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CRITICISM IN AMERICA

II. THE REVIVAL OF THE ANTI-HUMANIST MYTH hy Seward Collins

^=|riHE journalistic blockade against Paul Criticism informed the academic world that Elmer More, Irving Babbitt and their some of its ablest minds were taking their allies, which had lasted from the time principles from the same source. This double the Nation turned liberal in 1918—except attack of the two books, one in scholarship for the almost secret last years of the Unpop­ and one in free-lance journalism, had ulti­ ular Review and the fleeting career of the mately a great effect in preparing public Weekly Review—was finally broken at the opinion for the later events though at the beginning of 1928. A young pupil and ad­ time few could have realized their symptom­ mirer of Babbitt engineered a scries of ar­ atic importance. ticles in the Forum in which Babbitt, More, If no need was felt as yet for a concerted and Sherlock Bronson Gass, in discussions attack on the incipient movement, individual of current literature, presented the humanist replies to the Forum series and to the two position for the first time that it had been books were not lacking. More's penetrating seen in American journals in a decade. Two survey of current writers was not commented more articles followed discussing the deeper on until its appearance in book form the problems involved in humanism, written following year, but Babbitt's discussion of from the religious point of view by T. S. American criticism and Mencken's short­ Eliot and Michael Williams. The articles, it comings drew instant fire. A liberal professor is true, made very little stir. They were of English, Mr. Howard Mumf9rd Jones, doubtless thought by most readers to spring rushed a hot reply to the New Republic from a quaintly misguided search for topics (March 21, 1928) which might have served on the part of a magazine of controversy. But as a model for the New Republic's later ef­ they augured a new era in American criti­ forts along the same lines in its self-assured cism, and there were those who grasped the ignorance, its misrepresentation, and its spe- fact. ciousness. Mr. Jones revived with energy the While the Forum articles were progressing unfounded notion—which no one can hon­ through 1928 two books appeared which estly hold who has read the first paragraph made unmistakeably clear to the alert-minded and a half of Rousseau and Romanticism— that new forces were entering the critical that Babbitt considers Rousseau the cause of modern evils. This method of debating by scene. Gorham B. Munson's Destinations ascribing an absurdity and then proving it showed that the young men of the latest absurd, so popular in the offices of the New generation were turning to More and Babbitt Republic and elsewhere, made it easy for for leadership. Norman Foerster's American 400

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED CRITICISM IN AMERICA by SEWARD COLLINS 401 him to convict Babbitt of "deterministic stration, but the world still awaits this con­ naturalism" and "the post hoc ergo propter tribution to scholarship. hoc fallacy". If the academics wtll play these silly word Similar tactics led Mr. Jones to decide, for games, Mrs. Colum will teach them how it no visible reason, that two unrelated phrases should be done. "It clearly behooves me at used by Babbitt ("inner control" and "gen­ this point to produce some definition in an eral critical intelligence") had the same attempt to clarify the confusion with which meaning. The lengthy passage in which he Mr. Babbitt, Mr. Munson and the younger proved this absurdity to be absurd was al­ demi-academic minds have bewildered us." most worthy of Allen Tate's genius for imi­ Accordingly, out comes a definition: "A tation subtlety. By suggesting that Babbitt romantic literature is a literature which places would find it difficult "to explain the precise more importance on will, desire, and emotion difference between the gloom of Sophocles than upon intellect. A classical literature, on and the gloom of Theodore Dreiser ... be­ the other hand, places most importance on tween the hopelessness of Antigone and of the intellect". I am sure that the academics, QEdipus, and the hopelessness of An Amer­ both full and demi, were carried away by ican Tragedy", Mr. Jones demonstrated that the originality and profundity of this defini­ only lack of space prevented him from antici­ tion. Though I daresay some of them con­ pating the colossal fatuity along these lines cluded that Mrs. Colum's description of which we shall see later in the case of the Rousseau and Romanticism as amorphous New Republic's own Edmund Wilson. Mr. and bewildering arose from an unsuccessful Jones concluded by finding "hopeless con­ , attempt to wrestle with it. fusion" and "a naive world-scheme" in the It is not surprising to learn further from fact that Babbitt admires much in both the Mrs. Colum that Babbitt, with his disorderly classical and the Christian traditions, pro­ mind, and More, with his fake classicism, ceeding to break the news to Babbitt that the "have really never understood English litera­ two traditions are not without conflicting ele­ ture". But their chief disabihty is that they ments. are academic, and for the most part Mrs. Mary Colum did the honors for the ro-. Colum finds that "what passes as devotion to mantic naturaHsts in the case of Destinations Classicism in universities and halls of learn­ {Saturday Review of Literature, June 30, ing is nothing more than an inclination to­ 1928). She pronounced Mr. Munson "pecul­ wards thin and meagre forms of life, a iar" for urging classicism in American litera­ temperamental desire to be on the safe side". ture, and rebuked him for reviving "the old How the journalist loves to take all life for quarrel between classicists and romanticists his exclusive province! Mrs. Colum quickly so beloved of the academic mind". Further­ reveals that her anti-academicism is, as usual, more, his ideas on these themes are wrong: but a part of a general anti-respectability. She "Unfortunately for Mr. Munson he takes his informs us that the terms romantic and clas­ ideas of romanticism from Irving Babbitt's sic "have no real application" in America, disorderly mind, and particularly from his since our literature has been neither classical amorphous book Rousseau and Romanti­ nor romantic but instead (do not blame me cism". Mr. Munson's other guide is equally if Mrs. Colum's logic eludes you) has suf­ unreliable: "It would be very easy to show fered from the fact that not only our profes­ that Mr. Paul Elmer More has far more of a sors, but American writers in general, "are tendency towards Romanticism than towards meagre in their experience of life and litera­ Classicism". Mrs. Colum has been urged on ture". She makes her meaning clear in the several occasions to make this easy demon­ question that forms her concluding para-

