Norman Cousins - Dr. Schweitzer of Lambaréné

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Text originally published in 1960 under the same title.

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DR. SCHWEITZER OF LAMBARN

BY

NORMAN COUSINS

With Photographs by Clara Urquhart

Contents

NORMAN COUSINS has been editor of Saturday Review since 1940. Under his editorship, the magazine has become an influential and unique spokesman for cultural freedom and for sanity and morality in public affairs. He has lectured about American life and cultural freedom in many parts of the world, including India, Pakistan, Japan, Indonesia, Malaya, and the Soviet Union. In 1945, he published the essay, MODERN MAN IS OBSOLETE, which anticipated the major problems and challenges of the atomic age. He is also the author of THE GOOD INHERITANCE, TALKS WITH NEHRU, WHO SPEAKS FOR MAN?, and IN GOD WE TRUST: The Personal Philosophies and Religious Beliefs of the Founding Fathers. He edited the volume A TREASURY OF DEMOCRACY, and, with William Rose Bent, THE POETRY OF FREEDOM. He is a member of the editorial board of the Encyclopaedia Britannica .

To My Father

This book is in the nature of a personal appreciation. It does not seek to be either an historical analysis of an eminent contemporary or a detailed biographical treatment. It is concerned with the carrying power of a symbol and with some of the people who are part of it. It was constructed from notes taken on a trip to Africa. Though most of these notes are about a man at Lambarn, some of them are in the nature of digression. Lambarn is a good place for digressions, especially those of a retrospective turn.

A word about the photographs. The initials C.U. belong to Clara Urquhart. Mrs. Urquhart is not to be taxed with the responsibility for the photographs that carry no initials; these were taken by the author.

Mrs. Urquhart, who was with me in Lambarn, has given me the benefit of her own recollections and has made important suggestions about the manuscript. Erica Anderson, who made the major film about Dr. Schweitzer, checked the facts in this manuscript and spared me the agony of a number of errors. Nicholas Balint helped check the proofs. Sallie Lou Parker picked up after me graciously and generously, and put up with an author whose changes on manuscript necessitated at least a dozen retypings. To all these, and to a forbearing wife and daughters, I give acknowledgments and thanks.

N.C.

AT THE END of dinner each evening at his jungle Hospital in Lambarn, French Equatorial Africa, Dr. Albert Schweitzer would fold his napkin, announce the number of the hymn to be sung, get up and walk over to the upright piano on the other side of the room. He would arrange the hymn carefully on the music stand, study it for a moment, then start to play.

I doubt whether I shall ever forget my shock and disbelief when, the first evening of my visit, I saw him approach the upright. Earlier in the day, while exploring the Hospital on my own, I had wandered into the dining room where Dr. Schweitzer and his staff of fifteen eat each day. The first thing that caught my eye was the piano. It must have been at least fifty years old. The keyboard was badly stained; large double screws fastened the ivory to each note. I tried to play but drew back almost instantly. The volume pedal was stuck and the reverberations of the harsh sounds hung in the air. One or more strings were missing on at least a dozen keys. The felt covering the hammers was worn thin and produced pinging effects.

Before coming to Lambarn, I had heard that under equatorial conditions of extreme heat and moisture one doesnt even try to keep a piano in tune; you make your peace with the inevitable and do the best you can.

Even so, when I saw Dr. Schweitzer sit down at the piano and prop up the hymnbook, I winced. Here was one of historys greatest interpreters of Bach, a man who could fill any concert hall in the world. The best grand piano ever made would be none too good for him. But he was now about to play a dilapidated upright virtually beyond repair. And he went at it easily and with the dignity that never leaves him.

I knew then that I would never be able to put out of my mind the imagepainful in one sense, exalting in anotherof Schweitzer at the old upright in Lambarn. For here was the symbol, visible and complete, of everything he had given up in order to found a hospital in Africa. Renunciation by itself may mean little. What is renounced and the purpose of the renunciationthat is what is important. In the case of Albert Schweitzer, renunciation involved a distinguished career as organist and pianist; it extended to the intimate study and analysis of the nature of music in general and the organ in particular; it embraced a detailed understanding of the life and meaning of Johann Sebastian Bach. In all of this work there was the meticulous pursuit of perfection. Yet this did not exhaust the renunciation. There was a record in theology, philosophy, and history, in each of which Schweitzer had made major contributions as teacher and author. Solid foundations had been built for a lifelong career in any of these fields.

I wrote a moment ago that I felt not only pain but a certain inspiration in the image of Schweitzer at the old piano. For the amazing and wondrous thing was that the piano seemed to lose its poverty in his hands. Whatever its capacity was to yield music was now being fully realized. The tinniness and chattering echoes seemed subdued. It may be that this was the result of Schweitzers intimate acquaintance with the piano, enabling him to avoid the rebellious keys and favoring only the co-operative ones. Whatever the reason, his being at the piano strangely seemed to make it right.

And, in a curious way, I discovered that this was to be true of almost everything else at Lambarn. Schweitzers being there made it right. Much of what you saw for the first time at the Hospital seemed so primitive and inadequate as to startle. But when Dr. Schweitzer walked through the grounds, everything seemed as it should be. More than that: the profound meaning of Lambarn suddenly came to life. And I was to learn that there was a reason behind everything at Lambarn.