128
PARTISAN REVIEW
December.
I ought at least to have dated (and left in chrono·
logical order) the leaves from my Journal which I have just
reread in the latest number of the N.R.F. My state of mind is no
longer the one that prompted them: a mood still overwhelmed
by the defeat. Moreover, my reflections on the exhaustions and
lapses of patriotic emotion no longer seem to me very fair. There
·is nothing like adversity to restore cohesion and vigor to it. Like
all contested loves, that of one's country is fortified in trouble,
and hammering hardens it. Even solidarity, the perception and
awareness of which were dwindling in a dispersion of egoisms,
reforms and informs itself almost suddenly in face of the com·
mon trial. And this straightening of the bowed spirit stands a
good chance of becoming insp.iring. Could it be that defeat has
at last aroused our virtues?
(Translated by Frank }ones)
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CONTRIBUTORS
ANDRE GIDE, according to a recent report, left Vichy France for Tunis
a few m·onths before the Germans took that city.... ALLEN TATE, now
living at Monteagle, Tenn., is at work on a new novel. ... NORBERT
GUTERMAN is co·author of
La
ConsciencB Mystifiie,
published in Paris
(1936). He has been living in this country for a number of years and is
now an American citizen.... RICHARD V. CHASE is a member of the
English department at Columbia University.... JlUTH BENEDICT is
the author of
Patterns of Culture
and other anthropological works....
SIDNEY HOOK is chairman of the department of philosophy at New
York University. His study of the hero's role in history will appear
shortly.... MARY McCARTHY, who was at one time on the editorial
staff of PARTISAN REVIEW, published a novel last year.... ARTHUR
BERGER has written musical criticism for
Modern Music, The New
Republic
and other periodicals.... LEGARDE S. DOUGHTY is a young
poet and fiction·writer now living in Georgia.... ALEX COMFORT is
among the most active of the younger English poets.... F. W. DUPEE
teaches English at Columbia University.... LOUISE BOGAN is poetry
critic of the
New Yorker
and author of several volumes of verse. . ..
ROBERT FITZGERALD, who is on the staff of
Time
magazine, has
published a volume of poetry and several translations of Greek plays....
FRANCIS FERGUSSON teaches drama at Bennington College. . . .
GEORGE ANTHONY is a poet who lives in Boston.
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