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 402 THE BOOKMAN for JULY I93O graph: "How many American writers are misses as "exclusion", and urges Professor. there whose most extensive awareness of life, Foerster to forget the humanist "clichSs of has been bounded by crude or elementary thought" and discover "that Walt Whitman sex experience, or limited to helping their was a far better humanist than Mr. Babbitt". wives to wash the baby, sow the flower seeds, If Mumford at such moments recalls to us mow the lawn, and do a little house work?" the dear dead days of 1918, an even earlier Make note of the critical principle that Mrs. period was heard from in the Saturday Re­ Colum reveals here: that normal family life view of Literature, where American Criti­ is fatal to a writer. It recurs in nearly every cism was entrusted, rather unaccountably, to one of her critical writings. that pale, ineffectual ghost of pragmatism, We saw in Part One of this article how Horace M. Kallen. It is amusing to see Pro­ generous Mr. Lewis Mumford could be to fessor Kallen, a life-long academic, join Mary Babbitt when Babbitt seemed safely dead. Colum and Lewis Mumford in scoffing at But when Professor Foerster's American the "preoccupations of professors, doctrines Criticism proved Babbitt to be very much and disciplines of the schools". More in char­ alive, he dashed to do battle in the "New acter, if no more cogent, is his description of Republic, proclaiming against "the tedious humanism as "the last faint gasp of secular­ party war-cries and the empty party labels ized Calvinism, the frayed latter end of the ... the solecisms and the narrow, acerbities genteel tradition". By way of clirnax Profes­ of the 'new humanists'". Improving on Mrs. sor Kallen, pronounced humanism "a lot of Colum, he insisted that "except as historical boloney", which would seem to be the frayed catchwords, classicism and romanticism mean latter end of the Jamesian tradition of enliv­ nothing at all". But he is with her in his ening philosophical discourse with informal­ main line of attack: "The new humanism is ity and bounce. not humanism at all: it is the old academi­ cism". And everyone knows what academics are. "Their fear of 'expansiveness', their dis­ II trust of spiritual audacity, their high regard But these preliminary rumbles of the spring for.correctness, their curious belief in restraint of 1928 were isolated. It was only during the as the ultimate ethical principle—what are course of the following year that the sense of these qualities but the petty requirements of real power from the direction of Babbitt and their academic environments?" It might have More began to circulate among critics, editors been a sentence out of Letters and Leader­ and publishers. This was in part the effect ship, even to the Brooksian device of dis­ of the considerable interest manifested abroad, guising a dogmatic (and absurd) assertion where articles appeared in T. S. Eliot's in­ as a question. You are led to think for a fluential Criterion (which indeed had been moment that Mumford could not have read from its founding in 1922 the single exception Babbitt, and did not know that his "curious to the blockade), and in the Nineteenth Cen­ belief in restraint" is shared by the great tury, and where the first book on the subject ethical teachers of history (Aristode, to be was published, Louis Mercier's Le Mouve- sure, studied at the first Academy: does that ment humaniste aux Etats Unis. In this coun­ make him academic?); but then you remem­ try the Forum articles continued. The young ber that Mumford has read not only Babbitt men of the Hound and Horn, a Harvard echo but a great many other things besides; and of the Criterion, showed signs of being aware you wonder at the lack of communication of Eliot's early masters. In December of 1928 between the compartments of his mind. The THE BOOKMAN' began a succession of articles humanist restraint, or selectiveness, he dis­ on humanism.

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED CRITICISM IN AMERICA hy SEWARD COLLINS 403 More's Demon of the Absolute, issued at bitt has any living message for modern times. the end of 1928, his first book of literary criti­ 'Actually he has nothing, since he rejects our cism since the beginning of the decade, re­ chaos and his refusal sterilizes understanding. ceived the proper quota of damnations, but ... He is out of touch with what is pregnant it came a little too early for most of the critics and vital in our country.' Which is, of course, to consider it worth any special effort. And the truth in a nutshell". Mr. Frank had also this in spite of the fact that half of it was a said of Babbitt that he is "the man who with direct, powerful challenge to all the notions rnost ambition has challenged our modern prevailing among them and a detailed dis­ problems. His work has much to commend it cussion of most of the leading authors. There for influence on young America". But on the was only one notable review, by Allen Tate, other hand, in Mr. Frank's peculiar idiom, in the New Republic. Mr. Tate was not en­ "Something is in Babbitt which disqualifies tirely imperccptive, and at least recognized him from leadership, which makes ineffectual the book as "a literary event of the first order, his judgments". And thus quickly do the and a challenge in its turn: the younger men books of 1929 need revision in 1930. will now have to make up their minds about A month later Mencken was talking in the Mr. More; his attitude is unmistakable". He Saturday Review of Literature about "the also granted "the general soundness of his windy music which so-called humanists chant views", and that "his diagnosis of the distress so depressingly". Not all the critics, to be sure, of the modern spirit is accurate and pro­ were aware of the course of events. In May found". But he proceeded to diagnose More, Edmund Wilson remarked of the literary and perpetrated the first of those fantastic scene that "One has no consciousness of any exhibitions of pseudo-subtlety, pseudo-pro­ movement today. . . There are no particu­ fundity and irresponsibility which finally lar ideas in the air, and no discoveries rising made it necessary for Robert Shafer, as BOOK­ to the horizon". This was in a review of the MAN readers know, to discredit him as a critic collection of Burton Rascoe's vivid reports of of the subject. New York literary circles in the early twen­ By the spring of 1929 Babbitt, More and ties, a period in which Wilson, his writings humanism were becoming topical allusions. would seem to indicate with increasing clar­ One by one the critics took occasion to squelch ity, has become permanently mired. this ridiculous recrudescence of a defunct and The paragraph in which Henry Seidel obnoxious school. In March Harry Hansen, Canby first noted that More and Babbitt the New York World's astute literary re­ "have been much on critical tongues of late", porter, took notice of the mounting wave, his contained a perfect example of the kind of first remarks, more or less naturally, harking lamentable confusion which they are in the back to the days when his book page in the business of destroying. "Science is the great Chicago Daily News was one of the main achievement of the modern world. . .,. To avenues for the swift and noisy arrival of the desert in a body (this, of course, is the real man of the twenties, and when his Wednes­ danger) a passionate study of science in order day coliimn was likely to be a salute to a to grapple with problems more directly con­ new novel by Floyd Dell or a book of poems cerned with the moral welfare of mankind, by Carl Sandburg as the greatest thing since would be to repeat the experience of the Dark Leaves of Grass (intended as a high compli­ Ages". And that, in brief, is the trouble with ment). Reviewing Waldo Frank's The Re­ American culture: that a man can attain the discovery of America, Mr. Hansen said, "Mr. position of Dr. Caiiby and be so intoxicated Frank. eifectivcly punctures the delusion of by the developments of physical science as to Gorham Munson and others that Irving Bab­ be willing to subordinate morals, philosophy

