NO " ELMER GANTRYS [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—In your editorial note in reply to an American corre- spondent (Herten, May 14th), I think you are right in stating that Sinclair Lewis is in the front rank of present-day novelists, but wrong in implying, because this is so, that he is representative of America. You might as well say that Bernard Shaw represents England. There is too great a tendency on the part of English writers to bestow what in our vulgar American manner we call "dirty digs" on this country, by taking some stupid utterance, or some odd piece of writing, and thereby attempting to indict a whole people. Mrs. Taylor's review is a fair 'sample. It is precisely this undercurrent of complacent superiority on the part of too many English writers that makes us sometimes feel you are not such good, sports as you assume you' are.—! am, Sir, &c., P.O. Box 244, Glen Ridge, N.J. THOMAS L. -MAssoN.
[We agree with our correspondent that there is sometimes a tendency of complacent superiority on the part of English writers on American subjects, but not in these columns. Mrs Taylor's review told our readers what was in Elmer Gantry, not what she thought of the United States.—En. Spectator.]
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