Poetry or prose?

Friday, December 1st., Cadogan Square, London.

I had a long talk yesterday afternoon with the mother of a girl graduate at Cambridge and of a boy high up in a public school. In such conversations one does get at a few facts. Both girl and boy have somewhat unusual intelligence, but they are young people with the usual instincts of youth, in no way abnormal, precious or priggish.

It appears that in these circles, male youth prefers the reading of plays to the reading of novels. I have heard the same news from publishers. I cannot imagine why the intelligently curious should prefer plays to novels, seeing that novels on the average are immensely superior in quality to plays. Still there you are. Facts are facts. And male youth does read fiction too. And in fiction it puts D.H. Lawrence first and the rest nowhere. It does not seem to read a lot of verse. In fact it seems to me that not much verse is read. Why has it declined so in popularity?

I well know that I do not read enough verse, especially classical English verse. I wish I read more but I seldom seem to be able to find the time. This is only an excuse, I admit. In fact I don't read much verse because at heart I prefer to read prose. When I do read classical poetry I do so for an ulterior purpose - because I find that if I am writing a novel or a story, the finest English verse has the capacity to lift me up out of the rut of composition, and set me, and my work, on a higher plane. In other words it inspires. This may not be the very best compliment to our poets, but it is a pretty good compliment all the same.