PARTISAN REVIEW
next to me sat a young Englishman-whose face I could not see–
and with
him
a girl. After we had eaten, this young man suddenly
pushed
his
chair back from the table and without the least affecta–
tion, looking up at the stars, recited lines which began with a great
"0," which some vague recollection from my school days told me
were the address of the Watchman to the night in the
Agamemnon.
I did not understand these lines, but the Greek words in the
yo~ng
English voice were filled with the stars, the seas and the mountains.
This is the poetic effect I am trying to describe, an invocation in
a language which one understands incompletely, filled with the stars
and the mountains.
Thus when I went to Oxford I was in a state of literary inno–
cence. I quickly realized that my lack of judgment was not only a
wrong view of literature but also a social error which embarrassed
those whom I met. For example, I disgraced myself at a luncheon
party of literary undergraduates by giving terribly wrong answers
to two questions. The first: "What novel are you reading?" which
I answered
((Martin Arrowsmith,
by Sinclair Lewis." "Oh, do you
like Sinclair Lewis?" someone said in an icy voice. This was a rhe–
torical question, followed by another probe: "And what poetry are
you reading?"
«Requiem,
by Humbert Wolfe." After this no one
spoke to me. My first year at Oxford was distinctly a social failure.
I did not get to know Auden until the end of that year, as until
then the various people who might have introduced us did not think
me worthy of the honor. The man who introduced me finally to Auden
was Christopher B.ailey, a scientist with a great interest in music
and a puzzled attitude towards "literary men," who had been at
school with Auden. Bailey was a scholar with a brilliant inventiveness.
His rooms were always littered with scientific apparatus amongst
musical scores, the works of James Joyce and beer bottles. He made
electric pick-up gramophones long before such things were on the
market. He was always kind to me, though he kept me firmly in my
place. Once when I showed him a poem he handed it back with a
quizzical smile on his rather bear-like face, and said: "Your type–
writing has definitely improved." He frightened me about Auden,
telling me that even to go into
his
room and look at the books gave
one a "sense of inferiority." Auden's library included books on psy-
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