Fallen Leaves By Will Durant

Fallen Leaves By Will Durant

Prolouge: That was it. A total of four aggravatingly brief statements about a book that no one, not even the Durant heirs, knew existed. And, unless you happened to live in Los Angeles, where the above television interview was aired in 1968 and two of the three newspaper articles were published during the mid- to late 1970s, you would not have known anything about Will Durant even contemplating the writing of such a book. Frustrating indeed. It was considered to be Durant’s most important work; the culmination of his sixty-plus years spent researching the philosophies, religions, arts, sciences, and civilizations of the world. It was to be the distilled wisdom and considered conclusions about our species’ perennial problems and greatest joys, from a man who had not only read about life but had lived it through some of the world’s most profound and cataclysmic moments—two world wars, the Great Depression, the rise of socialism and anarchism, the decline of religious belief, and the gradual change in American morals from the Victorian era to Woodstock. Durant had been born in 1885, when the primary mode of transportation between towns was the horse and carriage; he died in 1981—twelve years after man had first walked on the surface of the moon. What changes he had witnessed—and what interesting and often predictable cycles of human behavior! Certainly such patterns, particularly when viewed against the backdrop of human history, would be worth sharing for the benefit and education of future generations. What, for instance, was to be said for religious faith, after Darwin and science had toppled God from his throne in heaven and put nothing in his place but the gloomy angst of existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre? What is it in our nature that makes wars and conflict seemingly unavoidable? And what is the deeper meaning of life, love, and happiness? What is the purpose of art? Of science? What educational approach is best—and what makes man (or one man, at least) attracted to woman? Herein were to be the answers to such questions as only a thinker and writer of Durant’s caliber could answer them. It was to be a message of insight for those who had sought meaning in life or the council of a learned friend in navigating life’s journey. And it was also believed to be a manuscript that had inexplicably been “lost.” I had only learned of the manuscript after I had undertaken the move of the Durant archive to my home in Ontario, Canada. And then it had been as a result of several months poring over newspaper clippings, old essays, letters, audio recordings, decaying movie film, magazine articles, and cryptic jottings that became the fodder for certain volumes of The Story of Civilization. There were of course many delightful surprises during this period; chiefly the discovery of Dr. Durant’s manuscript for Heroes of History and the audio recordings that he created with his wife, Ariel, for that project (both written and recorded during his ninety-third year). Evidently Durant had still been working on Fallen Leaves in some capacity during this period. But then after happening upon the tantalizing fragments given above there was nothing, no scrap of paper even indicating such a title, no evidence at all that such a manuscript ever existed. As the Durant archive had been well picked over by manuscript houses shortly after his passing, I knew that I hadn’t seen absolutely everything he had written. I contacted his granddaughter, Monica Mihell, about getting in touch with these archive houses to at least see what they had in inventory from the Durant papers. Some were cooperative; others would not return calls. And then I happened upon an archive house that indicated that they had sent the Durant estate copies of their collection, which included letters between Will and Ariel and a manuscript entitled Fallen Leaves! An extensive search of the Durant archive by both Monica and myself, along with repeated attempts to obtain an additional copy from the archive house—or even a contact for the person who might have this treasure in his possession—proved fruitless. The archive house indicated that they had given the estate photocopies of what they had shortly after their purchase and that was all that they were prepared to do.

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