A MODERN QUIETIST
Books and Things. By Philip Littell. 12mo. 283 pages. Harcourt, Brace & Howe. New York.
MR. PHILIP LITTELL'S Books and Things is a surprise. We did not know that he was writing, thought of writing, or could write a book. It may be suspected that he did not know it himself, that the extempore freshness and casual opportunism of these essays as they appeared in the New Republic were the result of the irresponsibility which is the charm and the reward of the ephemeral. But if so, Mr. Littell was practising an art of which he was unconscious. No one who has merely read the New Republic since its advent has read Books and Things.
Mr. Littell's selection includes essays political, social, literary, and a few on the war, but it would be wrong to insist on this or any classification. For it is the essence of the book which Mr. Littell has made that the same attitude and spirit characterize them all. That spirit Mr. Waldo Frank has stated with usual bluntness in Our America:
"Philip Littell is enamoured of the seclusiveness of art. He comes by his love, of an old tradition. Bravely he seeks to carry it into the present. He ventures forth into the modern havoc and makes his Quiet there."
Just so. The tradition by virtue of which Mr. Littell is admitted to be "enamoured" is that in which he grew up and achieved his intellectual competency, the tradition of the last decade of the last century. Lately someone saw his name in a printed list with the number go after it, and wondered whether the figure represented his actual age or, more delightfully, his "expectancy." It appeared that the list was not one of beneficiaries of life insurance but of recent distinguished graduates of Harvard University; the go happily marks Mr. Littell's accomplished beginning, not his remote end. It is his answer to the question:
