15 JULY 1943, Page 14

MISS SAYERS' ENGLISH

SIR,—May I suggest that Mr. Scott-James is guilty of an ignoratio elenchi when he points out that Miss Sayers's " They are the stuff of which the Kingdom is made " is less beautiful than " Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." Who ever doubted it? The point is that Miss Sayers was undertaking to write modern English. " Of such is the Kingdom " is so far from being modem English that if it were not familiar it would be only just intelligible to uneducated hearers. To complain that Miss Sayers's language (like that of her originals) lacks the beauty of the Authorised Version is wholly beside the point. You might as well blame the Septuagint for not having the beauties either of the Hebrew