Ford Madox Hueffer [Ford] on a Huxley poem, 1921

The least instructed of readers is probably sensible of the fact that for, let us say, eighty years or so, there has been in existence in these Islands a peculiar jargon which we may as well agree to call the Poetic Vernacular. This provincial dialect has nothing to do with any living, practicable or spoken speech. It is not necessarily meant to convey any­ thing connected with life; it is a sort of blended product of industry and pruriency. Perhaps its nature is best expressed in this way: There is now a poet-I think it is Mr. Aldous Huxley, and in that case I may as well say that I have a respect for his achievements and still greater expecta­ tions for his future-who, I am told, had occasion to state in the course of one of his poems that after a convivial meal in familiar society he sometimes undid his collar stud, or his waistcoat button-something like that. Again, I am told-for I have this story from hearsay alonethat this poem caused more than a ten days' scandal amongst the literati of London. It is, in short, not to be thought of that a collar-stud should make its appearance in verse.