Tribute
To the Editor:
The best tribute I can pay to the February [1956] number of Commentary, which is the first issue of the magazine I have ever seen . . . is to say that although a good deal of the material is not, to a Gentile, of obviously central interest, the consistent intelligence displayed, the maturity of judgment, the breadth of sympathy, and, above all, the general aliveness, made me read the entire contents with extraordinary pleasure and interest.
In the case of Hal Lehrman’s “Three Weeks in Cairo,” H. Stuart Hughes’s “Western Strategy and Economic Revolution,” and the book reviews, the standard seems to me a very high one indeed. For all the balanced fairness everywhere apparent, there is no sign of the lack of vitality and drive too often associated nowadays with judicial poise.
Dr. Leavis’s article (“Mark Twain’s Neglected Classic”) is one of the best short pieces he has done. . . . I can think of no single piece of his to which I would more confidently send a reader in need of a demonstration that Leavis is not interested in “form” and “technique” for their own sakes.
Robin Mayhead
Peradeniya, Ceylon
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