Victoria's Pick

"Picking and Choosing" by Marianne Moore

Literature is a phase of life: if

     one is afraid of it, the situation is irremediable; if

one approaches it familiarly,

     what one says of it is worthless. Words are constructive

when they are true; the opaque allusion—the simulated flight

upward—accomplishes nothing. Why cloud the fact

     that Shaw if self-conscious in the field of sentiment but is

          otherwise re-

warding? that James is all that has been

     said of him but is not profound? It is not Hardy

the distinguished novelist and Hardy the poet, but one man

“interpreting life through the medium of the

     emotions.” If he must give an opinion, it is permissible that the

critic should know what he likes. Gordon

     Craig with his “this is I” and “this is mine,” with his three

wise men, his “sad French greens” and his Chinese cherries—

          Gordon Craig, so

inclinational and unashamed—has carried

     the percept of being a good critic, to the last extreme. And

          Burke is a

psychologist—of acute, raccoon-

     like curiosity. Summa diligentia;

to the humbug whose name is so amusing—very young and ve-

ry rushed, Caesar crossed the Alps on the “top of a

     diligence.” We are not daft about the meaning but this

          familiarity

with wrong meanings puzzles one. Humming-

     bug, the candles are not wired for electricity.

Small dog, going over the lawn, nipping the linen and saying

that you have a badger—remember Xenophon;

     only the most rudimentary sort of behavior is necessary

to put us on the scent; a “right good

     salvo of barks,” a few “strong wrinkles” puckering the

skin between the ears, are all we ask