54
PARTISAN REVIEW
human only when suffused with the relaxed emotions. But how, in
a culture of contradictions, shall we relax, except upon those very
contradictions?
-I think I see what you mean, but it is a difficult idea.
-What we were just saying reminds me of something Randolph
Bourne says over and over. He wants not only "fresh and true ideas,
free speculation, artistic vigor, cultural styles." He wants intelligence to
be "suffused with feeling" and he wants feeling to be "given fiber
and outline by intelligence." Every humane person must agree with
him.
-I am glad to hear that.
-But among our middlebrows today feeling is emasculated and
muffled by intelligence (or what passes for it), whereas intelligence
is rendered morose, defensive, and nihilistic by feeling.
-What writers are you referring to?
-No names, Silverman. I have mentioned too many names in
the past. It always gets me in hot water; it is bad for my career. I
refer to writers who purport to size up the literary situation but who
have nothing to offer us except an attack on "the critics," the "high–
brows." These writers claim to carry on the tradition of Brooks and
Bourne. But actually they perpetuate the failures and not the successes
of that tradition. They seem incapable of reassessing the Brooks–
Bourne critique in the light of recent history. Of course, we radicals
are "against the critics" too, but in a reasoned way. We are not
blindly passionate, at least not in talking about the critics. Mter all,
we
are
critics.
-I see. Well, thank you for your time. I have to go now. I will
certainly think over your comments very carefully.
-Good, Silverman. Let's keep in touch. Come in again when
you get
.a
chance. Meanwhile, I hope you will read Bourne's essays.
Bourne comtantly speaks in the name of the younger generation–
"youth" is a word that is always on his lips. He
ha~
a disparaging
essay on "This Older Generation." Some day I must write an essay
putting him in his place. But that time is not yet.
-Always the ironist, eh, Professor?
-It is my fate, Silverman. See you later.
