A New England Group and Others
by . Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1921. 8vo, iv+295 pp. $2.00.
THIS latest volume in the Shelburne series contains ten essays, nine of which have been printed before, the tenth having been delivered as a lecture. The essays consist of an entertaining examination of the ‘asthmatic muse’ of earliest New England; two studies, reprinted from the Cambridge History of American Literature, of Jonathan Edwards and Emerson; characterizations of Charles Eliot Norton and Henry Adams; an excellent summary of arguments for and against some current theories of ‘psychical phenomena’; a criticism of ‘Erewhon’ Butler, on the whole sympathetic; a criticism of Viscount Morley’s liberalism, by no means so sympathetic; a survey of modern economic ideals, in which Mr. More reiterates his creed; and a discussion of ‘Oxford, Women, and God,’ in which, not to speak profanely, we are shown how, when woman came in at the door of the venerable university, God flew out at the window.
For some twenty years Mr. More has been applying his critical creed to one author after another. The creed he has stated with precision many times, notably in Aristocracy and Justice and the Drift of Romanticism, and in his studies of Arnold, Sainte-Beuve, Tolstoy, and Pater, to name only a few titles. His object has been, in part, to lay bare ‘the mischief that the romantic ideas have caused and are st ill causing to literature and to life.’ To the support of this thesis he has been able to bring an erudition, in ancient and oriental philosophy, theology and religion, and social and political theory, rare in American criticism.
Georg Brandes, in his Recollections, says that he early adopted a ‘motto’ to guide him in criticism and in life: ‘As flexible as possible, when it is a question of understanding; as inflexible as possible, when it is a question of speaking’; and there can be no doubt that Mr. More has presented a remarkable example of inflexibility, and that it has given to his critical writings unusual coherence and intelligibility. His detractors — and an academic critic is certain to have detractors — have objected to his ethical preoccupation and didacticism, or have denied that, ‘when it is a question of understanding,’ he is as ‘flexible’ as a professional critic should be; and an unprejudiced reading of the present volume gives some weight to such strictures. He does approach every author with a prepossession that makes him view each work as a ‘ tendenz’ work, as they say in the university. The result is that a reader unfamiliar with Mr. More’s critical creed might find his omissions puzzling, not being able to understand, for example, why the essays in general ignore contemporary literature, referring to it if at all with contempt, and why they concern themselves at times so largely with ideas and have so little to say about the artistic. On the other hand, a reader for whom the creed is unconvincing or even false, must, if he is fair-minded, recognize a fine equanimity, if not serenity, of tone throughout the series, and cannot but enjoy comparing his own impressions with those of so ingenious a mind.
ROBERT M. GAY.
In response to requests from many librarians, the reviews printed each month in this department of the magazine will be reprinted separately in pamphlet form. Copies may be had by any librarian, without charge, on application to the Atlantic Monthly, 8 Arlington St., Boston.