DAMNING THE OLD SCHOOL [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—As a contributor to The Old School, I read with attention the article by Sir Arnold Wilson. He concludes by saying that " the best tonic for those who feel inclined, in an agony of introspec. tion, to ' damn the old school ' is to leave the cloister and the pulpit, to enter the market-place and mingle with the crowd of happy normal men and women, young and old, who make the world go round. That is the best way for many readers of The Spectator to spend August Bank Holiday."
For whom, I wonder, is he prescribing ? He seems to suggest that many readers of The Spectator (including, I suppose, my fellow-contributors to The Old School) are tortured by intro- spection, hate their old schools, need a tonic, lead a cloistral existence, are given to preaching, are unhappy, abnormal
and useless. Some of these things would be true of some of us, and would remain true even if we mingled, as most of us do to some extent, with the crowd in the market-place. But it seems to me sentimental to suggest that any crowd, even a Bank Holiday one, is simply composed of " happy normal men and women," for every individual is peculiar and happi- ness is elusive and variously distributed.
I suspect Sir Arnold of forgetting that one man's meat is another man's poison, that it takes all sorts to make the world, and also that it takes all sorts to " make the world go round." He refers to the " stream of life" in terms which suggest that its waters belong to some people but not to others.
But the stream of life is a wide one. Upon its surface we do not all paddle the same canoe, and some of us even attempt to look beneath the surface.-1 am, Sir, &c.,
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