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The Guardian: The Church Newspaper(12 Apr 1940) 179

Sir, – By an accident I failed to see your issue of March 29 until a day or two ago. I was of course flattered to see a sentence of mine quoted in a letter from Mr. T. J. Wood, but considerably surprised to observe the use to which it was put. 1 My sentence proposed that we should treat Christianity with more intellectualrespect. The rest of Mr. Wood’s letter ascribes to my sentence, by implication, a very different meaning from that which I myself gave it. So far as I could discover, Mr. Wood was concerned, not with intellectual respect to Christianity, but with intellectual respect towards “the questions which modern knowledge has raised for the modern man.”

I have no grievance against Mr. Wood for putting his own interpretation upon my sentence. A sentence once printed must stand upon its own feet, and bear the responsibility for any ambiguity lurking in its construction. But if this can happen within a few months of publication, what will happen in a hundred years? The future historian from Antipodes may set me down as a contemporary of Mrs. Humphry Ward, or as a zealous disciple of Dr. Benjamin Jowett. 2 What is the more likely fate is also perhaps the preferable – that my book should be completely forgotten. 3

t. s. eliot 24, Russell Square, London, W.C.1.

Published By:   Faber & Faber logo    Johns Hopkins University Press

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