46
1'AllTISAN REVIEW
much deceived by politicians, and I wiII never write another line for or
against any of them"
(Twentieth Century Verse,
Wyndham Lewis
Number, January).
Among the periodicals, Mr. Eliot's
Criterion
comes well within the
category of tolerance and detachment advocated by its editor. His
Anglo-Catholic convictions affect less and less the content of his maga·
zine; and we are apt to find, as in the April issue, Stephen Spender
combing the thought of Yeats for traces of fascism, while on the very
next page Father D'Arcy piously reviews a pious work by Father Bede
Frost. Thus the great traditionalist and anti-eclectic of the '20s has
become, in the '30s, the editor of one of the biggest clearing-houses of
cultural opinion in the world. Physically handsome and impressive as
ever, well-weighted with reviews and chronicles, the April number of
The Criterion
contains less than its usual quota of solid articles and
good verse. "Marx and Proudhon," by Montgomery Butchart, testifies
to the renewed interest in anarchism among British intellectuals, but, as
argument, lacks conviction and authority. And much the finest writing
in the issue is to be found in
A.
Desmond Hawkins' Fiction Chronicle,
where Kafka receives some sensitive criticism, and the needle of skepti.
cism is applied to Frederic Prokosch's curiously inflated English reputa·
tion. "Isn't that an extraordinarily
feminine
prose? [inquires Hawkins,
after quoting a passage from
The Seven Who Fled]
Doesn't it suggest
a rabbit's-eye view of a weasel? And isn't the hidden subject of it some
form of the way of a man with a maid? Or, since we are dealing with
Asiatics and quintessential cruelties, shall we instead say
The Way of an
Eagle with a Lady Novelist?
To put it more plainly-if we allow for
Mr. Prokosch's greater sophistication and more distinguished style, doesn't
he share with Miss Ethel M: Dell the art of objectifying and
disguising,
(thinly but sufficiently) a popular social neurosis?"
Mr. Eliot's "Commentary" in the April issue is in his customary edi–
torial style. Recently he polemicized against the Nuffield Endowments
at Oxford; now the target is the Music and Drama BiII. To characterize
Mr. Eliot's efforts as social critic we have only to recall what he once
wrote of Matthew Arnold: "We fight rather to keep something alive
than in the expectation that anything will ·triumph." Mr. Eliot's tone
of religious despair and valetudinarian humility are lacking
in
Scrutiny,
which nevertheless fights the same lonely battle for humane culture
against British philistinism. The "scrutinies"or surveys which give
this
magazine its distinction as well as its name, are often intelligent but
nearly always jnconclusive; and
L.
C. Knights' "The Modern Univer·
sities," in the March issue, exemplifies both quaIlties. What is needed
in
these pieces, aside from fresher values and a more trenchant spirit, is
some of the precision and respect for data which distinguish the survey
techniques of such American magazines as
Fortune
and
The New Re·
public. Scrutiny
is broadly cultural in its contents, agnostic in its politics;
Purpose,
editorially for Social Credit, prints literary articles which have
little connection with the economics of Major Douglas. Criticism is a
