The Contrast
The Contrast*
Mr. Belloc Is as Irritating as Possible
The Book. For quite a long time gentlemen have been attempting to save the human race from itself by pointing out our common brotherhood. It has remained for Mr. Hilaire Belloc to seek the same end by emphasizing our differences. Not long ago Mr. Belloc was solving what he considers to be the Jewish problem by classifying the Jews as a distinct nation not to be confused with ordinary people. In The Contrast, he is proposing to solve in a similar manner what he has discovered to be the American problem. In the interest of peace, harmony and the comity of nations he sets out to prove the profundity of the contrast--physical, social, political, religious and literary--between the U.S. and Europe; and he proceeds, with all the humility and suavity of the best British manner, to be as irritating as possible for 267 pages.
"The United States," he sums up, "are not merely an enlargement of our European culture, still less a mere branch of it; they create a division of that culture into two--themselves and the rest." In a series of those lucid, convincing and ingratiating chapters of which he is so sure a master, he presents his analysis of our habits and customs, and his reasons for finding them so different from those of the Europeans-- particularly of the British, whom less original commentators have always supposed us to resemble.
In its physical appearance he finds our country different from the European countryside. We look differently--nowhere in Europe can he discover faces remotely resembling those of Mr. Harding, Mr. Bryan or General Pershing--we walk differently and act differently. Our nation moves and thinks with a suddenness, a violence and a uniformity unknown abroad; we allow ourselves to be taken in by Mr. H. G. Wells, and we have--it is the one contrast which no Englishman ever forgets--bathtubs.
Politically we are monarchical, whereas Europe is either aristocratic or democratic. We tend to give our elected Presidents, Governors and Mayors the authority of absolute monarchs, and to suppress the importance and dignity of our Congress and Legislatures. It is an interesting argument, even if in all probability it is an inaccurate one, and in the course of it we are unexpectedly told that our political system is less corrupt than the British and Continental systems. This is not because our politicians are any better, but because we keep a collective eye upon them and "the man who exposes corruption is, in America, heartily applauded and supported by his fellow citizens."
The author, who is a Roman Catholic as well as an authoritarian, emphasizes a religious contrast, presented in the fact that while any given section of Europe is either predominantly Catholic or predominantly Protestant, the U.S. contains both types of religion together. In literature we are different, in language we are dividing from the English; and in our foreign relations we have reached the point where it is necessary for us to keep away from Europe and for Europe to keep away from us if disaster is to be avoided.
The Significance. Mr. Belloc is closer to France than he is to the English. The book is accurately calculated to weaken the Anglo-American association. This may be the way to keep the peace. Or it may not. The book is an absorbing picture of America in the eyes of an acute European. The significance of Mr. Belloc's estimate depends some-what upon the significance of Mr. Belloc, and that is a matter of opinion.
Good Books
The following estimates of books much in the public eye were made after careful consideration of the trend of critical opinion:
THE DON JUANES--Marcel Prevost-- Brentano ($2.00). Dedicated by its translator (Jenny Covan), for some inexplicable reason, to Miss Geraldine Farrar, this ultra-Gallic spectacle of feminine psychology concerns itself with the author's idea of post-War France. It advances the age limit commonly allotted to heroines; all four of these are 40 or more. But apparently that fact only makes their aim, when tilting at their windmills, a little more deadly. They proceed devastatingly on their way, and all young rivals of 20 or so are pushed out of the picture.
BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT--Rafael Sabatini -- Houghton ($2.00). More sword-clashings by "the modern Dumas," who here tosses off another breathless tale of hapless heroine rescued by peerless knight amid rebellion, intrigue, mad dashings hither and yon, and all else calculated to lift one bodily out of one's chair.
LATITUDES -- Edwin Muir -- Huebsch ($2.00). A collection of criticisms on criticism, and essays about things and persons literary. Carlyle, Nietzsche, Joyce, Conrad, Burns, Dostoyevski all cataloged, labeled and ready for mounting. You may bristle at times at the author's unguarded superlatives of praise or blame.
HOW TO WRITE SHORT STORIES (WITH SAMPLES)--Ring Lardner -- Scribner ($2.00). Ring Lardner is experiencing the difficult honor of being overpraised by those zealous critics whose word of endorsement is death to ambition. Adored by H. L. Mencken, Gilbert Seldes and F. P. Awood Broun, he will need all his humor and poise to keep from showing off. Thus far he has succeeded. The delightful thing about this book of short stories is not the amusing burlesque framework, ridiculing those textbooks that offer to teach illiterate soda-clerks to earn $25,000 in the writing business; nor is it in the tales themselves, which are most divertingly couched in "the American language." The insolent humor of the book lies in the fact that between the framework and the stories there is absolutely no connection. Let the doubting reader verify by glancing over A Frame-Up, introduced as: "A stirring romance of the Hundred Years' War, detailing the adventures in France and Castille of a pair of well-bred weasels. The story is an example of what can be done with a stub pen."
Such a Clatter
Assembly of the P.E.N.-- Significant, Prolix
The second international meeting of the P.E.N. Club, International Literary Society, was held with some success last week in Manhattan. There has seldom been so cosmopolitan a literary gathering as that at the Hotel Pennsylvania which marked the opening of the meeting. At the speakers' table were French, German, Swedish, Mexican, Japanese, Dutch, Danish, Russian, Canadian, Rumanian, Spanish men and women of letters. The speeches (it is ordinarily a rule of the Society that there shall be no speeches) ranged from the kindly words of Mrs. Dawson-Scott, who originated the P.E.N. idea in England, and who read a cordial letter from John Galsworthy, its English President; through the graceful eloquence of Jules Romaine, French poet; to the explosive sincerity of Dr. Stein, who spoke for Switzerland, Germany, Austria.
To me, the occasion, with its great variety of accents was momentous, if a trifle prolix. Not only that the foreign writers were present; but that I have never seen so representative a group of Americans assembled. From England, were May Sinclair, Rebecca West, Mrs. Dawson-Scott. From America, were Carl Van Doren, President of the American Centre; Robert Frost, poet and winner of this year's Pulitzer Prize; Alexander Black, Mary Austin, Gertrude Atherton, novelists; Edwin Arlington Robinson, poet. Below, at smaller tables, were countless others--playwrights such as Owen Davis and Zoe Akins; novelists such as Fannie Hurst and Harvey Fergusson; critics such as Henry Seidel Canby and Clayton Hamilton. Such a clatter! I have never heard more noise.
The next evening, the painters and sculptors at the Grand Central Galleries gave a reception to the authors and their guests--and here were Blashfield and Violet Oakley, Grace George and Julia Arthur, and again all the literary folk. President Coolidge. telegraphed cordially--and it was all very significant and, like most significant things, a trifle dull. Significant, too, the absence of the "smart" New York so-called literary crowd. They, apparently, are not willing to be bored. Parlor tricks are more important to them than the honest and frankly sentimental message from John Galsworthy. I mark this as a sign of their ephemeral quality. I grant them that they are more amusing --but, alas!--their epigrams will make few dents in the progress of the ages.
J.F.
* THE CONTRAST--Hilaire Belloc--McBride ($2.50).