I once asked Irving Kristol, who had helped Stephen Spender edit Encounter in the 1960s, how he had found the cultural translation from New York to the London of those days. He responded rather coldly that he and his wife had been astounded by how many homosexuals there seemed to be. I remember being shocked that he had been shocked. In the same way, it seems at least perverse of Orwell to have been surprised that, in the world of arts and letters, there should have been so many gentlemen who preferred gentlemen.
