Spectator's Notebook
I HAVE been reading Dame Edith Sitwell's auto- biography. I like much of her poetry, and most of her criticism, although I find her relent-
less dissection of words somewhat tedious To me, neither a poem nor a woman is made more attractive or more comprehensible by a minute analysis of the word or bone structure.
The strange part of the autobiography is the laboured rudeness in which Dame Edith appears
4, to delight. I write 'appears to' because she died ' beforeshe could correct the proofs. Perhaps she would have been kinder if she had not been ill. It is of no moment that she assails Mr. Percy
Wyndham Lewis, or various critics in the
Spectator and New Statesman who can defend themselves. But it is odd that Dame Edith should
bother to pillory some unknown woman who
wrote her a silly letter. I would guess that over the last twenty-five years I have received (thanks
to TV) hundreds of letters of the sort that start: We have not met, but my Aunt Bessie once heard you speak, so I am wondering if you . , Most of them I answer patiently. Some I throw away. I have been tempted often enough to write a witty, wounding reply. So far I have not done so. But if I did, I would not keep a copy to show my friends, nor publish it in my autobiography. I find it hard to explain why this trivial blemish irritates me so much. But it does. Under Pressure
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