A Conversation With Dervish Baba

Le Marabout Errant: Dervish Baba, how would you like to be remembered once you've shuffled off this mortal coil? Dervish Baba: Must one be remembered? LME: No, of course not. But if you are remembered... DB: By whom? How I wish to be remembered will change depending upon the rememberer. LME: Fair enough. Let us say by public reputation. DB: I suppose it is kind of you to imagine that I have such a thing--or will have such a thing by the time I pass on. In any case, I doubt I could do better than to be remembered as Lionel Trilling remembered the Roman historian Tacitus: for his "power of mind" and "stubborn love of virtue maintained in desperate circumstances."