AER "GHT THlE MICHIGAN DAILY
ITHE WORLD OF BOOKS
SUNI-AY, NOV. 15, 1938
ZWEIG
VanWyck Brook
Tells Story' Of Castello
With Eyes On Problems
Of WorldToday
STEFAN ZWEIG: The Right to Her-
esy - Castellio Against Calvin, New
York; The -Viking Press, 1936.
Translated by Eden and Cedar
Paul.
Although Stefan Zweig has under-
taken to retell the story of the de-
fence of toleration made by the Prot-
estant humanist Sebastian Castellio
in defiance of the dictatorship of
John Calvin, it is obvious that he
has written with his eyes on the
contemporary problem of the attack
on democracy by dictatorship. A
victim of German fascism himself,
Mr. Zweig has turned to a past cen-
tury of strife to gain the perspective
by which to judge the contemporary
situation.
Mr. Zweig's sympathies are openly
with Castellio and the affirmation
of the 'liberal ideal of freedom of
thought and action as opposed to
dictatorship of any kind, regardless
of its professed intentions, is the
theme of his book. And in these
troubled times it is indeed necessary
that this ) ideal should be upheld,
but I am afraid that Mr. Zweig's
argument suffers from precisely the
two faults which he as a liberal
should be the first to excise: parti-
san pleading and the failure to sub-
ject his ideological preconceptions to
severe analysis.
In the first place, Mr. Zweig's por-
trait of Calvin is patently unfair. He
paints him as an outright villain
whose dictatorship was the machine
by which he gained exclusively per-
sonal ends. Calvin may certainly
have lacked human warmth but his
integrity and devotion to a cause
which he believed are almost without
blemish. Nor had Calvin always been
the disciplinarian Mr. Zweig makes
him out to be: in his youth, Calvin
had been, like Castellio, a humanist,
but no effort has been made to under-
stand the transformation of the
scholar into the dictator, a problem
at least as old as Plato's Republic and
certainly of the greatest significance
today .
But more important than these
conjectures in biography, Mr. Zweig
has failed to place the controversy
between Castellio and Calvin in its1
historical setting. He disregards the
prime consideration which forced
Calvin to establish his discipline: the
necessity of maintaining a unified
church in the face of internal rup-
tures by the many Protestant sects
and of the constant menace of the
Catholic revival. We must remember!
that we owe to the survival of Cal-j
vinism in those difficult years, if notl
the very ideals by which Mr. Zweig
criticizes Calvin, then at least the
ideological influences which produced
them at a later date.
Nor does Castellic's De haereticis
embody as modern a conception of
liberty as Mr. Zweig would suggest.!
According to Castellio, "truth," as
Troeltsch puts it, "lies in the power
of the Spirit which is sealed subjec-
tively in the conscience, whereas all
that is external, literal, ceremonial,
and institutional is merely relatively
valuable, a veil for the truth which
can only be lifted by the Spirit." This
is certainly not the conception of
truth as modern science conceives it;
it is the mystic's, at once subjective
and anarchistic. As opposed to this
conception, we must place Calvin's
idea of social responsibility: since
men live not alone but together, it is
necessary to mediate equally between
the claims of the individual and the
claims of authority; it was not Cal-
vin, but the exigencies of defending
the unified church which destroyed
the balance. Castellio's plea is for
a special kind of truth which would1
lead ultimately to the destruction of'
the institutions which make possible
the social cooperation of great num-1
bers of men and it precisely on this
point that Beza attacked Castellio.
The mere dismissal of dictatorship
as bad by no means solves the prob-
lems which it raises. If the worth
7' A C
/--NJ
In A series U
THE FLOWERING OF NEW ENG-
LAND, A Literary History-1815 to
1865. Van Wyck Brooks. E. P. Dut-
ton and Company. $4,
By MENTOR L. WILLIAMS
(Of the English Department)
Since the days of M. C. Tyler, stu-
dents of American literature have
the need for a genuine literary his-
tory of America that would integrate
the cultural and social factors of
American life. Parrington, Mumford,
Calverton, and Hicks have attempted
that Herculean task with varying
preconceptions and success. Now, Mr.
