THE PEN CONGRESS
SIR,—The account of the PEN Congress in the Spectator by Jenny Nasmyth is so much a con- coction of error and malice that it should not go unanswered. The writer must be singularly unfortunate in her contact with the literary world since she stigmatises authors in general as 'vain, temperamental, anarchist and petty.' I can look back over forty-five years of friend- ships, ranging from Sir James Barrie, Arnold Bennett, John Masefield, John Drinkwater, Israel Zangwill, Sir Max Beerbohm, Alfred Noyes, Somerset Maugham, Sir Compton Mackenzie, C. S. Forester, John Betjeman, Ernest Raymond, Louis Golding, Sir A. P. Herbert, Sir Philip Gibbs, Alec Waugh. and many others of my own generation, to the younger recruits. I have never found them 'vain, petty, anarchistic.' On the contrary, I remember them because of much kindness of will and deed, particularly shown by my elders to a young writer; and of my contemporaries I can recall nothing but delightful hours in their lively company. From a wide experience of cities and men in all walks of life I would assert that, of all communities, authors provide for their fellow craftsmen, as well as for general society, the most rewarding companionship. subscription of private funds. The Congress, with 750 delegates, was the largest ever held, and this great call on the London PEN was answered with almost flawless organisation. As for the jealousy with which the delegates 'envied each other's invitations to cocktail parties,' I can only observe that those who, inadvertently, strayed into the wrong party were received with unfailing cordiality. The discussions, even when intense, were conducted with singular courtesy and goodwill. Mr. MacNeice, 'with his smart suit and broken teeth and touch of a fairground tout,' could only have been visible to very jaundiced eyes, and so far from the Congress being an assembly of 'vain, temperamental and petty' persons, it is widely agreed that there has never been a larger, more smoothly organised or more enjoyable Congress. Your correspondent's account is vitiated as much by myopia as by the fact that it must have been sent to press when the Congress was only half-way through.— Yours faithfully,
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