Hannah Arendt: For the Love of the World

I am reading Elisabeth Young-Bruehl's masterful biography of Hannah Arendt at the moment--it is filled with descriptions of Arendt's friends and intellectual influences, her context, her works with relation to her life, and is interspersed with her poetry. The friends she had are astounding--Heidegger, Hans Jonas, Karl Jaspers, Paul Tillich, Auden (the picture to the left is one that Arendt took of him). In addition, she attended Alexandre Kojeve's seminars on Hegel with Jean-Paul Sartre. I like this anecdote from her time as an editor in New York:

"Several exciting acquaintances developed as a result of Salman Schocken's (the man who hired her) peculiar manner of dealing with authors. Arendt met T. S. Eliot when he came for a business meeting with Schocken and his son; he was invited to attend the meeting in the role of secretary. She sat in appalled, helpless silence while Eliot was received like a traveling salesman. Rather than seizing the chance to have Eliot among their authors, the Schockens hemmed and hawed and then ended the conference abruptly with a 'we'll think it over' and their apologies for having to rush off to another appointment. With great dignity Eliot rose, ushered the Schockens to their own door, and bowed formally as they made a confused exit. Then Eliot turned to a very embarrassed Hannah Arendt and said: 'Well, now you and I can have a nice chat.' They did, and Arendt afterwards devoted herself to reading Eliot's poems, plays, and essays in their entirety--the compliment she always paid to a new literary acquaintance."