Tag Archives: Books published in the 1920s

Review: Robert Louis Stevenson (1927)

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Author: G. K. Chesterton was a devoutly Catholic journalist, poet and novelist of the early 20th century. His most apt nickname is “The Prince of Paradox.”

Overview:

Before getting into this book, it’s unfortunately necessary to clarify which book I’m talking about. Robert Louis Stevenson (1927) is Chesterton’s second book by that exact title, the first having been co-authored in 1902 with W. Robertson Nicoll. The first is only 40 pages and includes a brief message about Stevenson’s triumphant suffering; this book, however, weighs in at 259 pages, was authored solo by Chesterton, and is largely a defense of Stevenson as a writer.

Seeing Stevenson’s Life in His Novels

Stevenson died in Samoa in 1894, and his memory was still quite fresh in 1902 when the first little book was written with Nicoll. By 1927, with Robert Louis Stevenson decades cold in his Polynesian grave, the novelist had attracted a host of critics, and Chesterton took it upon himself to defend Stevenson, though they were not personally acquainted (Chesterton was only 20 years old when Stevenson died, but he had several mutual acquaintances with Stevenson.)

This book makes no pretence of being even an outline of the life of Stevenson. In his particular case I deliberately omit such an outline, because I find that it has cut across and confused the very sharp and lucid outline of his art. . . . In short, I propose to review his books with illustrations from his life; rather than to write his life with illustrations from his books.

G. K. Chesterton, Robert Louis Stevenson, 1929 ed., ch. IX, p. 16,27

The above paragraph is typical of Chestertonian biographies. In his “biographies” he usually deals with people as thinkers more than dealing with the events of their lives. When he covers specific events in the lives of Stevenson (or, for example, Robert Browning), they are usually the moments of decision. Chesterton only gives an outline of events, instead dealing at length with internal dillemmas and pressing issues of character.

After all, Chesterton had already dealt with what he saw of Stevenson’s suffering and loneliness in his earlier essay, already mentioned.

Stevenson’s Youth

In Stevenson’s twenties, he had left home for France, fallen into dissipation and left the religion of his youth. For the time period, it sounds rather typical of agnostic, pleasure-seeking life on the European continent. His irreligion was tempered by time, which is legible enough in his stories. Chesterton does not defend Stevenson’s godlessness, of course, but frames it as not totally foreign to a Edinburgh upbringing. In addition, Chesterton was no friend to Calvinism.

The normal, or at least the ideal, development of a man’s destiny is from the coloured chamber of childhood to an even more romantic garden of the faith and tryst of youth. It is from the child’s garden of verses to the man’s garden of vows. I do not think that time of transition went right with Stevenson . . . The east wind of Edinburgh Puritanism blew him out of his course, so that he returned only long after to anything like a secure loyalty and a right human relation. In a word, I think that in his childhood he had the best luck in the world, and in his youth the worst luck in the world; and that this explains most of the story.

G. K. Chesterton, Robert Louis Stevenson, 1929 ed., ch. III, p. 78

Defending Stevenson Against His Critics

Stevenson’s critics then considered him as a mere writer of “penny dreadfuls”, a term then used for adventurous or romantic short stories that were cheaply produced and appealed to readers’ basest impulses. Chapter VI, “The Style of Stevenson”, defends Stevenson against the criticism of being melodramatic in his language. “For of all things he hated dilution; and loved to take language neat, like a liqueur.” (ch. I, p.13) In Chapter IX, “The Philosophy of Gesture”, Chesterton defends Stevenson against a introspective trend in literature, driven partly with modern trends in psychology.

. . . It is nonsense to think only of thoughts and not of words or deeds, since words are only spoken thoughts and deeds are only acted words.

G. K. Chesterton, Robert Louis Stevenson, 1929 ed., ch. IX, p. 211

Chesterton saw Stevenson as quite novel in the creation of the genre of the “boys’ story” as opposed to various genres of “novels”. With such a popular appeal, Stevenson may be low-hanging fruit for criticism. But time has probably been kinder to Chesterton than to Stevenson’s detractors. Stevenson is held in general acclaim, and his works have received a total of more than 2,000 translations, more than Ernest Hemingway, J. R. R. Tolkien, or Plato.

Review: The Light in the Prison Window

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The Light in the Prison-Window: The Life Story of Hans Nielsen Hauge (1926) by Wilhelm Pettersen is a biography of Hans Nielsen Hauge, a Norwegian evangelist and social reformer who had a tremendous impact on the Scandinavian religious landscape.