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG L ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 404 THE BOOKMAN for JULY I93O and literature to it, and to label any attempt to manner, contributing its bit to the great struc­ return science to its rightful place a danger ture of science—all of course adding up to a to civilization. It ought to be apparent that total very impressive and illuminating.—If this modern passionate infatuation with sci­ anyone reading this does not yet know what ence is the most sinister aspect of the world humanism is, it might briefly be defined as a today, and that unless there is something like corrective to such Sunday-supplement "sci­ a wholesale desertion from the exclusive con­ ence", especially when respected in high centration and blind worship which science places. has provoked, and a serious grappling with By the autumn of 1929 it was generally the problems of the moral welfare of man­ understood that the humanists were making kind, a repetition of the Dark Ages is a cer­ a bid for power. Word got around that they tainty. Another such triumph of modern sci­ were to issue some sort of manifesto early in ence as was witnessed in 1914-1918 would the new year. It began to be whispered that do it. (And that strange idea, derived pre­ young men in the colleges were deserting sumably from nineteenth century rationalists Mencken in droves and turning to the hu­ or their survival in the Haldeman-Julius manists, particularly Irving Babbitt. The vet­ Blue Books, that the Dark Ages were dark­ eran observers of the literary scene,, of ened by the wilfully narrow preoccupations course, were aware of what such a tendency of the church!) portended, and lost no opportunity to throw "No writer upon criticism," added Dr. a little mud on the nascent uprising. T. S. Canby, "who cannot keep pace with and in­ Eliot's For Lancelot Andrewes, reprinting terpret the results of modern scientific think­ his Forum article on Babbitt, gave them all ing should be listened to in the next decade." a chance. A still handier occasion was the It would be more accurate to say that no publication of the life of Stuart Sherman, writer of criticism worthy of being listened making clear for the first time the extent of to will bother his head very much about sci­ Sherman's indebtedness to More and Bab­ entific thinking in the next decade or any bitt. The book was almost universally given other decade. I am using scientific thinking, out for review to Sherman's friends, who to of course, in the correct sense of exact obser­ a man lamented his youthful contact with vation applied to the external world and to "Irving Babbitt, one of the most frigid of that part of man susceptible of this process. living dogmatists, and of Paul Elmer More, The critic is concerned with what is left— one of the best but also one of the narrowest that is, with humanity. Dr. Canby, in the and most repressive of American critics", as fashion of the day, thinks of science as having Mark Van Doren put it in the Nation. crossed this impassible gulf, as witness this The younger generation of critics, those sentence: "Thanks to the sciences of psy­ who had grown up in the twenties, were a chology, psychiatry, sociology, and the science little vague as to what it was all about, and in history, we can understand Moses, Plato, inclined to extend not unfriendly interest to Mohammed, Calvin better than ever before". this new movement that seemed to be ex­ It makes one envious, does it not, of the men citing people. This attitude was given typical of the year 2030, for all they will know about expression by Karl Schriftgiesser, of the Moses and Plato after a great many schools of Boston Evening Transcript, in his summary psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologists, his­ of the year's activities in literature and publish­ toriographers, endocrinologists, psychic re­ ing. "Pick up almost any magazine from THE searchers, and doubtless many new sciences BOOKMAN up or down, and you will find have had time to succeed one another in considerable talk about Humanism. This fashion, each one, in the approved scientific philosophy of life and letters, which has been

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the especial target b£ Mencken's fury, and of the new humanists to realize that the which has been so staunchly (and ambigu­ movement was one worthy of aggressive at­ ously) defended by Professors Babbitt and tack. In the July, 1929, issue he was referring More, is gaining more credence all the time. to the "literature accumulating rapidly in this ... It used to be considered that Mencken newest battle of the books". He expressed defended the radical group, and Sherman admiration for the scholarship of some of the and his henchmen the conservative, but it is humanists, but condemned them on the evident that the theory of humanism goes whole for their "oracular and stiff assurance", much deeper than that. I confess that up to "tight and impenetrable dependence on for­ now it has me bewildered, but inasmuch as mulas", "unkindly light", and their "cate­ one finds the fight going on wherever one gorical dualism . . . unreal and wilfully de­ turns I am sure that it must be important." vised upon a structure of nineteenth century Even some of the older critics, at this naturalism, painfully indifferent to twentieth time, were hopefully curious about the new century modifications". Warming to his task, development, not through any love of it, but he discovered in the humanists pseudo-Aris- through dissatisfaction with the sterile mono­ toteUanism, arrogant impatience, fatal igno­ tone prevailing in American letters since the rance, literary fascism, an arrested state of middle of the twenties, with the same spokes­ Victorian ethicism, inflexibility of under­ men saying the same things and no one standing, a pathetic, dying fight for a showing any capacity for leadership. Six specious notion of "culture", essential ob­ months after his first automatic response scurantism, debased Calvinism, wilful dog­ noted above, Harry Hansen seemed almost matisms and categories. "It is not new and glad to record, apropos of an article by Irving it is not human. ... It is battling with Babbitt in THE BOOKMAN, "Babbitt is getting bogies which no one sees but itself. ... It a great deal of attention these days, now that is the inevitable wish for rest of uncreative our period of glorious spontaneity reaches if not of hopeless minds." its end and a revaluation of gains is in Two issues later Dr. Knickerbocker re­ order". He even pronounced the article "elo­ turned to the battle, this time calling the quent" and "delightful reading", but hastened humanists sterile, uncritical, and naive; and to add that Babbitt's "theories often act as referring to their bland ignorance, unseemly a wet blanket on the fine enthusiasm of the militancy, self-evident contradictions, rudi­ living generation". By December the mount­ mentary and easily satisfied consciences, rab­ ing signs of a change had convinced him binical and Alexandrian sophistries. I list all that "the most remarkable phenomenon in these uncomplimentary epithets partly from a American letters today is the complete bank­ natural joy in displaying choice morsels of ruptcy of the naturalistic movement". imbecility, but chiefly to draw attention to I am not making any attempt here to an early example of a kind of criticism to recount the reputation of More and Babbitt which the humanists have been abundantly in the academic world, for which a separate subjected in the last few months. I mean the article would be needed; but an exception criticsm which attempts to discredit them might well be made of the Sewanee Review, completely and without discussion by drag­ a quarterly devoted largely to scholarship, ging in irrelevant issues, instead of getting but keenly alive to the currents of the day, down to the real differences of opinion in­ never more so than under its present editor. volved and seeking to provide refutation. Dr. William S. Knickerbocker. To Dr. Sometimes this method has taken the form Knickerbocker, in fact, should probably be of talking about "bad manners"; sometimes given the credit for being the first opponent about "snobbishness"; sometimes the dis-

