58
PARTISAN REVIEW
gentle round of domestic chores-nothing more. But where Raymond
in work and life was sentimental, a fantasist and self-deluding (his
drinking h ad a long life history), sometimes self-pitying, Auden was
absolutely non fantasist , contro ll ed and stoic, his daily litany being a
counting of his blessings. In Raymond it is possible that childlessness
exp lained his skirmishes against both Christianity and psychoanalysis,
for both creeds recognise the primacy, vulnerability and sacredness of
childhood. Auden's Christianity originated in his relationship to a
loving mother; his compassion was easily accommodated in both
creeds. Raymond on occasio:1 found it hard to keep in touch with his.
Raymond was proud to think of himself as a "passionate moralist,"
which sounds comparatively merciless towards himself and others;
Auden believed benevolently in redemption and forgiveness, and was a
"compassionate moralist." Perhaps Raymond's anti-Christianity (al–
though here is a contradiction, for later he claimed to be Christian) was
part of his dominant modes of defence, projection and denial in
fantasy, since he so valued "pride" and "toughness" that he would not
have cared to classify them amongst the Seven Deadly Sins. Neverthe–
less he cou ld sometimes be disarmingly modest, and often endearingly
gentle.
Towards psychoanalysis Raymond always maintained a wary if
not belligerent attitude. At one of those first luncheons at the Con–
naught when I remarked that our neuroses mostly originate in chi ld–
hood, he replied with scornfu l, teasing gusto: "Oh, I don't know-I
pick mine up as I go along." (It is true that one of his neurotic
ambiva lences between over-confidence and anxiety, generosity and
apprehension-his altitude to money-probably had at leas t been
traumatically reactivated by a shock he sustained in early married life
when he lost an important job and his financial security because of
drinking.) He was a lso defiantly proud to tell of having repudiated the
help of th e "trick-cyclist" at the clinic after his first suicide attempt by
saying: " Doctor, if you' ll be perfectly frank with me ... I may be able
to
help you." Certainly Raymond was a character of opposites, and
hated his own Roger Wade "bad self" with its bitterness. Nevertheless,
he was right to express his opinion of my lack of realism later to
Stephen by saying that I was " in love with complete goodness." " I side
with you," he wrote to Stephen, "the devil is part of the being of every
creative person."
When Raymond left England again after Easter (during which
ollce more we had been away with the chi ldren) he went to stay with
fricnds in Old Chatham, New York, before, finally, the long months of
