72
PARTISAN REVIEW
the value system of a culture. Manners stand to values precisely as
religion stands to personal belief in God; and just as the question for
the religionist is not whether we have beliefs but whether we believe;
so the question for the literary mind is not whether we have values
but whether we have manners. It is through manners, particularly as
they take the form of what Lionel Trilling calls "a conscious realiza–
tion of social class," that dramatic vitality and conflict have tradition–
ally entered the world of fiction. Manners have been responsible for
thc presence in the great European novel of that prime virtue of Mr.
Trilling's-"substantiaIity," the virtue, that is, of "intention, passion,
thought" and profound character portrayal, "which is precisely a pro–
duct of a class existence." It should follow, therefore, that if the con–
temporary novel in America has been increasingly characterized by
moral vacuity and dramatic failure, it is because we have experienced
a loss of our sense of social class, and, with it, of the convention of
manners which alone can give it moral and dramatic life.... In the
South and in New England there are still classes of people who live
by a code and a vision of conduct which formulates and dramatizes
their behavior. They have bias and idiosyncrasy as personalities be–
cause they are both restrained and liberated by the generally accepted
dogmas of their class and place. The inhabitants of other areas belong
to a society which is rapidly becoming completely classless and in which,
therefore, behavior is deprived of the convention which would give it
moral direction and vitality and the inhabitants dramatic personality.
The most appalling fact about the American way of life today,
at least from the literary point of view, is not simply that people do
nothing according to a prevailing conventional rule but that, because
there is no conventional rule, they are losing their human personalities.
Without dogma, we might say, there can be no personality; and with–
out personality there can be no creation of character in fiction; and
without character there can be no novel of manners; and without
the novel of manners, we are left with nothing but the naked creative
sensibility; and that, no matter how brilliant it may be, is never by
itself enough.
Yes, we h ave no bananas. But all God's chillun got shoes.
Let me try to make myself as plain and clear as possible: good
manners are obviously very important and very desirable. They are
often necessary to the realization of kindness, goodness and sym–
pathy, and to the avoidance of injury. But, as Proust shows, other
matters are far more important, and good manners are sometimes
merely a pleasant surface.