In the late 1700s, as described by Pettersen, Norway was Protestant (Lutheran) in name, but steeped in cold scholasticism and hypocrisy. The Bible was treated as a mythology or a mere handbook for tradition. Pettersen names several priests and bishops of the time that had no concern for Christian piety, and some influential leaders did not even believe basic Christian doctrines like the bodily resurrection of Christ. In churches one might hear lectures on Greek classics instead of the Bible.

At the age of 25, Hans Nielsen Hauge had a lone conversion experience in an open field—a moment he described as his “spiritual baptism”. Though Hauge was definitely evangelical, much of the language he used has even pentecostal overtones.

Hauge in time became a force in evangelizing Norway’s villages, and many joined him in his task, including many young women, who preached and evangelized.

Not content with an inward renewal alone, Hans Nielsen Hauge also sought social reform and worked as an entrepreneur. He is generally regarded to have had a tremendous impact on both religious and secular life in Norway.

Hauge did not reject Lutheran doctrines; rather, he sought to apply them where they had become merely the traditional intellectual background to their religion. As some tell the story, Scandinavia had joined the Protestant Reformation in name in the 1530s, but it had not yet reckoned with justification by faith. This living faith was renewed with the Haugean movement.

Hauge was imprisoned many times for lay preaching under the Conventicle Act. A “conventicle” was an unauthorized religious meeting, such as a house church, and Scandinavian countries, until long into the 1800s, were cracking down hard on unauthorized meetings. It would be many decades before such meetings were legitimized, and even longer before they were able to perform marriages and burials recognized by the government. (Since 2000, Sweden and Norway have both legislated for a separation of church and state—perhaps the final chain in a long history of decline in the state churches, growth in the free churches, and growth in the non-religious.)

On the European landscape, the scene had been set for all this change by groups like the Methodists and the Moravians. The Moravian revival had started in 1727, and the Methodists had begun to organize in the 1740s. Like Hauge, these groups appealed to lower classes, partially by having either looser hierarchies, or no hierarchy, compared to the corrupt priesthood they were accustomed to. The keynote, though, was individual conversions.

Hauge didn’t teach major doctrinal shifts from Lutheranism; but he invited his countrymen to a living and personal faith.

In a way, Hauge represents in his person the evangelical renewal of Norway. But there were many who joined his work, and likewise faced arrest and imprisonment for leaving the established churches.

One downside to The Light in the Prison Window was the very long roll call of Norwegian evangelicalism. It felt like being at a family reunion, but I didn’t know anyone. The sheer number of obscure Norwegian theologians and clerics mentioned boggles the mind. It is understandable, though, that the author wants us to acknowledge how many souls assisted and followed Hauge in the renewal of Norway.

Note: It is rather difficult to find biographies of Hans Nielsen Hauge. The Light in the Prison-Window is quite brief, and the only other biography I could find is Joseph Shaw’s Pulpit under the Sky (1955), which is quite rare. If you know of a substantial biography of Hauge, please share it in the comments!

Review: What I Saw in America

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Rating: ★★★★

Author: G. K. Chesterton was a devoutly Catholic journalist, poet and novelist of the early 20th century. His most apt nickname is “The Prince of Paradox.”

Genre: Non-fiction, travel, essays.

Overview:

What I Saw in America (1922) is a long book of essays, first published in 1922, mostly about America and English-American relations in the wake of World War I. They were written during and after a lecture tour in the United States. Chesterton includes a few funny anecdotes from his travel but otherwise avoids any details concerning his trip—that is to say, this is by no means a travelogue; it is a book of essays reflecting on his time in America.

To cover this rather lengthy book, I will have to divide the themes into headings. There are four topics in What I Saw in America: 1) American culture; 2) understanding foreign cultures in general (and what is today known as “culture shock”); 3) American politics; and 4) international unity efforts (then called “internationalism”)

Chesterton on American Culture

The first chapter (“What Is America?”) sets the tone for the whole book and is probably its most important chapter. If you don’t enjoy it, you won’t enjoy the rest of the book. In its title, Chesterton hearkens back to Crevecoeur’s famous Letters from an American Farmer, published in 1782, in which he asks the question, “What Is an American?” Crevecoeur’s conclusion:

The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas, and form new opinions. From involuntary idleness, servile dependence, penury, and useless labour, he has passed to toils of a very different nature, rewarded by ample subsistence.—This is an American.

Chesterton’s conclusion in this chapter is not far off:

America invites all men to become citizens. (p. 8) . . . [America] is making a home out of vagabonds and a nation out of exiles. (p. 14)

Chesterton continues along this line in two important later chapters, “The Spirit of America” and “The Future of Democracy.”

He makes many other general statements about American culture and work ethic. Here is another (from “The Spirit of England”):

The Englishman is moody. . . . In America there are no moods, or there is only one mood. It is the same whether it is called hustle or uplift. American sociability is . . . like Niagara. It never stops, under the silent stars or the rolling storms. (p. 288-289)

And there are, in the book, many, many other amusing notes about the differences between the Englishman and the American.

