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The price of civilization may have increased ninefold in the past quarter-century, as you suggest in your March 10 issue. But surely you need not cheapen an otherwise excellent article on taxation by attributing to Wordsworth a piece of indigestible grammar that would offend any intelligent high-school pupil: "Bryan, wouldst thou wert living at this hour." The poet might have written: "Would (that) thou wert . . ." What he did write is
Milton! Thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee . . .
Yes, Milton (or Wordsworth, or Bryan), TIME's English hath need of thee. It is: . . . a fen of stagnant waters . . .
JOHN S. IRWIN Madison, Wis.
¶ Fenny TIME bows apologetically to Milton, Wordsworth and William Jennings Bryan.—ED.