Brooks, one of the most able of con-
temporary scholars, after several pre-
liminary skirmishes with the phases
of the American mind represented by
Emerson, Henry James, and Twain,
seeks to achieve that integration..The
Flowering of New England is the first
of a series of literary studies in which
he hopes "to sketch the literary his-
tory of the United States." May he
be given the strength and will to com-
plete it; it needs doing.
The period in which New England
came into flower comprises the years
between 1815 and 1865; a period that
traditionally stands for the most cul-
tivated and enlightened era in Amer-
ican letters. Mr. Brooks is searching
for the explanation. In that period
there were many forces at work,
forces which created this astonish-
ing development, forces which inevit-
ably led to its decay. Mr. Brooks tries
to trace some of those forces as they
operated within the lives of New Eng-
land's literati. From Gilbert Stuart
and Harrison Gray Otis, representa-
tives of the heyday of New England
mercantilism-gentlemen with a
gusto for living (ten gallons of punch
of a social organization may be tested
by determining whether the oppor-
tunities for peace., security, work, cul-
ture and decency have been made
available to all its members equally,
then there need be no confusion be-
cause of the surface similarity of
forms. In the last analysis, dicta-
torship, whether of finance capital
as in Germany or of the proletariat
as in the U.S.S.R., is an instrument
of defensebwhich must be judged not
so much by its method as by what
it is defending, for the attainment of
what social goal it is struggling to
exist. ,
There remains however, the ques-
tion whether a dictatorship which
passes the tests suggested above does
not at the same time jeopardize by
the very nature of its organizatin
exactly those aims it is intended to
promote. It is at this very point
that many who accept the idea of
socialism yet balk at the acceptance
)f the idea of dictatorship of the
proletariat. Recognizing that social-
ism "is," as Harold Laski formulates
it, "now alone capable of giving man-
kind the peace and plenty which
science has made the rightful her-
itage of our generation," they can-
not bring themselves to accept the
methods by which it is being defend-
ed; hence the great gap between ac-
-eptance in principle arid acceptance
in action.
The dangers of zealotry and bu-
reaucracy cannot be minimized. But
they can best be fought by those who
are able to recognize them as dangers
and who can replace them with the
cultural heritage they possess. This
is the path taken by men like Andre
Malraux and John Dos Passos who,
recognizing both the necessity of
socialism and the dangers inherent
in it, have determined that their duty
as transmittors of culture is to ad-
vance the one by expunging the
other. Unlike Mr. Zweig, they treat
the ideals of liberty, equality and fra-
ternity, not as abstractions to be
set above men, but as every day real-
ities in the struggle of men and
women for the decencies of body and
mind that are now denied them.
Herbert Weisinger.
MERMAID TAVERN
George W. Cronyn, whose Fool of
Venus was a best seller, is now in
Washington working on an historical
novel to be called Mermaid Tavern.
j
(:
s Produces First T
LiteraryStudies
__ivesHistory Of Chaotic
"evaporated" from the Otis punch Inflation Period
bowl every afternoon), to George In Germany
Ticknor and Henry Longfellow, so-
journers in romantic Europe, he fol- THE WAR GOES ON By Sholem
lows the intellectual influences which Asch. G. P. Putnam & Sons. $3.00.
were to find expression in an original 528 Pages.
and 'individual literature. The way By EDWARD MAGDOL I
is prepared for the "renaissance." He In The Big Money John Dos Passos
then passes in review dozens of fig- presented the finest picture in liter-
ures, some still pre-eminent, others ature of the boom days that rushed
half or wholly forgotten. Longfellow, in on America after the war. Now
Lowell, Holmes, Emerson, Hawthorne Sholem Asch performs a greater feat
he treats appreciatively and analyti- in writing the story of the chaotic
cally; Whittier is neatly and cavalier- days of the inflation period in Ger-
ly disposed of (his temperament was many. He has constructed an epic
too complex even for the earlier psy- story of the turmoil, the fierceness of
cho-analytical Brooks to grasp); trying to exist in post war Germany.
