S‘,111,—Maureen O'Connor writes (Spectator, May 3): 'Yet, being objective, one
has to admit that the Prehistory charted by Dr. Leavis.'
iouldn't, the given kind of smear being in question, justify the confidence with which she lends herself Origins of pub atmosphere are lost in the roseate find it? If I read the passage with surprise, that was tual weeklies and the Sunday papers. sneering allusion, even when established in such 1.i.Oroc, doesn't suffice to establish the alleged fact. 'urnr•nit themselves to bringing in my name (as Mr. fl welt. discreet irony in genial by-references to 'the old readers when I did this charting, and where they can not because the phenomenon exemplified was new to !Ile, but because it had assumed in her article so couldn't say where in anything written by me she thinks she could find plausible warrant for her allusive and insinuating irony. It is gratuitous and rautine—a matter of common form; she gets the t„,0,nfidence for it from the habit, or 'culture' (to use Sir Charles Snow's word), of that literary world Which fosters its morale in the Listener, the intellec- A eliPlieit in allegation -than she is. Their boldness t akes no greater risks than those braved by that hheelwright'5 shop.' Everyone knows who it is he about generality is so indeterminate, he needn't worry tinily ironic formula, however, gives me an oppor- t.colleague is pointing to the only show of excuse t_aat could be alleged for the fabrication she offers is reinforce. George Sturt's The Wheelwright's Shop Cti,4„1cing with many other books) referred to in yea—re and Environment, which came out thirty PlirPose the Would impute. The Wheelwright's Shop forms part• truth documentation documentation adduced to bring home the 2_ a that there was once an organic community. It enuo °nnor could find historians and sociologists pia_ugh who would assure her that it is a common- _ __et e; And the sneer she takes up—that expresses 'Stjy the confidence of ignorance: the -character- blithely reckless a form. I will venture that she
Of colleague of mine who illustrates his gift
establish for herself how different in spirit and c,"e. lure, and truly concerned for its life, could
v it is from what my colleague's sarcasms °
"Untenance the sneer or the ethos. wentY authorities of the order of Luck) Jim Leticis. Since it entails no mention of my name, and ntly to inform her of an immediately relevant fact : Will Miss O'Connor, being objective, tell your She should be adverted, then, that a habit of na3 O'Connor can easily get hold of a copy and
th out e possibility of being answered.
%- it-And she should note that, when reviewers in mind, and what kind of general smear he truth, and not something invented by me. Miss Iporarice of the 'literary intellectual.' No one
ago and has been used in schools ever since. in that book, does not), they prefer to be less nterested in the conditions that produced our To insist on the need to promote a common awareness of the nature of the immense changes being brought about in our civilisation, and of the danger of an unconscious acquiescence in the human impoverishment that may, unrecognised as such, attend automatically on a technological pro- gress towards a civilisation of 'more jam' is not to indulge in, or to promote, or in any way to favour, romancing about the past.
Miss O'Connor may have been led to suppose, of course, that she could find her justification an my Richmond Lecture, Two Cultures? If she reads it—it is accessible in book form (perhaps I may say, since it virtually escaped being reviewed)—she will discover how utterly unfounded and at odds with the actuality that idea is.
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