(Mark Edmundson, a professor of English at the University of Virginia) I was giving a lecture in New York not all that long ago. I was talking about ideals. The audience was made up of therapists and therapists in training at the eminent William Alanson White Institute on the Upper West Side. After the talk was over, I was asked a remarkable question. Certainly it was the best-posed question that I have ever gotten at a talk.