SIR,—In case Professor Kermode's speed of foot should have deceived
the eye, may I hope that no spectator missed his unusually accomplished voile- face during his act entitled Milton Lost and Regained. When executed, as it always should be, without the least air of strain, this complex movement has the effect of making the Master Clown appear to be standing still when actually moving in both direc- tions at once. Thus, facing one way, Professor Ker- mode speaks of Milton being 'savagely excluded' from young people's reading twenty years ago; and on being challenged, he insists that he is not (repeat, dogmatically, NOT) thinking of Dr. Leavis. But then, on being challenged again, he hops sharply about and claims that his remark was only a jocular way of saying that young people were 'encouraged, prematurely, to undervalue Milton'; and of course Dr. Leavis is part of that story. So let cross-eyed on- lookers stop their 'mischievous chatter' and attend to the Great Kcrmode's sleight of leg. 'Positively The Only Time This Week!'—Yours faithfully,
The University, Sheffield
BORIS FORD
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