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 4o6 THE BOOKMAN for JULY I93O qualifying accusation that the humanists are at the end of December who should answer nearly, if not quite, Christian. You may be it but THE BOOKMAN'S own Rebecca West? surprised to learn that Dr. Knickerbocker's She had become annoyed to the point of chief complaint against the humanists is that incoherence by the "call to order" class of they are not Christian enough. Actually, after critics, as she termed them, and attempted using the epithets I have recorded, he had at one blow to crush the whole movement in the effrontery to claim it as one of his prin­ its American, English and French manifesta­ ciples, in contradistinction to the humanists, tions. Her success Was something less than "to be charitable", and wound up his second complete. (She tries again, on a larger scale, article, after invoking Matthew Arnold dis­ in next month's BOOKMAN.) Most of her guised as J. E. Spingarn, with "a final re­ article was given up to an onslaught on minder of the words of a greater humanist Julien Benda, and here I, for one, in spite than Matthew Arnold: 'the kingdom of of diligent study of his books in the light heaven cometh not by violence'". of the high praise of Irving Babbitt and Dr. Knickerbocker should know that in­ T. S. Eliot, and in spite of the uncongeniality dulging in this sort of criticism is a certain of Miss West's manner of writing about him, way to bring on his head not peace but a am \yilling to grant her complete success. He sword. For his quarrel with humanism is seems to me no useful ally of the humanist, not the religious quarrel; he nowhere dis­ "call to order", or "reactionary" movement (as cusses the real religious problems raised by you prefer), and Miss West is welcome to his humanism. He is protesting against the scalp. humanists' purely secular opinions; .he at­ Now I yield to no one in my admiration tacks More, for instance, for the very for Miss West's brilliant gifts as a novelist, opinions that More shares with Babbitt, igno­ journalist and critic. I am sure that no maga- rant of the fact (made clear in More's books) . zine has ever had a more entertaining or that More is a Christian. His whole article more eagerly followed foreign correspondent is a complaint (as the quotations above illus­ than THE BOOKMAN has had for the last year trate) against the humanists' insistence on and a half. But I daresay that not a few standards, on clear-cut distinctions, on virile readers have had the same experience that I judgment. To this he opposes a flaccid, cloy­ have had when reading her Letters from ing sort of estheticism, believing it the Abroad: that of being acutely embarrassed critic's duty "to appreciate and not to legis­ for her on seeing her, in the middle of some late". I have no desire to slur Dr. Knicker.- penetrating analysis, or eloquent apprecia­ bocker's religion, but if one were to judge tion, or devastating slating, or delightful only by the use he makes of it to belabor fooling, suddenly abandon her native shrewd­ the humanists, one would have to conclude ness and insight and fall back on the syn­ that his Christianity was a sort of non- thetic insight of some modern pseudo-science sectarian club for esthetes, to which most —usually not even the latest, but her own Christians would prefer Babbitt's manly special amalgam of the Freudian and Jungian scepticism. In any case, to attack the human­ evangels that were so popular among the ists on such grounds is a peculiarly un­ brighter literary sets ten and fifteen years pleasant mixture of the things that are God's ago. I was never so embarrassed for her as and the things that are Pater's. when this peculiarity led her, in the Herald In the meantime an urgent call for assis­ Tribune article, to say of Paul Elmer More: tance against the rising tide of humanism "His views on literature are so interpene­ had gone overseas from the alert offices of trated by an obscure panic about moral cus­ the New York Herald Tribune Books, and toms which he is unable to bring up to the

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED CRITICISM IN AMERICA by SEWARD COLLINS 407 level of consciousness and criticize' intellec­ of the great philosophers, moralists; and re­ tually that it would be hard to keep from ligious leaders of history that men differ in letting any discussion of him develop into essence from the rest of nature; and that a thesis on the neurosis which leads persons certain consequences flow from this differ­ continually to wash their hands". Criticism in ence), said Dr. Canby, "will seem a little terms of psychoanalysis has long lost the only jejune to readers who have been brought up merit it ever had, novelty. And really, was in the new philosophy of science". Quite so. there ever a blacker indictment of the modern Just as Dr. Canby's illusion that he is acquir­ mind and of a leading representative of it than ing wisdom when he is only swallowing this inability to distinguish between criticism the latest pseudo-scientific fads seems very involving morals and compulsion neuroses? comical, and a little tragic, to readers who Miss West went on to discuss Irving are able to bring any discrimination to bear Babbitt, "with whom nobody can disagree on the achievements of science. One of these when he puts forth again and again as a achievements Dr. Canby singled out for condition of criticism the possession on the special praise: "the scientific demonstration part of critics of a share in the cultural tra­ that matter is not a comprehensible reality". dition which it is extremely hard for persons That must have been quite a hard demon­ born of literate parents to escape". His stration to make: I should like to see just how humanism, it seems, is "nothing more than it was done. Perhaps it was the work of the a compulsive process springing from levels same super-scientist who has succeeded in much too far below the level of consciousness measuring instincts. to be intellectually criticized, which keeps It is not surprising that a science-intoxi­ his work in a state of confusion". I am glad cated litterateur like Dr. Canby should that Miss West was able to learn all that imagine that it is "the program of some of Babbitt has to teach her from her parents. the new humanists" (he mentions no names, But she is doing them no favor, I am sure, naturally) "to wipe out the nineteenth cen­ if she is suggesting that it was from them tury and to fall back uncompromisingly she learned that it was the part of wisdom upon the great systems of Plato, of Aquinas, to desert tradition and succumb to the non­ or of Descartes"; or that he should accuse sense of popular charlatans; and to sneer at them of dogmatism, pedantry, more preju­ the former with stale, meaningless phrases dice than scholarship, Hebraic intolerance, borrowed from the latter. and "denying such parts of life, and knowl­ • Returning to the timely theme in the Sat­ edge, as will not square with theory". The urday Review of Literature, Dr. Canby humanists, in turn, delight in receiving such properly rebuked Miss West for being "too epithets from so misguided a cultural guide. ready to take modern psychology where it Though they would admit that Dr. Canby suits her purpose, and use it as she pleases". is better than most, in that he is willing to But, unfortunately, this was merely an ex­ commit hirnself and put on paper what is ample of the pot diagnosing the kettle: the in his mind. "It would seem that life and very next week Dr. Canby was calling on its accumulated knowledge must all be ac­ the humanists not to pronounce on morals cepted as data before moral and philosophic without studying the functions of the glands. choices can be made; and for this task we "More triumphs have been won for wisdom have as yet no one supremely competent, nor by the rediscovery of instinct, and its measur­ will have until the speed of experiment ing by science, than by the mere retaining of slackens, and the air grows clearer." There the old moral categories." The humanists' we have it: the eternal cry of the half-baked dualism (that is, their agreement with most modernist: the morals and philosophy of the

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 4o8 THE BOOKMAN /or JULY I93O past are no longer valid; judgment must Post: rebuking the humanists for being-so wait on the "facts"; the facts are not all unmannerly and inconsistent as to indulge in; let "experiment" go on, and judgment in plain speaking and hard hitting, "vigor" be suspended. Against that kind of thinking being thought to be the invention of Mr. the humanists are implacably opposed: for Mencken and the exclusive property of the it is under the sway of such speciousness and anti-respectables. The manifest absurdity of confusion that the forces that, without know­ being both conservative and alive quickly be­ ing it, make for barbarism are riding rough­ came a chronic source of complaint through­ shod over the world while the defendants out the press. of civilization are only slowly getting into Rage was succeeded by horror, and horror effective action against them, by panic, as the full realization of the situa­ tion came home: realization that the shal­ low Bohemians and buffoons, the befuddled III science-worshippers, the irresponsible esthetes, But the events of 1928-1929 were only the the deluded sociologists who have domi­ beginning. Into the midst of the mounting nated our literature and set the tone for interest in the new humanists and the much of our life in recent years were not first efforts to squelch them, the January, going to be let off easily, were in fact going 1930, BOOKMAN, containing two outspoken to be rigidly examined from some other humanist articles, dropped with something viewpoint than that of mutual admirers'and of the force of a bomb-shell. It was the first publishers' blurb writers. THE BOOKMAN had indication to most readers that there were succumbed to the forces of evil, and other going to be any fireworks, or that there magazines were known to be somewhat sym­ were going to be any blows struck except pathetic. At least one pubUshing house had on the hostile side. One of the articles, Robert humanist leanings. Where might not the Shafer's "Humanism and Impudence", was plague break out next? What would become a merciless exposure of the confused reason­ of the true faith that had been so gallantly ing and objectionable dialectical methods of fought for and with such difficulty carried a pretentious effort to blast the humanists' to triumph? What would become of ready foundation on the part of a young critic, markets for manuscripts? Mr. Allen Tate. The other article, "Fare­ Denunciations began to flow from the press. well to the Twenties", was a general "razz­ The anti-humanist myth was quickly dragged ing" of most of the ideas and figure-heads of out of storage. A multitude of ingenious the past dozen years in American letters. minds set to work to bring it up to date The effect of the two articles was comical. and spread it broadcast. Their purpose was Consternation and rage spread among the to "kill humanism at all costs". They took literati at the unheard of, unimagined spec­ as their motto that immortal line of Philip tacle of anybody vigorously championing, Guedalla's which should have been the in­ right out in cold print, the ideas of the two vention of G. K. Chesterton: "Any stigma most distinguished critics in the country, and will do to beat a dogma". Humanist maga­ at the same time having the brazen nerve zine articles were scanned minutely for quo­ to say a few frank words about their con­ tations which could be made to look absurd temporaries. The first, the automatic, the in­ or repellant when lifted out of their context evitable response from the custodians of the and surrounded by suitable remarks. Even current order was that of New York's two some of the humanist books were, among daily book columnists, Harry Hansen of the the more hardy or the more desperate, World, and William Soskin, of the Evening looked into for the same purpose.

