“Through American Eyes " SIR.—I was flattered and amused by Miss
Edith Sitwell's (Spectator, April 7th) attack on me and my Through American Eyes article in the Spectator of March 31st. I regret that a critic so insignificant as myself, according to Miss Sitwell's standards, should have moved her to such a disproportionate expense of time and energy. Within the space limita- tions of that article I could not pretend to mention every English author who is read in America, but I had no idea that by not mentioning one, two, or three of the Sitwells, I would bring so much coloratura wrath about my ears. Miss Sitwell says that on one occasion she and her brother, Sir Osbert, gave aloint poetry reading from which ten -thousand Americans had to be turned away. If these astonishing statistics are correct, they indicate that, though Moore lacks his thousands, the Sitwells have their tens of thousands. But it does not• prove that there is a mass interest in poetry in America: rather, such manifestations merely indicate that Americans are interested in interesting personalities.
" Peterborough " of the Daily Telegraph, kindly defending me from Miss Sitwell's cannonade, said among other things that surely I must not consider myself infallible. True ; but 1 am willing to assume the mantle of infallibility long enough to say that Miss Sitwell's disagreement with my statement that " poetry is now of little interest to the wide public in America " is preposterous. This " wide public" is much wider than perhaps even the cleverest Sitwell could imagine.—Yours truly,
Previous page
