New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1922-05-20
By Burton Rascoe

, LEWIS, author OF Main
Street. accompanied by Mrs. Lewis
ana their six-year-old son, Wells, re-
turned yesterday on the Aquitania
after years residence abroad. They
nao spent some weeks in France and
Italy, bat had lived for the most part
IN an ancient cottage in Kent, where
Mr.. Lewis worked on his new novel,
'babbltt,' the final chapter of which
the completed on his last night out at
sea.
"Babbitt." according to Mr.. Lewis
us novel about 100 per cent, right
thinking, forward looking, wsl-to-do
American" 1t will deal with life in a
prosperous, large industrial city in
Street" dealt with life in the American
small town. 1t will be the Main
Street" of the city, which Mr. Lewis
says, has its yokels no less conspicu-
ousy deficient than the yokels Of the
one-horse town. The first paragraph
OF Mr.. Lewis's new novel reads:
"Thc towers of Zenith aspired above
the morning mist; asture towers of
steel and cement and limestone sturdy
as cliffs and delicate as silver rods.
They were neither cathedras nor
churches. but frankly, and beautifully,
Office buildings"
convinced that the only literature to
be produced during the next few years
is to be written by Americans. He has
found in England and in France a
tendency to olive upon the war ia
tlgued and lazy offering Of the ravages
/ of the not so recent fray as an excuse
for not doing anything.
Europeans Have Lost Their Pep
They are charming and gracious"
he said, but they haven't any pep.
They are disillusoncd and disintcr-
cste.d. They have no life, no vitality
ygor !" nd9snture a ns1s ' expermen ts
Moreover, found that in England The
writer's mingle only with literary people
and become n tght-m inded, omplacent
lot, all too darn literary for any use
They have their little clques of two
| or three people and damn all the rest
of the world. In America there is to be
found among the novelists and poets
and essayists a spirit of generosity
: and camaraderie, but in England they
either hate or are contemptuous of one
another. They fight among themselves
and rarely come into contact with the
only thing which gives writing life, and
That is life itself. They do not know
people the way that Sherwood Ander-
son, The dore Dresser and Carl Sand
burg do; they never take notice that
/ tramcar conductors, busmen, mine
workers and other human beings out
side of their little sets exist
England can no longer be the
/ n
ture any more than it can be the
mother country to American politics
or American life. She can be sister
country if she wants to. but we are
of age now, Intellectually and liter
arily. England has had the mother
attitude toward us too long. Every
young Englishman two years out of
Oxford adopts a mother attitude tow
ard writer's like Edith Wharton, Joseph
Herge,sheimer. James Branch Cabell
and Sherwood Anderson, telling them
how they should write. 1t would be
very sickcning if it were not so silly.
have been mothered by young Eng
llsh upstairs until I am pretty weary
of it. 1t is time for US to stop look
ing to England for anything at all and
to go our own way, producing what,
am sure. will be the finest literature
Of our time.
"In England, to cite typical exam
pie, reviewers and critics will read a
poem by Carl Sandburg. a short story
by Sherwood Anderson, or an essay by
Henry Mcnckcn. and they will say they
do not understand the language used
by these men. If they stopped there
it would be all right, but they then
dismiss the work as no good because
tHey do not know what the words
mean. They are even sarcastic and
contemptuous in their ignorance. Well,
if they don't know what the words
mean, if they are unacquaintcd with
the language, they have no busne IS
reviewing American books. There is
30 more sense in their doing so than in
their criticizing French or Russian
novel because they can't read the Ian
| guage.
Sheer at American Literature
English writers and the English
! public are woefully ignorant of what
has been written in America. Almost
! any Englishman feels he is qualified to
! dismiss American literature with
sheer, but if you ask him to name
! some American authors he has heard
only of Upton Sinclair, Jack London
or Winston Churchill. You can't find
a good recent American book in a
single English bookshop without the
| greatest difficulty. But our cheapest,
most sentimental fiction sells over
there by the boatload. Every shop is
! always stocked with American wild
west stories, five-cent paper-back
weeklies and gushy love stories
There are a few exceptions, of
course, to the rule that English writer's
are ignorant and contemptuous of
American books. Men like Hugh Wal
pole, John Galsworthy, w. l.. George
and H. G. Wells, who have been over
here, are thoroughly appreciative of
what is being done over here. They
are enthusiastic about America. Wells
said that if he had his life to live over
again he would like to begin it in Amer
lea, because the country is so wonder
full and so fruitful of literary mate
rial. Bernard Shaw, too, whom found
to be charming and delightful man,
has not the popular English illu'sion
that America is backward, illitcrate
and vulgar. Perhaps the man en-
joyed being with the most over there
was A. S. M. Hutchinson, who hVn't
the usual English writer's animosity
toward his fellow craftsmen and toward
American writer's, but is pure gold all
| through.
"The most depressing people, though,