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The opening gun in this new high pres­ ration apparently consisting of reading a sure anti-humanist crusade, apart from the single magazine article of Babbitt's. But this, incessant barrage o£ the dailies, was fired by added to years of devotion to John Dewey Mr. Alter Brody, who was provoked by the and other leaders of what passes for philos­ "Farewell to the Twenties" into rushing a ophy among the emancipated, enabled him hot letter into the T>iew Refmblic warning its to start off with a bang: "Of all the strange readers that these advocates o£ Babbitt and crazes that sweep semi-annually over Amer­ More were dangerous champions of reaction, ican criticism, surely none will seem odder to repression, intolerance, bigotry, etc.—all the the future literary historian than the present dread qualities which the New Republic is attempt to pump life into that particular under the impression that it opposes. Now in rationalization of reaction and gentility that this of course, Mr. Brody was quite right; passes at present under the name of human­ and in fact was bearing tribute either to the ism". Then to reassure the Nation's readers humanist powers of expression or his own that the little round of slick modernistic ideas powers of divination. For there could be no in which their minds are wont to circulate more explicit way of defining humanism was the.crowning word of the ages, he pro­ than by saying that it is everything the 'New ceeded to "explain away" the new converts Republic is not; unless one were to say to humanism by listing the "motives" for it is everything the Nation, or the New this obnoxious tendency. They were: i. Re­ Freeman, or the Herald Tribune Boo\s is action from incoherent and barbarian writ­ not. To be considered bigoted and reac­ ing; 2. The humanist leaders are (or rather, tionary by these organs of imitation liberal­ seem to be) better educated; 3. Classicism al­ ism and sickly humanitarianism, is the siir- ways follows romanticism; 4. Accepting an est possible proof that one is somewhere near authority saves mental effort; 5. To those ig­ the truth. It is perhaps not surprising that norant of science, its conclusions seem de­ the only example Mr. Brody gave of the "en­ pressing; 6. Desire to have a definite point of cyclopedia of reaction" which he vaguely view; 7. Desire to be on the band-wagon. ascribed to the humanists was one that had So many reasons, clashing together so vio­ no basis outside his own fevered imagination: lently, would seem to be excessive protesta­ "Nothing is left out—not even anti-Sem­ tion; but I daresay they went down with the itism". If it had merely been a matter of Mr. Nation's readers. Especially as it was straight­ Brody's jumping before he was bitten, he way proved to them, by a quotation from would merely have been silly. But he was Schopenhauer on Controversy and in two deliberately injecting racial prejudice into a paragraphs, that "it is impossible to take Mr. literary and intellectual controversy, which Babbitt seriously as a thinker". Why, he even was vicious; and at the same time he was relies on "antiquated psychology"—an ob­ identifying his own race with all the stupid vious disqualification now that human nature and unhealthy elements in recent American has begun to change so fast. For the rest, Mr. life and writings, which was treacherous. Hazlitt was content to pad out his meagre in­ Mr. Henry Hazlitt, the newly appointed lit­ formation with parroting of the current non­ erary editor of the Nation and thus the latest sense about Babbitt's "obsession, almost inheritor of the mantle of Paul Elmer More, monomania" concerning Rousseau, the "nega- became so alarmed at the prospect of his tiveness" of decorum, and so on. predecessor's ghost walking again, and so If the journalists had been scandalized by zealous to atone for this skeleton in his new the rough treatment of the current literary employer's closet, that he rushed an anti- heroes, Allen Tate's friends and admirers had humanist broadside into print after a prepa­ been thoroughly outraged by Mr. Shafer's

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 410 THE BOOKMAN for JULY I93O demolishment of him. Mr. Tate had written manism and Impudence", indulged in violent an article that raised two questions: the value personal abuse of Mr. Tate and attempted to re­ of his ideas on the relation of humanism to fute his arguments. religion; the propriety of his controversial It is deplorable indeed that a critic of Mr. methods. Mr. Shafer had demonstrated that Tate's seriousness, learning, and conscience should be subjected to the vindicdve scoldings in the first he was preposterous and in and low insinuations of the angry Mr. Shafer. the second intolerable. Mr. Tate had sought It is deplorable that THE BOOKMAN should admit to disqualify the whole humanist program personal abuse into its pages. It is deplorable by the argument that the only way to im­ that the cause of the Humanists should suffer pose moral judgments is through an au­ from the advocacy of Mr. Shafer. thoritative church, yet it turned out that But Mr. Tate's place as a critic is too well he was not himself writing from the basis founded and his integrity is too well-known to of belief in any church; in other words, that suffer from a personal attack. As the target of his argument was suicidal. He couched his Mr. Shafer's wild shafts, he will have the sym­ attempt at a philosophical disquisition in a pathy of all who have respect for propriety and bumptious, snarling language, and involved intelligence. The damage that is done, is done himself in impenetrable tangles of misused to Humanism, to THE BOOKMAN, and to Mr. philosophical verbiage and chaotic logic. Fur­ Shafer himself; How futile and weak must the cause of Humanism be if its defenders are forced thermore, he reached his contemptuously to vilify their opponents in order to establish sweeping conclusions, seemingly by fair their principles against a serious criticism. Mr. means, but actually by ignoring or elabo­ Tate's article was a careful piece of dialectic, well rately distorting the evidence. documented, well reasoned, and animated by Mr. Shafer not only exposed the foolishness a regard for fundamental principles. Mr. Shaf­ of Mr. Tate's argument, but was forced as a er's ardcle is wrathful and injudicious, if not matter of common honesty to show also that scurrilous; it offers the disgusting spectacle of a Mr. Tate had used improper methods to "humanist", presumably of mature and academ­ ic pursuits, giving way to a fit of silly rage when reach his illegitimate conclusions, and to point a young thinker proceeds to analyze and dis­ out that the only possible verdict on Mr.. cuss the principles of humanism. We conjure our Tate touched his integrity as a critic, what­ readers to allow no credit whatever to Mr. Shaf­ ever might be his private feelings as to his er's insinuations against Mr. Tate's critical prac­ intentions. Mr. Shafer.and THE BOOKMAN were tice and state of information; there is no cridc at once assailed for "personal abuse", "un- in the country more painstaking or more sensible gentlemanly conduct", "rudeness", "scurril­ of the responsiblities of the critic. And we invite ity" and so on. Not once, however, was an our readers to consider the wretched conditions attempt made to defend either Mr. Tate's ar­ of disorder and bad taste that will allow such an guments or his methods, except for the attack as Mr. Shafer's to come to light at all. vaguely general blanket defences of his friends. Of these I quote the most substan­ It is noteworthy, and regrettable, that Mr. tial, that of Mr. Donald Davidson, in the Davidson did not emulate Mr. Shafer by Nashville Tennesseean: joining refutation of arguments and presen­ tation of evidence to what Mr. Davidson could In the Winter number of Hound and Horn in his own case quite justly call "indulging appeared an article by Allen Tate, entided "The Fallacy of Humanism", which had previously in violent personal abuse". The same must be been published in The Criterion in England. said of an editorial in the Gyroscope, a Palo Immediately on its appearance Mr. Tate's article Alto quarterly edited by Yvor Winters, Janet was attacked, in the January BOOKMAN, by Rob­ Lewis, and Howard Baker: "We feel it our ert Shafer, who, writing under the tide of "Hu­ duty to protest emphatically against a recent

