The Spirit of America. Henry Van Dyke
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must be interpreted in relation to the life of the men who have produced it and the men for whom it was produced.
Authors are not algebraic quantities—X, Y, Z, &c. They express spiritual actions and reactions in the midst of a given environment. What they write is in one sense a work of art, and therefore to be judged accurately by the laws of that art. But when this judgment is made, when the book has been assigned its rank according to its substance, its structure, its style, there still remains another point of view from which it is to be considered. The book is a document of life. It is the embodiment of a spiritual protest, perhaps; or it is the unconscious confession of an intellectual ambition; or it is an appeal to some popular sentiment; or it is the expression of the craving for some particular form of beauty or joy; or it is a tribute to some personal or social excellence; or it is the record of some vision of perfection seen in
“The light that never was, on sea or land,
The consecration, and the poet’s dream.”
In every case, it is something that comes out of a heritage of ideals and adds to them.
The possessor of this heritage is the soul of a people. This soul of a people lives at home.
It is for this reason that America has been imperfectly understood, and in some respects positively misunderstood in Europe. The American tourists, who have been numerous (and noticeable) on all the European highways of pleasure and byways of curiosity during the last forty years, have made a vivid impression on the people of the countries which they have visited. They are recognized. They are remembered. It is not necessary to inquire whether this recognition contains more of admiration or of astonishment, whether the forms which it often takes are flattering or the reverse. On this point I am sufficiently American myself to be largely indifferent. But the point on which I feel strongly is that the popular impression of America which is derived only or chiefly from the observation of American travellers is, and must be, deficient, superficial, and in many ways misleading.
If this crowd of American travellers were a hundred times as numerous, it would still fail to be representative, it would still be unable to reveal the Spirit of America, just because it is composed of travellers.
I grant you that it includes many, perhaps almost all, of the different types and varieties of Americans, good, bad, and mediocre. You will find in this crowd some very simple people and some very complicated people; country folk and city folk; strenuous souls who come to seek culture and relaxed souls who come to spend money; millionnaires and school-teachers, saloon-keepers and university professors; men of the East and men of the West; Yankees, Knickerbockers, Hoosiers, Cavaliers, and Cowboys. Surely, you say, from such a large collection of samples one ought to be able to form an adequate judgment of the stuff.
But no; on the contrary, the larger the collection of samples, seen under the detaching and exaggerating conditions of travel, the more confused and the less sane and penetrating your impression will be, unless by some other means you have obtained an idea of the vital origin, the true relation, the common inheritance, and the national unity of these strange and diverse travellers who come from beyond the sea.
Understand, I do not mean to say that European scholars and critics have not studied American affairs and institutions to advantage and thrown a clear light of intelligence, of sympathy, of criticism, upon the history and life of the United States. A philosophical study like that of Tocqueville, a political study like that of Mr. James Bryce, a series of acute social observations like those of M. Paul Bourget, M. André Tardieu, M. Paul Boutmy, M. Weiller, an industrial study like that of M. d’Avenel, or a religious study like that of the Abbé Klein—these are of great value. But they are quite apart, quite different, from the popular impression of America in Europe, an impression which is, and perhaps to some extent must naturally be, based upon the observations of Americans en voyage, and which by some strange hypnotism sometimes imposes itself for a while upon the American travellers themselves.
I call this the international postal-card view of America. It is often amusing, occasionally irritating, and almost always confusing. It has flashes of truth in it. It renders certain details with the accuracy of a kodak. But, like a picture made by the kodak, it has a deficient perspective and no atmosphere. The details do not fit together. They are irrelevant. They are often contradictory.
For example, you will hear statements made about America like the following:—
‘The Americans worship the Almighty Dollar more than the English revere the Ponderous Pound or the French adore les beaux écus sonnants. Per contra, the Americans are foolish spendthrifts who have no sense of the real value of money.’
‘America is a country without a social order. It is a house of one story, without partitions, in which all the inhabitants are on a level. Per contra, America is the place where class distinctions are most sharply drawn, and where the rich are most widely and irreconcilably separated from the poor.’
‘The United States is a definite experiment in political theory, which was begun in 1776, and which has succeeded because of its philosophical truth and logical consistency. Per contra, the United States is an accident, a nation born of circumstances and held together by good fortune, without real unity or firm foundation.’
‘The American race is a new creation, aboriginal, autochthonous, which ought to express itself in totally new and hitherto unheard-of forms of art and literature. Per contra, there is no American race, only a vast and absurd mélange of incongruous elements, cast off from Europe by various political convulsions, and combined by the pressure of events, not into a people, but into a mere population, which can never have a literature or an art of its own.’
‘America is a lawless land, where every one does what he likes and pays no attention to the opinion of his neighbour. Per contra, America is a land of prejudice, of interference, of restriction, where personal liberty is constantly invaded by the tyranny of narrow ideas and traditions, embodied in ridiculous laws which tell a man how many hours a day he may work, what he may drink, how he may amuse himself on Sunday, and how fast he may drive his automobile.’
‘Finally, America is the home of materialism, a land of crude, practical worldliness, unimaginative, irreverent, without religion. But per contra, America is the last refuge of superstition, of religious enthusiasm, of unenlightened devotion, even of antique bigotry, a land of spiritual dreamers and fanatics, who, as Brillat-Savarin said, have “forty religions and only one sauce.” ’
Have I sharpened these contrasts and contradictions a little? Have I overaccented the inconsistencies in this picture postal-card view of America?
Perhaps so. Yet it is impossible to deny that the main features of this incoherent view are familiar. We see the reflection of them in the singular choice and presentation of the rare items of American news which find their way into the columns of European newspapers. We recognize them in the talk of the street and of the table-d’hôte.
I remember very well the gravity and earnestness with which a learned German asked me, some years ago, whether, if he went to America, it would be a serious disadvantage to him in the first social circles to eat with his knife at the dinner-table. He was much relieved by my assurance that no one would take notice of it.
I recall also the charming naïveté with which an English lady inquired, “Have you any good writers in the States?” The answer was: “None to speak of. We import most of our literature from Australia, by way of the Cape of Good Hope.”
Sometimes we are asked whether we do not find it a great disadvantage to have no language of our own; or whether the justices of the Supreme Court are usually persons of good education; or whether we often meet Buffalo Bill in New York society; or whether Shakespeare or Bernard Shaw is most read in the States. To such inquiries we try to return polite answers, although our despair of conveying the truth sometimes leads us to clothe it in a humorous disguise.
But these are minor matters. It is when we are seriously interrogated about the prospect of a hereditary nobility in America, created from the descendants of railway princes, oil magnates, and iron