20, WIMBLEDON CLOSE,
THE DOWNS,

LONDON, S. W. 20.
WIMBLEDON 3100.

June 19, 1943

Dear Mr Connolly,

I find so many truly excellent things in the June issue of "Horizon" that I feel I must tell you of my delight.

The story by Violet Trefusis is a little masterpiece. It's so good it's almost uncanny and one of those things where one feels that no one besides oneself can really and fully understand it. It is written in a secret language, almost a code, and what a joy to feel that one possesses the key to it, or at least most of it. Has she written anything else? There are two tiny things in it which I didn't like. The "domed, doomed family forehead" (page 387) and the "crepiness, creepiness" (page 390). She is in no need of such tricks. They are not cheap, but not quite as expensive as the rest.

Your own essay - forgive me for liking best of all the second half of page 384 - made me think of Audiberti. He ranks foremost in the list of new French authors totally unknown in this country. I think he was just beginning to be noticed in France when war broke out, chiefly through his poetry, but since then he has written some quite outstanding prose, fragments of which I found in a couple of issues of the N.R.F of last year. I know nothing about him, whether he is a collaborator or not etc, his writing, at least what I have seen of it, does not reflect any political attitude but I'm sure he has true genius - French friends in this country who know his work confirm this. Something should be written about him.

Koestler's essay was, of course, very good indeed. But I find the correspondence which has resulted from it, even more illuminat-

ing. Now we are beginning to get to the root of the matter. Lt. Howard's letter is the more sincere, the more modest and therefore the more valuable of the two.

Since I'm writing I feel I must tell you of a certain uneasiness I feel in connection with the political articles in Horizon, particularly Maillaud's, and this month's by Poznanski. Are you quite sure you're not being taken (intellectual) advantage of by some very subtle (in the case of Poznanski even not so very subtle) political propaganda? It seems to me that under the disguise of a purely intellectual approach - here again Maillaud is superior to the Polish writer who annoys one by his primitive and presumptuous demagogy; there is no need to bully readers of Horizon - matters are being smuggled into the paper which have no claim to be discussed there and which certainly would not find their way into it if they were to present themselves on the editor's desk under their true names. I may be quite wrong about all this, and should very much I to know your views. (Incidentally Maillaud's article contained two or three complete falsities, such as the statement that even under the Weimar Republic Heidelberg University was closed to Jews; exactly the opposite is true: Heidelberg was known as the "Jewish University", one of the very few in Germany where duel-fighting, purely and exclusively Jewish students' corporations existed. When I had this brought to his notice, Maillaud admitted that he had quoted from hearsay. Not that it matters as such. But it begins to matter when weighty conclusions are being drawn from it.)

I hope you will forgive me this long letter. I somehow felt I wanted to write it.

With kindest regards and very best wishes,