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attack on Mr. Allen Tate in THE BOOKMAN, academic. After Mr. Shafer's first exposure by Mr. Robert Shafer. Mr. Shafer stepped en­ of Mr. Tate's freedom with the evidence there tirely clear of the philosophical and literary were many readers who were willing to take issues involved to indulge in the most in­ into consideration that "the author was travel­ jurious o£ personalities. This is the conduct ling", or "he had not his books by him", or neither of a humanist, which, with a certain "his notes were obscure", or "he was misin­ lack of humility, we feel, Mr. Shafer, like a formed", or even that he was sorry. But when number of other academic gentlemen, profess­ in his reply Mr. Tate not only side-stepped es to be, nor of a gentleman. We feel that Mr. the demonstrated misrepresentations, but pro­ Seward Collins, as editor of THE BOOKMAN, ceeded to misquote himself in a crucial pas­ showed little more discretion than did Mr. sage in order to discredit his opponent, I am Shafer and that a public apology is in order sure that most readers lost any interest in from both of them". what the explanation might be. Either he Iquote these strong editorials, the strongest knew what he did or he knew not what he that reached me, in order to complete the did: it matters little which, so far as responsible record of a notable controversy, being quite criticism is concerned. . confident that anyone capable of examining I share the admiration of his friends for fairly all the evidence will side with Mr. Mr. Tate's brilliant gifts when he is not led Shafer and THE BOOKMAN and feel that any into frenzied and disgraceful tactics by tack­ apology should come from Mr. Tate. The ling something so enormously beyond his protests of his friends, it should be noted, powers as knocking Irving Babbitt, Paul were written before the appearance of Mr. Elmer More and Norman Foerster into Tate's reply to Mr. Shafer in the March cocked hats. I regret as much as his friends BOOKMAN, a reply in which Mr. Tate carried that his necessary failure should have been so his shocking methods of debate to the ex­ ignominious. But one would be unfair to treme, as Mr. Shafer demonstrated in his ac­ • one's hopes for Mr. Tate's talents not to in­ companying rejoinder. What can be said.of form him emphatically when he misuses them. an author who revises a crucial passage in an One would be faithless to still larger obliga­ article between editions, and then, with no tions not to protest equally emphatically when mention of the alteration, quotes his revised the bounds of what is tolerable in contro­ version and makes the central theme of his versy have been overstepped. reply a charge of misrepresentation because In the meanwhile, behind the scenes, dras­ his critic followed the plain meaning of the tic methods of reprisal against the humanist original? Well, the only thing that can be invasion were being plotted. It was feared said was said by Mr. Shafer in his original ar­ that the' approaching humanist symposiurii ticle, particularly in his concluding opinion might sweep the country, with horrible re­ that Mr. Tate had not yet attained the com­ sults. A symposium in reply was quickly con­ pany of the great in his kind of criticism, but ceived, rumored, planned, announced, under might in time. Mr. Tate obliged by making the organizing skill of Mr. C. Hartley Grattan. substantial progress in his very next article. There was endless scurrying to gather am­ I do not know whether there were still munition and marshal the forces. The mails those who cared -to defend Mr. Tate's serious­ were crowded with letters, the air with tele­ ness, learning, conscience, and so on, after grams. Conferences were hastily called. Men reading his second exhibition. At all events who had never heard of each other or who they must have realized that something more had reviewed each other's books with asperity than indignant protestations would be needed. suddenly found themselves intimate friends, And even then^ the question would be largely spending hours together in restaurants devis-

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 412 THE BOOKMAN for JULY I93O ing schemes for the campaign. Enraptured the public, and in another bringing up the esthetes and dry little rationalists, social revo­ recurring question, how it is possible for a lutionaries and bucolic poets, muck-raking reputation as a critic to be won in this coun­ journalists and conscientious novelists, emi­ try by a writer who cannot write three logi­ nent professors and literary tyros, encouraged cally consecutive sentences, who parades mis­ one another with promises of cooperation information on crucial subjects with the against the universal enemy. authority of' omniscience, who abounds in The daily press kept up its barrage, with false generalizations and purely private sys- the critics around the country taking their tematizations, who has never contributed an cue from the New. York men and adding important opinion, a novel idea, a valid dis­ their voices. The most tireless of the news­ tinction, a fresh characterization, or even, in paper men was William Soskin, who seldom spite of inveterate asperity, an effective slating let a day go by without some anti-humanist or a memorable epithet. It should be remem­ sermon or squib. Indeed his exhibition be­ bered that the decade of the twenties was a came one of the most extraordinary ever seen happy period for continuators of the Irish on a respectable publication, strikingly incon­ anti-respectable tradition established in this gruous with the Evening Post's distinguished country, by Francis Hackett. It enabled career. Before long he had worked himself them, at one and the same time, to exercise up to the point where he was not stopping the Britisher's natural desire to patronize short of scatological references. On off days, America, to mock established institutions, and when no better opportunities for his gutter- to appear to be "in the movement". There sniping at the humanists offered themselves, were two main differences between the lead­ he would praise a book, remark that it was a ing representatives: first, Ernest Boyd fol­ book the humanists would not like—and then lowed the Mencken wing of the movement, attack the humanists for their hypothetical while Mrs. Colum trailed after the Brooks- dislike. I quote a sample of his manner of Bourne contingent; and second, Mr. Boyd providing Post readers with the literary news. wrote copiously and so more quickly ran The occasion was the appearance of two through his period as a critic, whereas Mrs. magazine articles, one by Irving Babbitt, the Colum, taking a tip from J. E. Spingarn, other a hostile critique of him by Mary Colum. wrote so seldom that at the close of the dec­ After referring to Professor Babbitt's article ade her reputation is at its apogee. The Mr. Soskin wrote: Guggenheim Foundation is performing a dis­ "Original sources do not serve as very de­ tinct service to American letters in eliciting pendable guides, however, in a subject so a book from her. confused and many-voiced as contemporary -Mrs. Colum's Scribner article, "Self-Critical literary criticism. I think there is a much more America", was typical of her art. After a pre­ sound and artistically intact exposition' of liminary round of absurdities—"the writing humanism in its place in American literature of a moderately successful piece of literary in the February issue of Scribner's, written criticism requires more variety of literary ac­ by one of America's keenest critics, Mary complishment than any other kind of writ­ Colum." Later Mr. Soskin explained this odd ing"; America being a "new country" has aversion'to "original sources" in favor of the produced "a new form of cridcism—social most hostile article available,,by saying "Mrs. criticism", meaning the criticism of Mencken Colum is an excellent writer, while Professor and Brooks; Count Keyserling is a "really Babbitt is a mediocre one". profound observer"; the comic strip artists And indeed Mrs. Colum's article was occa­ produce "devastating criticism" (shades of the sioning spasms of joy in one large section of American dada movement of 1922!), etc.—

