58
PLlRTISLlN REVIEW
confidence they have gained from the very sources of Marxian beliefs.
I once heard of a man who said he "gave up" an advertising job for
the sake of poetry. He said it with the ·air of making a great sacrifice.
A few years later I heard of his ·"giving up" poetry for Communism–
and the sacrifice (so I understood) was even greater. Now he has "given
up" Communism for something else·-and I suppose the sacrifice is so
great that I shall never hear of him again.
I mistrust the entire idea of sacrifice for a "cause"; and I say this
knowing well our present qifficulties, knowing well that we cannot solve
our problems today or the next day, knowing that many of us have personal
adjustments to be made, no matter what we do. I think:, howeveJ:, that
we should not state our position in terms of sacrifice.
If
we have courage,
we should be glad to show it. After all we are making our choice with
what I have always believed to be the actual tradition in literatrure.
Writers will always prefer to use their own specific medium of action,
which is a technic of language; though we may sometimes doubt its effec–
tiveness when we compare it directly with other forms of action, I think:
we will always return to it and discuss its problems as I am now discussing
the points raised in a controversy. Literature in its best sense is always
related to the experience of living; and at this moment all of us are impelled
by a force that is greater than ourselves. C. Day Lewis has called that
force THE MAGNETIC MOUNTAIN.
