A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THE human eye is offered enough reading matter daily to blind it for life. If only eyes were more selective and could concentrate on important issues or items of literary merit. But they are undisciplined jellies and wear themselves out wobbling over news which does not really interest them, such as the adoption of mice by cats, Gilbert Harding's allergies or the mating habits of avocets. They waste their time with poor novels they cannot resist finishing and stories in trashy periodicals, and the older and weaker they get the less inclined do they feel to cope with serious reading. Never- theless John Lehmann and Stephen Spender evidently believe there still exist plenty of discriminating eyes backed by minds responsive to first class writing, for they are each editing a new monthly magazine. Mr. Lehmann's is to be called The London Magazine and will be entirely literary: Mr. Spender's Encounter will also cover art and politics: It is greatly to be hoped that these publications flourish and that names such as Elizabeth Bowen, William Plomer, Rex Warner, Christopher Isherwood and W. H. Auden, to mention but a few, will stimulate the jaded reader into taking a more intelligent interest in life and letters. Until they appear, and while we are still enjoying Lilliput, judgment must be reserved, though the fact that Encounter is financed by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, whose president is Bertrand Russell, and that The London Magazine is sponsored by the Daily Mirror opens up a wide field for speculation.
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