"Fallen Leaves"

Not to be confused with
"Autumn Leaves" (Prévert)

I actually learned about "Fallen Leaves" from a 2015 NYT obituary about the owner of a Pakistani bookstore. It begins as follows:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — After his father died, Ahmad Saeed took over the office on the ground floor of the family's storied bookstore here, Saeed Book Bank. Then the elderly men started visiting, seeking to settle old debts.

"They all apologized and said they had tried to see my father while he was alive but his office was always too crowded and they were embarrassed," Mr. Saeed said.

Five times such men arrived, hat in hand, not just to pay their respects to the son and family, but also to say they wanted to pay for books they had shoplifted as children. Mr. Saeed said his father, Saeed Jan Qureshi, who died of heart failure in September, would have been amused: He had always regarded book theft by children as an investment in a future where people still read, and thus become his customers.

In the article, it becomes apparent that "Fallen Leaves" was one of Saeed's favorite works. Since a recommendation from such a wise-seeming person carries extra weight, I put the book on my list and finally read it earlier this year.

Reading "Fallen Leaves" is a bit like having a conversation with a mentor. The topics covered include life, death, religion, morality, art, science, war, politics, the arc of history, and more. Will Durant is best known for his "Story of Civilization," and his research for that work clearly gave him ample material to work with here. I've included a few passages I found particularly memorable below.

In the end we must steel ourselves against utopias and be content, as Aristotle recommended, with a slightly better state. We must not expect the world to improve much faster than ourselves. (98)

Who now will arise to harness our knowledge to wisdom, our science to conscience, our power to humane purposes, our jealous sovereignties to a federated peace? Who will call a halt to hatred, and organize a Pax Christiana for our shattered, murderous, suicidal world? (136)

It is the function and high destiny of education to pour this civilizing heritage into this vigorous stock, that the gifts of the earth may be more intelligently exploited than before, that our prosperity may be more widely distributed, and that our riches may flower into finer manners and morals, profounder literature and saner art. I do not doubt that on this broadest basis of educational opportunity and material possibilities ever known, we shall build a society and a civilization comparable with the best, and capable of adding some measure of wisdom and beauty to the inheritance of mankind. (155)

It is a mistake to think the past is dead. Nothing that has ever happened is quite without influence at this moment. The present is merely the past rolled up and concentrated in this second of time.
...
A wise man can learn from other men's experience; a fool cannot learn even from his own. History is other men's experience, in countless number through many centuries. By adding some particles of that moving picture to our vision we may multiply our lives and double our understanding. (157-158)

Verdict: a beautifully written and thought-provoking read, particularly the sections about human life and the arc of history (which of course was Durant's specialty). Highly recommended.