Thoreau is too much the naturalist The War Goes On is primarily con-
extraordinary, too little the critic of cerned with an era and consequently
the world of trade; the minor move- the carefully conceived characters
ments-Abolition, reform, Brook are woven in and out of the patterni
Far, fminsmsenimetalsmthewithout encroaching on the heroic
Farm, feminism, sentimentalism, the theme. Asch's great achievement is
dictionary war (Webster vs. Worcest- his masterful description of the rise
er)-are brilliantly though not fully of 'the man with the black beard,'
outlined; even the icy philosophers, who, it later appears, is the financial9
dreamers in Germanic-Platonic Zi- mogul Stinnes; of the starvation, pal-
ons, are brought to life; and nowhere ( pable and not to be disguised by any
in American literary history has there means, of the German working
been such effective treatment of the masses; the frustration and ruina-
romantic historians-Bancroft, Pres- tion of the tragic German middle
cott, Motley and the lesser satellites, class.
A panorama, skillfully unrolled; New Through the entire work runs the!
England breathes again, thread of the Jewish question. This
The contents of such a book may problem is perhaps one of the most
be either evocative or provocative de- vexing to all educated Jews and Asch.
pending on the writer's viewpoint. treats it at length. Again his strength.
The Flowering of New England is ev- lies in his ability to discuss the Jews,
ocative. Mr. Brooks calls up the se- of whom he is one, with reserve, and
cluded past and reveals New England objectively.
in its prime. Readers respond to his The story revolves about the Bod-
materials much as an audience to a enheimers, the Stickers and the Spin-
melodrama. That they are gripped by ners, all representative of every level
the action, the setting, the glamour, a of German life.
glane a th reiewes' ommnts All the characters are warm and
glance at the reviewers' comments alive and have been drawn master-
wl show. Tey my hev slp f fully. The effect of the whole is
ward to the edge of their seats. When signficant for one cannot fail to un-
the play is over, what? Have they derstand the terrible conditions which
been provoked to subsequent an-prvieinG mayftrhew.!
alysis? Hardly. Mr. Brooks falls1 prevailed in Germany after the war'.
alsin tH rdlytr.BraoderIt is made clear by Sholem Asch
into the trap of modern antiquar- that these conditions have caused the
ianism of the twentieth century tem- brutality and hatred in these people
0 , and loses sight of the major ques- which forces them to strike out.
tions he is so fitted to answer. The against the weaker, defenseless ones.
force of a changing economic order However Asch does not con ern him-
he hardly touches, though he is aware self with answers or solutions.
of it; the force of science does not -- -
appear at all. These two alone would self-confidence and Joy that have
accunt for ch at he leaves un-markd its early development,-it is
explained. Without them the book filled with a presentiment of the end;
comes dangerously close to animated and the culture-city itself surrenders
literary gossip, to chit-chat, he wol-cit tsur
Some have referred to New" Eng- 'to New York . . . What has once
land's literary renaissance as "the been vital becomes provincial; and
golden age," others call it "the gold- the sense that one belongs to a dy-
en day," still others "an Indian Sum- ing race dominates and poisons the
mer," but they have not explained creative mind." (pp. 526-527).
the implied rise and fall of literary This is an interesting thesis but a;
empire. For Mr. Brooks the villain of somewhat futile one. He who accepts
the piece is Oswald Spengler's "cul- it assumes a certain inevitability in
ture-cycle." the rise and decline of culture states,
"A homogeneous people, living close assumes that man can do nothing to
to the soil, intensely religious, un- change the historical pattern. This
conscious, unexpressed in art and let- reviewer cannot accept the thesis or'
ters, with a strong sense of home and the assumptions on which it rests.
