New York Review Books recently published a new edition of Lionel Trilling's great 1950 collection, The Liberal Imagination. In an essay about the novel, titled "Art and Fortune," Trilling writes, "Where misunderstanding serves others as an advantage, one is helpless to make oneself understood." A simple andobvioustruth given perfect expression. It is a kind of corollary to Newman's famous observation: "When men understand what each other mean, they see for the most part, that controversy is either superfluous or hopeless." Taken by itself, this sounds like a warrant for resignation and silence: either people basically agree, or else they don't and never will. As a convert, Newman knew from experience that people could change their minds -- and that thischange was not always just a matter of discovering whatthey already knew. But if conversion was always possible, it was never easy; it always had to overcome the twin inertias of sloth and pride. Something in uswants to misunderstand whatevermight knock us off the perch of our intellectual or spiritual complacence. Only grace can overcome our natural resistance to truths that threaten our settled self-understanding. Sometimes gracedoesthis by overpowering our skepticism;just asoften, though,itworks by redirectingour skepticismagainst ourown hidden preserves of credulity.