When Arendt Met Auden

Hannah Arendt: “I met Auden late in his life and mine – at an age when the easy, knowledgeable intimacy of friendships formed in one’s youth can no longer be attained, because not enough life is left, or expected to be left, to share with another. Thus, we were very good friends but not intimate friends. Moreover, there was a reserve in him that discouraged familiarity – not that I tested it, ever.”