Thoughts In The Wilderness [antikvár]

One of the oldest and thinnest excuses for publishing a book is the suggestion that you are doing it at other people's request, pleasing them and not yourself. Nevertheless, it is a fact that I did not consider putting these polemical pieces into a book until a great many persons, belonging to various nationalities, asked me directly or wrote to me inquiring when such a book would be appearing. Often in far-away places they had read some of the pieces in the New Statesman and Nation, knew there were others they had missed, and so asked for a book of them. I can only hope now, first, that they have not lost interest, and secondly, that having retained their interest they are not dis-appointed. Polemical pieces, originally written to challenge and provoke the readers of a weekly review, do not always reprint well: sometimes itis as if a man were shout-ing in a drawing-room. On the other hand, there are some drawing-rooms a man wants to shout in, and perhaps England is beginning to seem like one of them. One of our poets told a friend of mine in New York that I had a second-rate mind. I could not share my friend's indignation at this pronouncement. I have a second-rate mind, and so has this poet. First-rate minds are very rare, and I have never pretended to possess one. But, over and above a few tricks of expression, I have two assets of some valué to an occasional writer for the more serious Press.