THE BEST BOOKS IN THE WORLD Sta,—I think I should
begin by apologising to the worshippers of Jane Austen for a too cursory dismissal of this writer in my letter of April 26th, for she was a favourite of my undergraduate days : I did say, however, that taste changes greatly with in- creasing experience of life. Being in the last war, seeing the ineptitudes of the Peace, being badly knocked by the economic slump, and again seeing the clouds gathering for war, I began to feel contempt for the useless idle people of Miss Austen's books, and for the type of mind that could spend so much art describing this inane set while apparently unaware of the passion, the beauty and the suffering of the active world around.
So it seemed to me that those of still active mind should leave " escapism " to children, the infirm and aged, and spend the little leisure left them from their work in learning in the literature of realism something about the world outside their common experience. For it is largely this " escapism," the dislike of thinking and consequent failure to understand serious questions shown by the educated classes that makes the abolition of war and poverty so hopeless a task ; there are too many in high places who still seem to live in the pleasant drawing-rooms of Jane Austen or the comic club of Mr. Pickwick.
Such an attitude does not mean the banishment of art from our reading, for some of the greatest art is realistic, e.g., Hardy's Dynasts, many of. Shakespeare's plays, and even Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan. And how much pleasanter to learn in the great literature of realism rather than in the dull text-books of the professors—so let me close by giving the names of books which may help some people to understand the present : John Christopher, by Romain Rolland—the French and German national characters expressed in the life of a creative artist ; The Decline of the West, by Spengler—it may be read as a sequel to Gibbon ; The Dance of Life, by Havelock Ellis— the best and most beautifully written philosophy of life for today, which might make the world a happier place ; and Quiet Flows the Don—the real Russia ; The Letters of John Chinaman (G. L. Dickinson)—The East ; The Black Man's Burden, by E. D. Morel ; Hans Fallada's A Wolf Among Wolves ; and, of course, Hitler's Mein Kampf, to understand the origin of the brutality of the Nazi Party and the source of power of its fanatical
Previous page
