The author, former student of Konrad Oberhuber at Harvard, gives his personal reflections on the personality of the scholar, on his human qualities. Although important for teaching, these qualities generally slip between the cracks of university culture as they cannot be measured, and they are not necessary for professional success.

Konrad's official accomplishments — his publications and museum acquisitions — will survive all of us. Commemorating them seems redundant as they commemorate themselves. Those fortunate to have known Konrad directly can pay tribute to other accomplishments. Although reflected in the tone and content of his scholarship and the particular art works he lovingly acquired for various museums, these personal accomplishments do not translate as well into the official record. They remain tied to private encounters in the living classroom which Konrad took with him wherever he went. Existing in the unrecorded space of the personal encounter, they are what Wordsworth called "that best portion of a good man's life: his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love".