about an Aesthete, Sitwell Sitting

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Sacheverell Sitwell

photograph by Snowdon

Interviewed shortly before his death in 1988 at the age of 91, he was asked to name his most treasured possession. 

'Er, well . . . I was going to say myself.' 

...the shrill, high note of the aesthetes determined to masquerade as geniuses whatever the evidence to the contrary. At least it can be said in Sacheverell Sitwell's defence that numbers of other people, principally members of his family, were keen to abet this delusion. As a poet, his sister Edith thought he was 'one of the greatest that our race has produced in the last 150 years'. (from the article by DJ Taylor linked above)