Wild Geese Quotes

“To read Hugh MacDiarmid is a searing test of one's honesty. Can one be a believer and yet say, as the misbelieving men say, that he writes much pretentious nonsense. Love his work, yet confess his failures? The difficulty arises from the fanatical nature of the responses his work has evoked. Between 'the only major poet writing in Europe to-day' and 'the fellow's no poet - the merest charlatan' there seems no plain path for the feet. He is in fact a daimon, whether diabolic or divine, and to be sober in its presence is past praying for. One is under the influence at once, drunk with delight or furious in denunciation. Only the calm souls who don't know a daimon when they see it can read him calmly; and they, of course, have not read him at all.”
― Nan Shepherd, Wild Geese: A Collection of Nan Shepherd's Writing