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED CRITICISM IN AMERICA by SEWARD COLLINS 413 she proceeds to her main thesis. Her method particularly in America/' she says, "to work she takes from Van Wyck Brooks: achieving up the ancient controversy between the clas­ a formula for distributing blame and praise sicist and the romanticist". Just what is meant by selecting two vague words, relating them by "in recent years" I could not at first by special interpretations, and then letting imagine, nor why "particularly in America". one stand for everything she likes and the If she had said "particularly in England" I other for everything she dislikes. She wisely would have guessed she meant the discus­ rejects Brooks's pair, "acquisitive" and "pos­ sions during the past decade by T. S. Eliot, sessive"—would anybody try to pump life Middleton Murry, Hugh Fausset, Herbert into them today ?—and produces a pair of her Read, and many others. If she had said "par­ own, "instinctive" and "emotional". To give ticularly in France", I would have supposed her idiosyncratic use of them an air of justi­ that she was alluding either to the anti- fication she quotes part of a dictionary deiini- romantic campaigns which Charles Maurras tion of "instinct", and then promptly forgets (with many disciples) and Baron Seilliere it. It quickly becomes clear that in her private have been conspicuously waging for more terminology an instinct is merely any emotion than thirty years, or to the series of passionate that she doesn't like. discussions aroused by the several "centen­ Applying her formula, Mrs. Colum imme­ aries" of Romanticism in 1926, 1927, 1928, diately gives everything American and every­ and 1929. But here, again, we shall see in a thing respectable a bad name by calHng it moment the reason for this disparaging atti­ "instinctive", in contrast to the "strong civ­ tude toward the sterile debates of the pedants ilized emotions of European countries". In "particularly in America". the American literature of the New England So unhappy has Mrs. Colum become about school, instinct was dominated by intelli­ romanticism and classicism (could it possibly gence; recent literature has worshipped in­ be from discovering by further reading the stinct. In both cases there was "lack of triteness of her "own" definition quoted emotional power". Puritanism consists of "in­ earlier?) that she now rather piteously begs telligence and powerful instinct, an intelli­ that the terms be dropped "by common gence at war with instinct". At its most agreement for a generation". In any case, she objectionable (and Mrs. Colum talks about reminds us of her dictum that the terms it as though it were always at its most objec­ "have no real application in America", ampli­ tionable) Puritanism is "the tortured and fying her earlier explanation by linking twisted triumph of intelligence over gross in­ "meagre experience" with her present thesis: stincts in naturally sensual men who are too we have had only instincts, not emotions. much .concerned with salvation and self- Why, Americans have been so unimaginative preservation". Has she not achieved a handy that they have even thought of love largely formula by means of her home-made psy­ in terms of "serene domestic affection". They chology.? We shall see presently how she are Puritans, "and this has to be said against uses it. all forms of Puritanism ... it gives people a After some paragraphs on the nature suspicion of all emotions except such as can of a national literature Mrs. Colum reverts be used to advantage in family life". (You to the subject of classicism and romanticism, will pardon Mrs. Colum, I am sure, for protesting as usual at the unworthiness of using "emotions" as though the Puritans had these "moldering pigeon-holes" to receive her any; but "instincts" would have sounded so attention, properly belonging as they do only awkward there). I hope our critic will soon to "the archives of pedagogy". "There has tell us in detail the cure for this regrettable been a determined attempt in recent years. and provincial fondness for domesticity, so

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 414 THE BOOKMAN for JULY I93O that America may at last grow up and pro­ high state of emotional development". Mrs. duce literature that will at least be either Colum seems a litde uncertain in the appli­ classical or romantic, whatever its other cation of her instinctive-emotional formula. merits may be ... I hope she will also ex­ Part of the time Babbitt is "launching his plain the sharp difference between instinct, thunderbolts against instinct", and "hound­ on the one hand, and the desire and emotion ing" it, in the manner required by her defini­ that in her definition characterize romanti­ tion of Puritanism. At other moments he cism. I am sure that she can explain it; I am appears to be himself dominated by instinct sure that she can explain anything. like the "loose unbridled" novelists of the But now at last we see what the talk about modern anti-Puritans: she calls him "a dan­ • instinctive-emotional, about the classifications gerous instinctivist", and speaks of "the ex­ of pedants, and about the "American" fond­ traordinary sway instinct has over his mind". ness for family life, is leading up to. Puri­ But as she has made both of these ruling tanism, "even in its old New England form American traits thoroughly unattractive, of reason and intelligence at war with in­ there is no reason—apart from the irrelevant stinct ... is still in a powerfully influential one of consistency—why she should limit position. It has even taken refuge in a sort herself to one of them in achieving her main of philosophic system which its inventors and aim of disparaging Babbitt. disciples call Humanism". Babbitt is singled You might think that an elaborate psy­ out for special attention. He was doubtless chological analysis of the American character, delighted to hear that he had been promoted including the invention of several new terms, by Mrs. Colum: his "disorderly mind" has would suffice as a method of disqualifying now become his "powerful analytical mind". Babbitt as a critic in one short essay. But But his use of his powerful analytical mind before she was through Mrs. Colum had is deplorable: he actually thinks that classi­ evolved another. It consisted of saying that cism is a- higher form of art than roman­ he has the "philosophic" mind and not the ticism, and that the modern attempt to make "literary": "let us not delude ourselves with the romantic virtues take the place of the the idea that he is a literary critic". She ex­ classic virtues is a symptom, and in its turn plains the difference by saying that one seeks a cause, of grave and far-reaching confusions. to ex-plain life and the other to reveal it. Here, of course, I am not quoting Mrs. This sounds all right, until she begins to Colum. In her view Babbitt is merely ob­ use it. "When the urge to explain life and sessed by that hobgoblin of all Puritans, in­ the ends of life is greater than the urge to stinct, which "for him is always in a position reveal it, the writer is not engaged in the of terrific power; he hunts for it everywhere, production of literature—he is engaged in and hounds it down wherever he can find it". something else, either philosophy, or theology, And, typical pedant that he is, he puts this or science". She conveniently neglects, you beie noire of his into a pedagogical box: "gen­ see, to add "or criticism", as the sense de­ erally speaking, he equates Romanticism and mands; for her purpose is to prove that instinct"; when really,, as we have learned Babbitt has nothing to do with literature. from Mrs. Colum, these are "two qualities No less striking is the incongruity of her that are at enmity with each other"; for the new formula with the great literary value simple reason that, as everyone knows (or she had put on criticism at the beginning will know as soon as the Colum school of of her article, when she wanted to salute psychology and esthetics has revolutionized Mencken and Brooks. When Mencken and these two subjects), instinctive people lack Brooks write their social, moral, and philo­ emotions, and "Romanticism presupposes a sophic views, their criticism has "high literary

