New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-03-21
By Rebecca Drucker


UR American literature is not
without It's gentry. The line
~ has, with .perceptible coarsen.
ing, descended from Henri,
James through Edith Wharton to
Katherine Fullerton Gerould. In Mrs
Gerould it was crossed with q strain
Of Rudyard Kipling. The effect of that
admixture is something little thick
skinned and heavy-limbed, something
blatantly Tory. AS II in subconscious
resentment at that lapse from true
stock, Mrs. Gerould clings, the more
passionately to her gentility.
AS the custodian Of American culture
whose ascendancy is unquestioned north
OF Boston, Mrs. Gerould surveys our
modern America and sees little to hope
for it. Her book is heavy with tears
and excavations. Now there are some
things that Mrs. Gerould does very
we'll. She can spear a social foible
with an amusing malice. She has a
gift for broad caricature and a gift
again for rounded utterance. But it
is none Of these merits that gives
Modes and Morals" (Scribner), her
latest book Of essays, its distinction.
1t is genuinely fascinating for an in
tensely piquant quality Of self-revela-
ton. 1t might have been called "The
Soul Of Snob," or, better still, "The
Anatomy Of Snob," so revealing is
its light.
Anglomania has always been in the
highest tradition Of our gentry. 1t is
still, as it was in the '7os, our sign pat
ent Of snob. Henry James and
Edith Wharton flattered English Gull
ture-but subtly. Ono fancies them
writing a little at SO crude mani
festation Of it as this: "And-let US
face 1t squarely-fundament British
feeling is on the whole the most de-
cent on earth. AS Americans, we like
to think that we share it,
From this angle it Is no wonder that
all our virtues seem pitiable to her.
Consider "The New Simplicity" with
which Mrs. Gerould leads off. In
flash of true inspiration she sees as
the symbol Of our democracy our pas
sion for plumbing. 1t is also the
measure OF our failure. 1t is, as Mrs.
Gerould sees it, an. ignominious al
tentative born Of our defeat at the
hands Of an unruly working class which
will not know its place. We have let
perverse notions Of equality survive
among us and-the sins of the fathers
visited on the children--the result is
we are without a servant class and
the amenities Of civilization are
threatened" These can only survive
among US by hand-and-foot service.
Mrs. Gerould quotes ecstatically those
English households where the serv-
ants ritual is not scanted by so much
as slop-jar, and civilization is thereby
saved. Ours is threatened. Gwen in
the South some modification of the
traditions has been necessary The
South must always have been badly
though exuberantly served In
many ways Southerners have contend
ed with the disheartening conditions
faced by English households in the
outposts Of empire, dependent on an
other and stupid race for the satisfac-
ton Of their needs. 1t was slave
labor, and slave labor reaches COM
petence only by sheer force of num-
bers. There was never an iGs>ccl of
domestic service there because there
was never the rounded conception of
civilized comfort in any slaves mind"
AS who should say IAN ideal of track
walking" or ian ideal of coal-heaving"
or ian ideal Of garbage dumping" And
one wonders hazily whether the
rounded conception of civilized COM