[I mean] to recommend Leavis as a thinker, a "critical thinker" whose subject matter is the moral (not the moralistic) use of literature. The stress must fall equally on moral and literature, for it is precisely the distinction of Leavis that he has had the tact and intelligence largely to preserve this balance. (p. 248)

Seen from one perspective, Leavis's whole work is a series of wide-ranging, superlatively intelligent, violently partisan responses to the repellent and central fact of modern hugeness. Leavis joins Lawrence (whom he resembles as well as admires) in working to make it "impossible for us to ignore the nature of our loss" in our passage into the sought after privileges of life in the modern welfare state. Since it has never been his delusion that the world's change can be prevented, his mission has been the vitally direct one of preservation and practical continuity. Consequently...