More And More People Think Of The

We Read Our Mail And Counted Up Our Missions In Bombers Named For Girls, We Burned The Cities We Had Learned About In School Till Our Lives Wore Out; Our Bodies Lay Among The People We Had Killed And Never Seen. When We Lasted Long Enough They Gave Us Medals; When We Died They Said, "our Casualties Were Low." They Said, "here Are The Maps"; We Burned The Cities.

Art Matters Not Merely Because It Is The Most Magnificent Ornament And The Most Nearly Unfailing Occupation Of Our Lives, But Because It Is Life Itself.

Most Works Of Art Are, Necessarily, Bad...; One Suffers Through The Many For The Few.

There Are Some Good Things And Some Fantastic Ones In Auden's Early Attitude; If The Reader Calls It A Muddle I Shall Acquiesce, With The Remark That The Later Position Might Be Considered A More Rarefied Muddle. But Poets Rather Specialize In Muddles And I Have No Doubt Which Of The Muddles Was Better For Auden's Poetry: One Was Fertile And Usable, The Other Decidedly Is Not. Auden Sometimes Seems To Be Saying With Henry Clay, "i Had Rather Be Right Than Poetry"; But I Am Not Sure, Then, That He Is Either.

Early In His Life Mr. [ezra] Pound Met With Strong, Continued, And Unintelligent Opposition. If People Keep Opposing You When You Are Right, You Think Them Fools; And After A Time, Right Or Wrong, You Think Them Fools Simply Because They Oppose You. Similarly, You Write True Things Or Good Things, And End By Thinking Things True Or Good Simply Because You Write Them