334
cifically political content of liberal–
ism? To bring the question down
to cases: Would Mr. Trilling's
critique distinguish between, say,
Mr. Max Lerner and Mr. Sidney
Hook? between Harold Laski and
Bertrand Russell? and to what
extent would it apply also to the
latter? And
if
the fundamental
attitudes of liberalism are the ob–
jects of our criticism, ought we
not to push our inquiry to its his–
torical source and question the
values of the Enlightenment itself?
These doubts were reawakened
in me by Mr. Chase's loud cry that
the liberals at Smith College were
trying to separate
him
from Dosto–
evski's Father Zossima. Says Mr.
Chase:
"If,
in discussing the words of
REPUBLISHED!
Father Zossima, we are 'as far
from liberalism as may be,' then so
much the worse for 'liberalism.'''
Mr. Chase apparently wants to
be as close as possible to Father
Zossima. As readers, participating
in a work of the imagination, we
may find it hard to keep our dis–
tance, since Dostoevski's Elder is, in
Mr. Chase's words, "one of the
great images of man and his career
on earth." But whatever liberalism
may be, its values have been ra–
tional, secular, and skeptical; Mr.
Chase says he wants these values
to survive; and he can hardly say
this without recognizing that these
values do put him, in
life,
at a
distance from Father Zossima.
If
they put him at such a distance
that he could not appreciate
this
EIMI
by
.
e. e. cummings
THE JOURNAL OF A TRIP TO RUSSIA
"a madman named noone says, that someone
is and anyone . isn't; and all the believing
universe cannot transfonn anyone who isn't
into someone who is"
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