"THE CONFIDENTIAL CLERK"
Sir-Now the layman becomes unutterably confused. Used to bemoaning the fact that the literati are obscure, and leaving it at that, he is faced with deciding whether they are so profound as to be unrecognisable as such, or merely empty vessels. In short, when T. S. Eliot remarks "I am I," is he proclaiming the simple fact that needs no explanation to a child of five, or is he, equally credibly, discoursing among the highest
planes of philosophy? The most intricate pathways reach’ the simplest of conclusions. Is thought of any value if too obvious in the first place? The layman might be better pleased with profundity that is recognisable. And the critic surely needs some guide-for interprfetation, if too esoteric, is of little value. One is reminded of Virginia Woolf, who wrote: "Understanding . . . has become the main art of speech in an age when words are growing daily so scanty in comparison with ideas that ‘the biscuits ran out’ has to stand for kissing a Negress in the dark when one has just tead. Bishop Berkeley’s. philosophy for the tenth time. (And from this it follows that only the most profound masters of style can tell the truth, and when one meets a simple one-syllabled writer, one may conclude, without any doubt at all, that the poor man is lving.)"
PAUL HENDERSON
(Christchurch).
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19540604.2.12.3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 776, 4 June 1954, Page 5
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227"THE CONFIDENTIAL CLERK" New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 776, 4 June 1954, Page 5
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