STEPHEN SPENDER
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qualified to write that sort of book. I regret that I spent so much time
writing about what were quite good ideas but for which I lacked the
scholarship or the intellectual stamina. I wish that if I had written
criticism I'd have written first-class criticism.
PM:
I admire enormously your detachment. It's genuinely profes–
sional. I like your story of Eliot's reaction to a negative review that
you wrote of his work. I wish you could tell it.
SS:
During the 1930s we worshipped Eliot-Auden, myself, and all
our friends- but one disagreed with him often about his opinions.
He wrote a very opinionated book, called
After Strange Gods,
which he
himself regretted later on . It was an attack on D . H. Lawrence and
various writers whom we admired, written from a very moralizing
and politically reactionary point of view. It was a series of lectures
delivered at the University of Virginia, where he probably thought
these views would be well accepted at that time. I attacked this
book - I've forgotten what I said - but then I felt very bad about my
criticism and wrote to Eliot, saying that I was sorry that I felt the
way I did and regretted having published the review. He wrote me
back a very nice letter in which he said: "You must always write ex–
actly what you think about me, and it makes absolutely no difference
to our personal friendship ." I thought that showed Eliot's very high
standards. Auden once said to me that of all the older literary people
whom we'd known since we were very young, Eliot was the only one
who had always behaved decently and had been consistently friendly
to us all through his life, and I think that was true.
PM:
Did Auden also feel that whether you liked or disliked his work
that it oughtn't affect your personal relationship?
SS: Oh, yes, I'm sure he'd feel that. Auden probably wouldn't ap–
prove of my writing an attack on Eliot; Auden himself really never
wrote attacks on people. Maybe it was just diplomacy, but I think he
felt that on the whole it wasn't worth doing . He felt, and I think
there's some truth in it, that destructive criticism almost always
misfires. With very few exceptions, if a thing is bad, it's better to
leave it alone and not attack it.
I remember at one point when I was editing I considered ask–
ing F. R . Leavis-although he probably would have refused-to
write a column every month to say what he thought about literature.
Auden said , "You know, that would be an absolutely irresponsible
thing to do, because Leavis is a critic who is very good on what he
likes, but who is completely unfair about what he doesn't like. You
would just be exposing yourself to publishing most unfair attacks on
