No. 491: The winners
Trevor Grove reports: A man, self-styled intel- ligent, complains of not getting a prize: tell him to try again. Would his impertinence question further? Upbraid him for his narrow mind, let him be pitied for a puritan. Would he rail on, desirous perhaps of further acquaintance with that class of men who can earn their tobacco for a week by a half-hour's easy drudgery of a Friday night? Why, say that his odium im- putes him no honour, that it springs rather from a sense of injured merit than from the just scorn of a superior mind. He may purport to be motivated by the highest regard for literature, a melancholy regret at its weekly adulteration: he would better serve its cause by quitting his ill-advised cavillings, etc etc . . .
... all of which is by way of reply to rude anonymous phone-call. Wh41 0. M. Martin has done with Fanny Burney's words (from Evelina —a guitlea to 'Peter Owen for identifying it) may or may not constitute a violation, but it wins him five guineas: Sir: Mr C. Carter (Letters, 8 March) is obviously an intelligent man, sincere in his prejudices and therefore the more to be pitied. If he is really desirous of persuading the readers of the SPEC- TATOR to accept his views, he should not air them in a manner which is sure to incur the odium of all fair-minded people. For he im- putes a lack of patriotism to all those who are in favour of a multi-racial state; and assumes an air of injured indignation which cannot ex- cite general sympathy.
The purport of the letter is clear, and I am filled with melancholy at the thought that his views may in the end command general assent.
I must be brief, but before quitting the sub- ject, it should be added that the publication of his letter by the SPECTATOR was in my opinion most ill-advised.
Three guineas to a gloomy piece of SF from Brian Allgar : Government experts have now deciphered the remarkable document found in the UFO shot down last week over Scotland. It reads: 'Our search for intelligent life as we know it has proved fruitless. The dominant species of this planet, endowed with a grotesque travesty of reason, is more to be loathed than pitied; desirous of attaining not wisdom or goodness, but wealth and power, it pursues its brutal ends by means which in civilised parts of the galaxy would incur universal odium. This degraded breed imputes motives of patriotism to acts of unspeakable violence; murder is glorified by the name of war, and many are injured or slain by those who purport to be their defenders.
'Our dream of finding companions in the universe has had a melancholy awakening, and we are quitting this planet instantly; further contact with so vicious a race would be ill- advised.'
And three guineas for Dr W. I. D. Scott's polished advocacy:
Members of the jury: I submit that the young man before you, an intelligent undergraduate of a famous university, is to be pitied, nay applauded, rather than convicted of any crime.
He has been desirous only of expressing his natural odium for the degenerate state of our society, for which, I would add, he imputes no blame to the judiciary. In his opinion, those whom he has severely injured purport no doubt to condemn, but by their inaction condone, the wicked acts of the American and Rhodesian warmongers.
Conscious that he has no more than per- formed a melancholy duty, he is confident of quitting this court a free man. He would, more- over, urge that in the present mood of his com- panions an unfavourable verdict would be distinctly ill-advised.
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