SEVEN QUESTIONS
45
without America. The part played by
this
country in creating contem–
porary Europe is too potent to be ignored. The relations between the two
continents are immensely complicated. And it is because no man of com–
parable intelligence has applied himself so assiduously as Henry James to
exploring these relations that his work, aside from its great value as art,
leeiDS
to me important. Walt Whitman's direct expression of Americanism
would be of equal value, if it were equally convincing. To me Whitman
never carries the conviction when he is being conscious of nothing but
that
he is an American as when, unconsciously American, he sings of· love
and death. Then he is a poet and what he has to say should have quite as
much poetic weight for a European as for an American. Whereas James, I
ltrongly suspect, is unintelligible to any but an American. It is a comfort
that
America of the mid-nineteenth century produced writers of their
ltature, but I cannot believe that the
wor~f
either Whitman or James is
particularly relevant to the future of American writing. The problems
which they faced in their time remain, however, in our own, to say what
America is and to say what its relation to Europe.
America is continuous in time with Europe, though separate in space,
11
Russia is contiguous in space with European civilization but disparate
ill
time.
Our
remote past is, then, in Europe. This is a matter of some
importance. For it means that if we are to seek a consciousness of the
CODtinuity of time, we cannot look for it on this continent.
2.
It is convenient to write for those who you know will read you, as it is
to
talk
only to those who you know will listen to you. I should say that I
a
conscious of writing for three people: Allen Tate, Edmund Wilson and
ay
wife. I have at one time and another pleased all three. But I have
Mer
yet pleased all of them with ·the same piece of writing.
The audience for serious American writing has certainly grown in the
lut
twenty years. It has probably increased in the last decade. Whether
the
audience for literary criticism has diminished within that time, I can–
lilt
say, but there is no doubt that the space allotted to it by editors has
Men
much reduced. This reflects, so far as the editors of the liberal week–
liea
are concerned, a real shift of interest, not only on their part, but that
tltheir
readers. For while, in the decade after the war, almost all literary
tilDeS
were in for a revaluation, it is now political and social ideas that
ae
in
a
state of fermenL
1
Any criticism of a man's work represents at least one reader's reac–
-. and for that reason, if no other, he must regard it seriously. To speak
.aly,
there are not many critics whose opinions I place highly and I
lilow,
or think I know, what each of them is worth. And yet I should lie
if
161
not say that I am always pleased by praise and, out of all proportion,
lilrt
by its opposite.