Chesterton on Culture Shock

Chesterton has a refreshing way of discussing culture shock in this book. He points out the discomfort that is inevitable in travelling.

A foreigner is a man who laughs at everything except jokes. (p. 163)

He also argues that as long as we think we understand a people or nation, we will be unable to learn anything new about them. He illustrates this by a strange anecdote in the chapter “The Extraordinary American,” which is about an inexplicable meeting in Oklahoma. His apt summary:

We have never even begun to understand a people until we have found something that we do not understand. (p. 182, emphasis mine)

Chesterton on American Politics

The modern Briton sees American politics from afar as a circus. Chesterton calls it—along with his own nation—a plutocracy (rule by the rich), a term which has only grown in relevance.

Vulgar plutocracy is almost omnipotent in both countries; but I think there is now more kick of reaction against it in America than in England. (p. 264-265)

Political representation in democracy, for Chesterton, is a sleight-of-hand trick: we go to pains to elect whomever we want, and then spend their term criticizing them. He writes that the King of England is a popular figure, and that “pure democracy” leads inevitably to tyranny. (He first said this, I believe, in his novel The Napoleon of Notting Hill.) This agrees somewhat with statements made by James Madison in Federalist Paper no. 10, written in 1787.

Along with many British believers or young American Christians, Chesterton would be considered conservative on moral issues but liberal on social issues. Firstly, he sees the American republic as having a theological foundation:

America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and also great literature. (p. 7, emphasis mine)

This rings true, of course, with most conservative Christians; but his other opinions may raise some feathers—especially his view of economics, which is definitely not capitalist, but not exactly socialist either.

A wise man’s attitude towards industrial capitalism will be very like Lincoln’s attitude towards slavery. That is, he will manage to endure capitalism; but he will not endure a defence of capitalism. (p. 226)

Politically moderate Christians, who are today called “politically homeless,” will definitely be interested in Chesterton’s views.

Chesterton on Internationalism

The League of Nations, which was later replaced by the United Nations, was the first worldwide intergovernmental organization, founded in 1920. Although we may have forgotten it after the disillusionment of World War II, the original goal was to maintain world peace and international unity. Novelist H. G. Wells had written that if we could not maintain such a peace, then only war is possible.

This kind of thinking Chesterton consistently and utterly rejects. In numerous places in his writings, he shows outrage at the idea of a neutral assimilation along any lines, whether moral, political, denominational, linguistic, or cultural. He says twice that this is the main contention of the entire book:

I would insist everywhere in this book . . . that the remedy is to be found in disentangling the two and not in entangling them further. (p. 233)

The safest path for Anglo-American relations, he says, is for the English to be more English, not more American; and for the English to learn to appreciate America as American, and the American to appreciate England as English. In this way, he makes a great argument for diversity (as elsewhere). One of the characters in his early novel The Napoleon of Notting Hill makes a similar argument:

Do you really mean to say that at the moment when the Esquimaux has learnt to vote for a County Council, you will have learnt to spear a walrus? (Napoleon of Notting Hill, p. 41)

Chesterton’s objection to “internationalism” is summarized thus:

The objection to spreading anything all over the world is that, among other things, you have to spread it very thin. (p. 244)

Other Themes in What I Saw in America

As in any book of essays, numerous themes are discussed and couldn’t possibly fit into a review. Some other themes addressed prominently in this book are given here:

  • American humor
  • American journalism
  • American politics
  • American individualism
  • Political representation
  • Capitalism and work ethic
  • Egalitarianism vs. capitalism
  • The moral influence of new technologies
  • The fruitlessness of the Prohibition (1920-1933)

Quotes:

“The devil can quote Scripture for his purpose; and the text of Scripture which he now most commonly quotes is, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” That text has served to identify self-satisfaction with “the peace that passes all understanding.” And the text to be quoted in answer to it is that which declares that no man can receive the kingdom except as a little child. What we are to have inside is the childlike spirit; but the childlike spirit is not entirely concerned about what is inside. It is the first mark of possessing it that one is interested in what is outside. The most childlike thing about a child is his curiosity and his appetite and his power of wonder at the world. We might almost say that the whole advantage of having the kingdom within is that we look for it somewhere else.” (p. 279)

Prohibition:

“The first thing to be said about it is that it does not exist. . . . Prohibition never prohibits. It never has in history; not even in Moslem history; and it never will.” (p. 145)

American Culture:

“Americans are very unpunctual.” (p. 113)

“Individualism is the death of individuality.” (p. 169)

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