What We Live By

THE MAN of the MONTH

ABBÉE ERNEST DIMNET

[Simon and Schuster, $2.50]

SEVERAL years ago Abbé Dimnet published his brilliantly successful book, The Art of Thinking. In the present volume he essays a more difficult task, and presents his readers with ‘a manual of happy living.’ Reduced to its least common denominator, this manual is simply the ‘counsel of perfection,’which we recognize as the core of Christianity, but which remains forever remote from our imperfect human nature. With a suave austerity that is very winning, Dimnet proposes three avenues of approach: a candid endeavor to see and endure truth, an intelligent endeavor to assimilate beauty, and a heroic endeavor to get as near to goodness as we can.

There is nothing original in this triple alliance; but the author is not trying to be original, he is trying to be helpful. In the first case, clear thinking, while undeniably difficult, is not impossible, and here is a valuable suggestion: ‘It always pays to strive to bring as many data as possible into the unity of as comprehensive a statement as possible.’ Here is another: ‘ Prejudices subsist in people’s imagination long after they have been destroyed by their experience. Society is full of such survivals.’ So much for the formidable approach to truth. The recognition and assimilation of beauty is a more facile, but also a more indeterminate, job. Dimnet opens up a number of paths, and invites us cordially to enter them. The world is so much better equipped with beauty (thanks to the starry heavens, and the moving waters of the earth) than it is with intelligence and goodness that we cannot go hopelessly astray. As for the spiritual plane that shines so high above us, it has always had aspirants, and always conquerors. Santayana says that ‘a certain beauty and joy did radiate visibly from the saints.’ This must have been a thing of loveliness, whereas the happiness of ordinary sinners like ourselves is apt, if intrusive, to be a trifle repellent.

Perhaps the weakness of Abbé Dimnet’s hook is its insistent geniality. He seems at times to bear too lightly ‘the sorrowful burden of human knowledge.’ Yet never for a moment does he palliate the moral cowardice which saves itself the wear and tear of pity by denying the existence of pain; or by ignoring it when such a thing is possible. Women who ’cannot bear’ to hear about suffering because it tortures their sensibilities provoke his utmost wrath. He is also pleasantly ironic concerning people who ‘enrich their personalities’ by gratifying all their instincts. His minor criticisms are few and far between (he has not a critical attitude to life); but they are worth our serious consideration. It will be recalled that in The Art of Thinking he objected to the excessive gregariousness of Americans, who never have enough of one another, and he objected to it because ‘collective consciousness is prejudicial to original thought.’ In What We Live By he goes a step—a long step — further, and says regretfully: ‘There is hardly a vestige of conversation left in America. Worse than that, the word has ceased to have any meaning.’ A number of women together talk in reciprocal volleys of sound. Half-a-dozen women talk in pairs, each pair unconnected with the others, and all in a high key. Therefore it is that American voices are called shrill, though their natural quality should make them lower-pitched than the English voice. ‘ But how,’asks Dimnet feelingly, ‘can anyone avoid shrillness in a bird market?'

AGNES REPPLIER