``We no longer have Tom Moore's and Longfellow's' heart for any fate', either,'' I said.

``Moore and Longfellow didn't have the fate that faces us,'' Moreland said. ``One day our species promises co-existence, and the next day it threatens co extinction.'' We sat for a while drinking in silence.

``The heart,'' I said finally, ``is now either in the throat or the mouth or the stomach or the shoes. When it was worn in the breast, or even on the sleeve, we at least knew where it was.'' There was a long silence.

``You have visited England five times in the past quarter-century, I believe,'' my host said. ``What has impressed you most on your present visit?''

``I would say depressed, not impressed,'' I told him. ``I should say it is the turning of courts of law into veritable theatres for sex dramas, involving clergymen and parishioners, psychiatrists and patients. It is becoming harder and harder to tell law courts and political arenas from the modern theatre.''

``Do you think we need a new Henry James to re-explore the Anglo-American scene?'' he asked. ``Or perhaps a new Noel Coward?''

``But you must have heard it said that the drawing-room disappeared forever with the somnolent years of James and the antic heyday of Coward. I myself hear it said constantly -- in drawing-rooms. In them, there is usually a group of Anglo-Americans with tragicomic problems, worthy of being explored either in the novel or in the play or in comedy and satire.'' I stood up and began pacing.