THE
INFLUENCE OF MR. LEAVIS
859
depreciate Fielding. And yet, when one has really been caught up in a
book, when one has just laid it down, full of the excitement of its ex–
cellence, that is the sort of thing one wants first to say. In old age, I sup–
pose, when excitement is only annoying, there is a transcendent wisdom
possible in which all excellence is reconciled. But such wisdom, prema–
turely arrived at, wears a suspiciously flaccid and genteel look.
In an extremely good review, in this book, of Eliot's
Selected Essays,
Edgell Rickword remarks that "It must be every ambitious critic's aim
to resolve the dichotomy between life and art; and every superficial critic
does it constantly with negligent ease." Clearly, Mr. Leavis is not an
"ambitious" critic; but when one appreciates the justice of Mr. Rick–
word's second observation, one isn't awfully disturbed by the lack of
"ambition" in this forthright and energetic writer.
If
Mr. Leavis cannot
discourse profoundly on the Forsterian ethos, still, he is able to point
out-what no one else has done-where this ethos is imperfectly realized
in Forster's novels.
What you find in Mr. Leavis' writing, and what is so often missing
elsewhere, is a genuine experiencing of the literary work. So much big
critical talk, by people who may have a more sophisticated intelligence
than he, conceals a poverty of response to literature, or the most timid
conventional response; and they, I suppose, are quickest to call him
"academic." Mr. Leavis is always sending you off to read, or back to
reread---off or back, that is, to the
experience
of a book, which is his
only concern. For
him
a piece of literature is in the last analysis more
interesting than anything you can say about it. That is the essential
modesty of the man, a modesty not incompatible with strong opinions.
Martin Greenberg
IN THE TRADITION OF INTEGRITY
SKETCH FOR A SELF-PORTRAIT. By Bernord Berenson. Pontheon. $3.00.
Numerous reviews have acclaimed Berenson's
Sketch for a
Self-Portrait
as a golden hive of brilliant observations and profound
insights. Yet it is precisely in that matter of local brilliance that the
book seems to me to fail. The intelligence is always there, but it is
seldom operating with an incisiveness or perception that excites or en–
larges one's own mind, and although the book is very short it some–
times becomes tedious. This, I suspect, is due to the form in which