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED CRITICISM IN AMERICA by SEWARD COLLINS 415 value"; when Babbitt presents his social, at this, quotes the sentence alone, drags in an moral, and philosophic views, he is "con­ irrelevant reference to Yeats's admiration for fusing the aim of literature and the aim of Sophocles, and is moved to proclaim that in philosophy", vi^hich makes him "a dangerous addition to "the worst faults of the old and arid influence" in literary criticism. And pedantic schools of criticism" and "aesthetic of course it is not only Babbitt who is dis­ callousness", "Professor Babbitt has a fault qualified as a literary critic by this odd way as a critic which has never appeared in with terms. At the forefront of her article criticism before—he is a dangerous instinc- Mrs. Colum had boldly listed the "great dead tivist". Is it not a quaint form of criticism critics": Aristotle, Boileau, Lessing, Herder, which devises a new terminology of con­ Taine, Sainte-Beuve, Matthew Arnold. Now demnation, fits a writer to it, and then accuses one must turn back and shift them out him of inventing a "new fault"? of criticism over among the philosophers, Mrs. Colum's other quotation takes us back theologians, scientists, and other mere to her peculiar literary dogma about the "explainers" . . . The utter confusion in ruinous effects of mowing the lawn and pre­ which all these terms lie in Mrs. Colum's ferring one woman to other women. Pro­ mind can be clearly seen by reading in suc­ fessor Babbitt had attempted to enliven an cession two sentences which occur in adjoin­ analysis of Keats, and in particular Keats's ing paragraphs, if it is remembered that she specious identification of truth and beauty, defines philosophy as an explanation of life with a humorous reference to Helen of Troy, and the ends of life. "All great writers have as' being "beautiful, but neither good nor the philosophic mind, and all great writing true". The joke, to be sure, was not in Bab­ has behind it a warp and woof of philos­ bitt's best manner. I remember putting a ophy"—and—"Seeing into life profoundly mark of distress in the margin on first read­ enough and sympathetically enough to be ing it. But it forms a most casual detail in able to make literature is far more likely to the midst of a series of subtle distinctions. incapacitate a writer for explaining life or Mrs. Colum pounces on it, quotes it alone, 'the ends of life', than to add to his capacity and pronounces it "a judgment on Keats for explaining them". which in pure confused Philistinism could Most of Mrs. Colum's talk about Babbitt hardly be beaten by his namesake, Mr. Bab­ consists of sweeping statements unsupported bitt of Main Street, Zenith", Furthermore, by evidence or direct reference. But in the she can only see in an allusion to Helen article under discussion she' produces two which does not treat her as a moral paragon, quotations by way of evidence—two quota­ an illustration of stern, sex-obsessed Puritan­ tions which when lifted out of their context, ism, presumably "the tortured and twisted and taken literally, and set among contemp­ triumph of intelligence over gross instincts tuous chatter on unrelated subjects, can of in naturally sensual men" which she finds in course be put in an unfavorable light—pro­ Puritanism. "It is characteristic of Professor vided one is careful to - suppress entirely the Babbitt", she says, "that beauty to him is the serious train of argument of which they form beauty of woman, and characteristic in turn, a part. These conditions suited Mrs. Colum's that goodness in women is limited to the critical methods admirably. In the course of business of domestic relations". In pure con­ a profound discussion of the religion of fused Bohemianism this could hardly be India, Babbitt refers to Tagore and the beaten by the whole corps of American critics esthetic romanticism which might be pre­ working in unison. sumed in him from the fact that he is greatly (The third and concluding part of "Criticism admired by W. B. Yeats. Mrs. Colum bridles in America" will appear next month.)

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NARRAGANSETT PIER

by Vincent McHugh

»OME along," said his mother. "Don't him. And before he knew it he was inside stand there gaping." the shop; and the Japanese was bowing and But the small boy had been stuck putting rays of creases into his tight smile; to the shop window like a fly. He heard his and his mother had opened her bag and felt mother; and he would not have considered in it with a white silk glove while his heart disobeying had he considered at all. It was beat, beat, and the fireworks' smell excited his pride that she could depend on him. At hiiri, and the great porcelain jars on the the impatience of her voice prompt nerves shelves. . . tugged at his muscles; but the heart in his "How much is it?" His mother's voice body was attached to the blue pail with the dwindled. His heart had stopped. The sky, rolled brass lip, its blue spade creased for the which had been gray and curly as a sheep's handle, in the shop of the Japanese importer back, crouched and darkled. The dragons on on the boardwalk. The glass chimes painted the jars were foreign and freezing, and the with delightful ideographs made a sweet man with the blue pail might cut him in jangling; and over all other noises the sea pieces, and the chime of bells became a rasp, poured a long sluicing noise on the sand, because he had seen two Japanese boys worm over and over, a sound like the feeling of out from behind the couriter, look at him sleep. a second with sliding eyes, and run out at His mother said sharply: "Come along! the back door. They did not speak. He had If you think it will do you any good to—". never heard them make any sound but a She knew that he wanted something; and slight twinging noise like the voices of the he was aware that it would be hopeless to ask blackbirds in his grandmother's cherry-tree at for it, even to beg. As she came back along home, gobbling the fruit. His grandmother the boardwalk, she took his arm, as if to—. would help him; but she was far off. It came But she would consent, impatient, to listen. over him with a thrill that his mother was He gazed up at her with a grave muted there. She loomed warm and deep. Thanks­ request. "Well? What is it.?" She looked as giving poured silent out to her. if she would attend no answer. "You always So that he took the pail she had bought want something, and you know we can't — him, even forgetting what to say; and went What is it?" He pointed mutely at the blue out behind her to the boardwalk again; and pail. walked beside her with no words, but his "Haven't I told you not to point?" He hand close in her hand. Her mouth was an listened, meek and warm, while she corrected impatient purse. He felt that she was tired. him, confident that she too felt warm for "What's the matter with you?" she said. 416

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