Souter's Eulogy Of A '27 Tips Odd The Press

"In praising a mentor, Souter drops some clues," read the headline of David Nyhan's column in the Boston Globe. A eulogy written by Supreme Court nominee David Souter for his late colleague and role model Laurence Ilsley Duncan '27 contained a few grains of information about the elusive Souter's personality and views on judgeship. Duncan, a former New Hampshire supreme court judge who died in 1982, made quite an impression on the younger judge.

Souter writes that Duncan "was a great judge because he saw beyond records and articulated premises, to litigants and to the sources of a court's strength to do right by litigants, whatever the right may be." Souter also praises Duncan's belief that "the world had a fair claim to the highest use of his power to bring order to human thought, for the sake of liberty and the common good."

Reflecting his own preference for privacy and solitude, Souter offers these words of praise: "He was not a chronic socializer. He had the intellectual wherewithal to go it alone if he had chosen to do that."

"He was my kind of judge," effuses Souter. It remains to be seen, however, whether or not David Souter is the Senate Judiciary Committee's kind of judge.