ABSTRACT
I first knew Auden during his last year and my first year at Oxford. Then he had a rather sinister public reputation for keeping a revolver in his desk and for working at midday in artificial light with all the blinds of his room drawn. He had comparatively few friends, but I believe he influenced them greatly; perhaps more in the conduct of their lives than in their work. Amongst these were Cecil Day-Lewis and Rex Warner. I may add that, although Auden’s, Day-Lewis’s and my name have been linked together ever since the publication of ‘New Signatures,’ I had never met Day-Lewis or read any of his work until some time after my own ‘Poems’ were published: so that if there is a common factor in Day-Lewis and me, it must be the influence of Auden.