fatherland. One of its towns be- Mr. Brooks, consciously or uncon-
comes a 'culture-city,' for Boston, sciously, forces his materials to prove
with Cambridge and Concord con- the theory. And even Mr. Brooks, at
sidered as suburbs, answers to this an earlier date, held no such attitude
name . . . There is a springtime feel- of futility; he sought in American lit-
ing in the air, a joyous sense of awak- erature "a usable past." To what
ening, a free creativeness . . . There end? To prevent the sterility and de-'
is a moment of equipoise, a wide- 1 cay of our cultural life. We can still
sprehd flowering of the imagination find that usable past if we do not ex-
in which the thoughts and feelings clude as much from our analysis as
of the people, with all their faiths and Mr. Brooks has done.
hopes, finds expression. The cul- As one critic before us has point-
ture-city dominates the country, but ed out, Mr. Brooks fittingly states our
only as its accepted vent and mouth- attitude toward The Flowering of
piece, Then gradually the mind de- New England in his own criticism of
tached from the soil, grows more and Prescott's Ferdinand and' Isabella:
more self-conscious. . . Over-intelli- "One might well ask for different
gent, fragile, cautious and doubtful, things, but one could scarcely ask for
the soul of the culture-city loses the anything better."
Of Wartime InWisconsinTownr
NIGHT OUTLASTS THE WHIP- deflinite by asking whether certain
POORWILL By Sterling North. of the characters are true repre-
Macmillan, $2.50. sentations. There is a newspaper-
By PROF. E. S. EVERETT . man, Paul Revere Fox. He is a
Night Outlasts the Whippoorwill,'
by Sterling North, is a picture of cynic. He is as cynical about him-
wartime in a small town in southern self as about any thing else. When
Wisconsin. It presents nearly 50 the banker's wife orders him to re-
people as characters, but it follows fuse advertising space to the German1
ilost closely the family of a rich meat-market he yields without a
banker (the Ellingsworths), a pros- protest. He knows that he is a cow-
perous farming family (the Brails- ard for doing that. He knows it so
fords), a German-American family well that there is no need for in-
(the Kaisers), and a low-caste Amer- sisting on the point. He publishes
ican family (the Vandeewalkers). In patriotic war news, he suppresses
short it attempts to give all classes his own opinions, and he does not
and types. get into trouble. But in secret he
There are several threads of curses the falseness and cruelty of
interest, but the one that seems the persecution and he befriends the
to me of the most importance is the victims as far as he can.
persecution of the German inhabi- But the banker, Major Ellsworth, is
tants by the hundred per-cent Amer- a very different person. He is the big
icans. In fact the book will be re- man of the town and the leader of
mambered as a picture of the things the attack upon the Germans. His
that America did to her German morality is pure hypocrisy and cruel-
citizens during the World War. Since m yp sr
this is so; then the first question to
ask is: Is it a true picture?
Unquestionably it is true in one
sense. Probably everything that is
represented as happening, did hap-
pen. That Americans did a great D ooks
many stupid and cowardly and cruel
things hardly needs proof - all hon-
est men know it and admit it. But CHILDREN'S
it is not enough that all details November
should be facts: we all know that I
a picture may be true in every de-
tail and yet convey a false impres-
The question can be made more l Pcture Books:
Sterling
North
Writes
Picture
ty. His patriotism is a cloak. He
has no courage nor kindness, nor real
courtesy. He has no redeeming trait
unless his love of fast horses may
be considered one.
When h^ makes a speech the au-
thor supplies a parallel commentary
by giving the speaker's thoughts; so
that we know that every patriotic
utterance has its origin in some base
motive. His business operations
consist in trying to trap unwary
farmers into mortgage foreclosures.
Major Ellingsworth is surrounded
by other patriots not much better
than himself. They run (the clergy.
men in particular) to words and to
fat and to hypocrisy. They are the
active forces in the community.
Tt seems to me that we have a cer-
tain pattern of action and reaction
that is revealed in all this. In 1916
we had certain apostles of hatred
who pictured the Germans as cruel
and immoral beasts. In 1936 we
have certain writers who picture the
slanderers of the Germans as cruel
and immoral beasts. In 1956 (if
they are remembered at all) doubt-
less the slanderers of the slanderers
will be remembered as cruel and
immoral beasts.
Grow ,On
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