SEVEN QUESTIONS
39
defensive measure against assaults from abroad. I think the "specifically
American" things might not he the worst things for us to cultivate, since
this is America, and we are Americans, and our history is not altogether
disgraceful. The parent stock is European, hut this climate has its own
way with transplantations, and I see no cause for grievance in that.
I
7. I am a pacifist. I should like to say now, while there is still time and
place to speak, without inviting immediate disaster (for I love life), to my
mind the responsibility of the artist towards society is the plain and simple
responsibility of any other human being, for I refuse to separate the artist
from the human race: his prime responsibility "when and if war comes"
is
not to go mad. Madness takes many subtle forms, it is the old deceiver.
I would say, don't he betrayed into all the old outdated mistakes.
If
you
are promised something new and blissful at the mere price of present
violence under a new master, first examine these terms carefully. New
ideas call for new methods, the old flaying, drawing, and quartering for
the love of God and the King will not do.
If
the method is the same, trust
yourself, the idea is old, too.
If
you are required to kill some one today,
on the promise of a political leader that some one else shall live in peace
tomorrow, believe me, you are not only a double murderer, you are a
lllicide, too.
Wallace Stevens:
I.
The material of the imagination is reality and reality can he nothing
else except the usable past. In my own case this is wholly an American
past.
However, it does not follow that this or 'that particular figure of the
past
is relevant to the future. It is just as easy to he diffident about James
a
it is to he diffident about Whitman. I suppose you have cho!ien these
two figures as symbols; neither of them means anything to me. The projec·
tions of the past are as incalculable as the stock market; otherwise it would
be
nothing hut a bore.
1 I do not visualize any audience. To me poetry is one of the sanctions
of life and I write it because it helps me to accept and validate my expe·
rience. Writing poetry is one thing; publishing it is another. Often I wish
!hat I did not publish it, because the act of publishing it invokes a serious·
llel8
different from the seriousness of writing it. I think that the audience
for serious American writing must have grown in the last ten years.
3.
Much of the criticism one receives is a good deal keener than people
