perhaps it finds you more interesting at 35 and more interesting yet at--at 50. and when i read "king lear" at 48 when w--this time around--my mother had died just a couple of years prior to the beginning of this project, and she was this great businesswoman in new york and very loving person. but she--she got real tough after my--difficult for me after my father died and she quit her business and became learlike in her demand for more love than i could possibly give her at any one moment. and i didn't always handle that situation well. and i--so i had gone through--this is--and this is part of what the play is about: that lear begins by demanding a--a--some kind of show trial of affection from his three daughters. he's an old man not failing in any way. as far as we can see, he's intellectually, certainly, all there, tre--tremendous drive and energy. but he's tired. he's 80. he wants to give up the kingship. then he poses t