| Introduction | p. xiii |
| At Home | |
| Life at Great Elm: Where summer seemed gloriously endless | p. 3 |
| Life at Great Elm II: Learning about music, as a boy | p. 11 |
| St. John's, Beaumont: Going off to school in England, 1938 | p. 17 |
| The "Distinguished" Mr. Buckley: Introducing my son, the speaker, 1986 | p. 36 |
| Wine in the Blood: A legacy of learned pleasure | p. 39 |
| Wine: One Man's Happy Experiences: The challenge of collecting affordable wines | p. 42 |
| William Frank Buckley, 1881-1958: A word about my father | p. 48 |
| Aloise Steiner Buckley, 1895-1985: And a word about my mother | p. 51 |
| Yale | |
| God and Man at Yale: A controversy revisited | p. 57 |
| A Toast to the Class of 1950: Remarks at a fortieth reunion | p. 95 |
| Reflections on Life after Yale: A self-interview for a fiftieth-reunion yearbook | p. 104 |
| Wartime | |
| Army Life: At Officer Candidate School in Fort Benning, Georgia | p. 115 |
| Sailing (and Skiing, and One Fly-By) | |
| We Must Sail across the Ocean! The resolve that led to a passage, Miami-Bermuda-Azores-Gibraltar | p. 123 |
| Christmastime in the Caribbean: A folksy cruise, aboard my schooner, Cyrano | p. 145 |
| Gulf Stream Musings: A navigator's thoughts, preoccupations, alarums | p. 164 |
| Meet Me at K Club: Misadventures on a charter sail | p. 174 |
| A Quickie, Bahamas to Charleston: Coming upon a mystery boat at sea, in a storm | p. 179 |
| Pleasure on Skis: The prospect of a single run down the Videmanette in Rougemont, Switzerland | p. 191 |
| Alta, My Alta: And how we learned about short skis | p. 197 |
| Six Freshmen and an Ercoupe: A bright undergraduate idea: buy an airplane! | p. 206 |
| The Angel of Craig's Point: An adventure in New Brunswick, featuring the only unpleasant person in the province | p. 217 |
| A Sail across the Pacific: From Honolulu to New Guinea-an account written for Life magazine | p. 228 |
| Aweigh: An inquiry: Why, after a lifetime at sea, give it all up? | p. 240 |
| People | |
| Ten Friends: On crossing paths with David Niven, Ronald Reagan, Henry Kissinger, Clare Boothe Luce, Tom Wolfe, Vladimir Horowitz, Roger Moore, Alistair Cooke, Princess Grace, and John Kenneth Galbraith | p. 255 |
| Five Colleagues: On working as colleagues with editors Willi Schlamm, Willmoore Kendall, Frank Meyer, James Burnham, and Priscilla Buckley... | p. 282 |
| And a Sixth: ...and with William A. Rusher, publisher | p. 292 |
| Remembering | |
| Whittaker Chambers, 1901-1961: Underneath the gloom was tenderness and, even, a kind of gaiety | |
| Murray Kempton, 1917-1997: A friend to anyone who was down, even Roy Cohn | p. 318 |
| Henry Regnery, 1912-1996: When book publishing was fun | p. 330 |
| National Review, b. 1955: The hour is late, and the printer's messenger is already waiting... | p. 338 |
| Blackford Oakes, b. 1975: First of all, I needed a protagonist | p. 343 |
| William Shawn, 1907-1992: His geniality was a matter of decorum | p. 354 |
| Firing Line, 1966-1999: Debating with Ronald Reagan over the Panama Canal | p. 362 |
| Language | |
| The Dictionary, Ready at Hand: An auxiliary use of the computer, wonderful | p. 391 |
| The Conflict over the Unusual Word: Should discouraging the use of unusual words be a national mandate? | p. 395 |
| On Writing Speedily: If Trollope had had a word processor, would he have written five times as much? | p. 400 |
| Getting About | |
| 1001 Days on the Orient Express: A lifetime, traveling from Peking to Moscow | p. 409 |
| Definitive Vacations: "There is never a convenient time for a vacation" | p. 421 |
| A Pilgrimage to Lourdes: Does this thing really work? | p. 427 |
| The Stupefaction of the New England Coastline: As seen under full sail | p. 443 |
| A Performance with the Symphony, Coming Up: Did I really promise to do that? | p. 446 |
| The Life of the Public Speaker: Fifty years on the lecture circuit | p. 455 |
| Going Down to the Titanic: A nine-hour dive, round trip | p. 469 |
| Aboard the Sea Cloud: Sailing, with others at the helm, to Pitcairn and Easter Islands | p. 482 |
| Politics | |
| My Own Secret Right-Wing Conspiracy: My adventure in politics at the seedling level | p. 501 |
| Running for Mayor of New York City: Sort of | p. 518 |
| Social Life | |
| Querencia: On Coping with Social Tedium: Recall that historian Harold Nicolson said uninteresting people are...interesting | p. 545 |
| The Threatened Privacy of Private Clubs: Are they a refuge? How to defend them? | p. 553 |
| Why Don't We Complain?: The end of the line, without complaint | p. 558 |
| Epilogue: Thoughts on a Final Passage | p. 569 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 575 |
| Index | p. 577 |
| Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved. |
