Auden Yet Again

This Auden fellow is really quite insightful sometimes. One further comment on one of the reasons writers generally have very mixed feelings about publicizing their work. It's a bit of an elitist remark in some respects; I think I'd be more comfortable with it in general if the conclusion were "if a good ethos were equally distributed among all men." But still.

Every writer would rather be rich than poor, but no genuine writer cares about popularity as such. He needs approval of his work by others in order to be reassured that the vision of life he believes he has had is a true vision and not a self-delusion, but he can only be reassured by those whose judgment he respects. It would only be necessary for a writer to secure universal popularity if imagination and intelligence were equally distributed among all men.