SIR.-1 was leaving for Italy when the Spectator, containing Mr.
Rice's letter, reached me. Unfortunately I left the paper behind, so must answer his letter from memory. It made me very sad. Mr. Rice is obviously a very nice person. But he is extremely muddle-headed. Would it not have been better if, as Mr. Rice admits, he is not com- petent to judge between Mr. Moore and me, he had kept out of the contest ? It is a little difficult for an expert to argue with somebody who does not know what he is talking about.
According to Mr. Rice, it is immodest for a poet to object to the falsification of the American attituck. towards living British poets, and it is a lack of grace to speak what is the absolute and provable truth. (The reason why I mentioned Sir Osbert Sitwell and myself was solely because I am in a position to prove what I said.) But it is- not, it seems, immodest for a person to interfere in what is not his business, and about which he knows nothing.
Poetry is not Mr. Moore's profession. Nor, as far as I know, is it Mr. Rice's. It is mine. And I shall continue to protest against damaging and untrue statements being made about the attitude of the American public towards British poets.
Mr. W. B. Yeats once advised me never to reply to criticism. For many years, now, 1 have followed his advice. I never reply to criticism. But Mr. Moore's statements were nbt criticism, they were a falsification (made, I am sure, quite innocently) of the facts.
I have often wished I had time to 'cultivate modesty, and also those qualities of compassion and love of humanity that are so notoriously absent from my poetry, and from my private life (of which Mr. Rice knows nothing). But I am too busy thinking about myself, and must therefore leave these qualities to Mr. Rice, who, I am sure, will make the best possible use of them.
Lonely and icy-hearted pair of Simeon Stylites that we are, Sir Osbert Sitwell and I will yet be sad if Mr. Rice and his friends won't have anything to do with us. I suppose we must be satisfied with those 10,000 Americans, and, perhaps, just one or two more added to them.-1 am,
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