Ralph de Toledano, R.I.P.(OBITUARY)(Obituary)

RALPH DE TOLEDANO was the saddest man I ever knew. One only hopes that his death on February 3, at 90, ended that sadness, though it requires a very dogmatic belief in God to be confident of it.

I heard from Toledano ("not de Toledano," he instructed me years ago) at regular intervals. There are perhaps 150 letters from him in my files and, without exception, they complain. That he is friendless in Washington, that he cannot find a publisher for his books, that the world no longer has any interest in his accomplishments.

Much of this was correct, though the fault was not always that of others. Toledano, although he had published more than 20 books, was not good at self-promotion, by which here is meant writing copy that has a fair chance of catching the eye of editors because it will serve their purposes. The only purpose Toledano ended up serving by his prolonged absences from the public stage was the care and feeding of his muse.

No one can ever have expressed Weltschmerz more fully, more evocatively, more eloquently. "Do you know anyone ready to buy an oil lamp, long in my family, which goes back to Cervantes' time?" He was speaking of his imminent poverty. And "For all my efforts, I find myself unwept, unhonored, and badly sung--contemplating two books that I cannot get published and wandering about my apartment talking to Eunice [his late wife], whom I mourn every day."

He had had a great deal to write about. He was an editor at Newsweek during the great Chambers-Hiss trial. It was during this trial that he became a close, apostolic friend of Chambers (Regnery published a volume of their letters in 1997, titled Notes from the Underground). During the trial Toledano ...