Salinger had invited me for a short visit to his house in the country. He said that the reason he chose not to publish the material he had been working on was to spare Mr. Shawn the burden of having to read, and to decide whether to publish, Salinger writing about sex. This went too far. The writer who originated, and was the most extreme example of, a recoil from publication and publicity had become something of a prisoner of his sympathy for the editor who had become, yet again, a source of disinclination to publish.
