We have ventured a little further into _Civilization in the United
States_ (which someone has said should really be called “Civilization
between Fourteenth Street and Washington Square”) and, to tell
the truth, we are astounded. This time we are astounded by the
extraordinary mellow gravity of the Young Intellectual. It is sad, by
the way, that the editor of the volume is actually not much younger
than ourself; but indeed he makes us feel immeasurably aged and
decadent.
There are, of course, admirable things in the book. Mr. Mencken is at
his best in his attack upon Congressional mediocrity. Messrs. Macy, Van
Loon, Lardner, and Ernest Boyd carry us with them, as they very often
do. Mr. Henry Longan Stuart’s “As an Englishman Sees It” is the most
quietly pregnant of the essays we have read. But we must confess that
when the editor (Mr. Harold Stearns) writes on “The Intellectual Life”
he leaves us puzzled and unhappy.
Perhaps Professor Colby’s contribution on “Humour” affords a clue. At
first we did not quite “get” it; we did not realize that Mr. Colby
was having his little joke at the expense of some of the masculine
Hermiones who met fortnightly (so Mr. Stearns assures us) at the
editor’s home “to clarify their individual fields, and contribute
towards the advance of intellectual life in America.” After reading
the appalling solemnities of Mr. Stearns’s Preface we realize how
charmingly Mr. Colby is (as becomes a veteran) chaffing the young
pyrophags. He remarks that the “upper literary class” in America is
utterly devoid of humour. This intramural stab he must have meditated
at one of those fortnightly meetings while the chairman was remarking
that “the most moving and pathetic fact in the social life of America
to-day is emotional and æsthetic starvation.”
When young men of thirty or so begin to talk about “contributing to
the advance of intellectual life in America” they should do it with a
smile. Otherwise someone else will have to do the smiling for them.
Consider the weight of the Great Problems faced by the editor of
_Civilization in America_ at those fortnightly meetings, while (let us
hope) the elder members, such as Jack Macy and Professor Colby, smiled
a trifle wanly--
... “These larger points of policy were decided by common
agreement or, on occasion, by majority vote, and to the end I
settled no important question without consultation with as many
members of the group as I could approach within the limited
time we had agreed to have this volume in the hands of the
publisher. But with the extension of the scope of the book, the
negotiations with the publisher, and the mass of complexities
and details that are inevitable in so difficult an enterprise,
the authority to decide specific questions and the usual
editorial powers were delegated as a matter of convenience to
me, aided by a committee of three.”
But you must read that Preface entire, to get the full humour of
the matter, to get the self-destroying seriousness of the Young
Intellectual. It ought to be reprinted as a pamphlet for the warning
of college students. Consider the syntax of the first sentence quoted
above, as a “contribution to intellectual life in America.” For our
own part, after reading that Preface we couldn’t help turning to the
quiet and modest little prefaces of some of the great books, e. g.,
_Leviathan_ and _Religio Medici_.
We must not be ill humoured. The editor of the volume, we are told,
has made his own contribution to the intellectual life in America by
leaving for Paris as soon as the proofs were corrected. He is perhaps
a victim of that oldest of American sophomore superstitions--the idea
that Paris is the only city of the world where men of letters may enjoy
true freedom of the body and the spirit. Mr. Stearns has for some time
been threatening that the sterility and coarseness of American life
will drive our sensitive young men overseas. Well, the rest of us
must shuffle along as best we can, and see what we can do with this
poor tawdry civilization of ours. And incidentally, as a gesture of
divorce from American crassness, going to Paris and taking a job on the
Parisian edition of the New York _Herald_ seems to us inadequate. We
are reminded of another Young Intellectual--in Chicago this time--who
greatly yearned to write a masterpiece of obscenity, but could not
spell Messalina correctly.
Mr. Stearns speaks of himself and his friends as “unhappy intellectuals
educated beyond our environment.” There is a roaring risibility in
this that leaves us prostrate. The tragedy is that they apparently
mean it. We admire their sincerity, their high-mindedness, and all
that, but even at the risk of seeming argumentative we cannot, as long
as honesty and clear thinking mean anything, let that sort of remark
go by unprotested. It is impossible for any man to be educated beyond
his environment--whatever that environment may be. For no man can be
greater than Life itself, and in whatever field of life he may be
placed, if he has the true insight and the true humility, he will find
material for his art. The extraordinary panorama of American life,
whatever its cruelties and absurdities, should be glowing material
for any artist with the genuine receptive and creative gift. The real
“artist” (since our Intellectuals love that term) will not timidly
crawl into a corner and squeak; nor need he run away to some imagined
Utopia abroad.
Perhaps this is a more serious matter than we had supposed. We are
one of the stoutest--one of the sincerest, let us say, to avoid
misunderstanding--partisans of the Young Intellectual. We used to
like, in our wilder moments, to think ourself almost one of them. But
it looks now as though we should have to organize a new clique--the
Young Roughnecks. The Young Intellectuals are too easily pleased with
themselves. In the first place, we honestly believe that few men have
any real critical balance and judgment before they are forty. In the
second place, the Young Intellectuals are perilously devoid of humour.
Of that rich, magical, grotesque, and savoury quality they have far too
little. They have it, but it works spasmodically.
We welcome a book like _Civilization in America_ because it shows
in a clear cross-cutting what is wrong with a great many excellent
young minds. They are quick to scoff, but they are not humorous; they
are eager for human perfection, but want to escape from humanity
itself. They say a great many admirable things, true things; but so
condescendingly that, by some quaint perversion, they impel us to fly
to the opposite view. Life itself, apparently, is too multitudinous,
too terrible for them. They enjoy pouring ridicule upon the world of
business and upon the business man. We should like to see them tackle
their own tasks with the same devotion and lack of parade that the
business man shows. Some of the most amazing beauties of American life
have been the work of quiet business men who were not clamouring for
admiration as “artists.” Our friends the Intellectuals keep shouting
that the “creative class” (so they call themselves) must be more
admired, more respected, more appreciated. We answer, they are already
respected and applauded as much as--perhaps more than--is good for
them. Let them cease to consider themselves a class above and apart.
They are too painfully conscious of being “artists.” They make us feel
like gathering a group of Young Roughnecks--let us say Heywood Broun
and H. I. Phillips for a nucleus--and going off in a corner to be
constructively and creatively vulgar.
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