Paperback edition of original with some corrections. Momentary Bliss is the unpredictable and charming memoir of a specimen of a vanishing breed—a literal scholar and gentleman —scion of an eclipsed world. It offers fascinating glimpses—tableaux—from the social history of twentieth-century America, particularly that of remnants of the Gilded Age (which ended, in the whimsical words of the author, upon the death of his grandmother), in relating his upbringing, education, 40-year career at Stanford, art collecting, and "exploration" in East Africa. With ghosts (and numerous portraits) of ancestors pervading the book, the reader acquires an acute impression of growing up in the shadow of former grandeur, of trying (never quite succeeding, it seems) to live up to the achievements and expectations of his family legacy. Through his engaging self-consciousness, the author emerges as complex and perceptive, engaged and somewhat bemused. His reflections on such areas as the Harvard of the 1940s and '50s, the collecting of American Folk Art, the heady (and steamy) campus of the 1960's, and investigating his uncle's involvement with East African secret societies leave the reader with a satisfying feel for a life well lived and much examined.