THE LIFE OF LITERATURE
Dictator fantasies were in the air, nor were they entirely in–
nocent.
The Orators
is one of Auden's most vital, but also his most
cynical, gangish and brutal work. I myself, although I always hated
fascism, was on the road of a development which led to the acceptance
of methods which I knew to be wrong. Christopher's dictator fan–
tasies, combined with his passionate admiration for his friends, pro–
duced a gang spirit. In fact he talked often of The Gang, and
phrases such as The Chosen Few, The Lords of the Earth, the Happy
Few, occured often in his half-fantastic conversation where the
characters drawn after his friends lived in a world half-real, half–
myth. Apart from the work of a few people he had never met,
Christopher admitted that he was only interested in the work of his
friends, and only concerned with their judgments. He undoubtedly
had at this period a sense of his own power. And this produced in
my mind a certain uneasiness, because any preoccupation with power
in .a friend raised the question : "Is he more interested in power or in
friendship?" To ask this question about Christopher was particularly
disconcerting. For his interest in people was real and developed with
the insight of genius. Moreover his loyalty to
his
friends was genuine
and capable of dramatic proof. I have no doubt that if one was in
disgrace or need, Christopher's friendship could rise to heights of
disinterestedness.
But' against this, flattery played a distressing and somewhat
ambiguous role in Christopher's friendships. His flattery had the
initial charm of double bluff: but as I shall show, it was really a
kind of treble bluff. He would make you think you were if not the
most interesting and remarkable person he knew, at least among
"the elect." He laid on the flattery with .a trowel and with a smile.
When he called attention to one's "inimitable" qualities, these very
qualities had sometimes the charm of being one's weaknesses, and
here he overplayed the flattery, so that one shared with him the
joke of knowing that one wa<; being flattered, the weakness of .ad–
mitting that one was pleased by it, and the vice of secretly reflect–
ing: "After
all,
I am wonderful.
It
is true." This was the double
bluff, reinforced by Christopher himself admitting, speaking of what
he required for his own work: "No praise can ever be enough. Praise
must be .absolutely undiluted." But the triple bluff arose when he
confided in one: "Of course, I can always get ·on with any one I
1329
