PARTISAN
REVIEW
165
apparent assumption that the purpose of the cathedrals was, at any
time, to be "inspirational" and stimulate him to efforts the results of
which would have nothing whatever to do with the spirit, mind, in–
tellect and senses of the generations that built those edifices. One sup–
poses he brings a different attention to cathedral architecture from
that which he would bring, say, to a performance of
King Lear,
or
to reading
War and Peace.
For his wonderful criticism is evidence that
he does not make
it
a test of literary masterpieces that, while reading
them, they should cause him to think of something other than the
authors' meaning, "some ambitious project" of his own devising.
It
is true though that by now the architectural and landscaped
past of Europe has been swallowed up in the American contem–
poraneity just as much as those New England villages. The question
is
whether there are not qualities
in
America which
will
save the
world from Americanization. For the world has nowhere else (unless
to China) to look.
VI
Nothing could be further from Americanization than the visions
of the puritan, the transcendentalist, and the "classic" American
writers. They saw Americans as a new and unprecedented race–
homo Americanus,
free of the guilt of Europe, reborn as Adams and
Eves on the almost unexplored continent. In the early as even
in
the
late novels of Henry James the American is essentially an innocent.
His
hero of the novel of that name -
The American
-
is called
Newman. It is true that he expresses his innocence not in flowers, but
in
gold, but this scarcely matters because he is purer and younger
than the corrupt and designing European aristocrats among whom
he moves. The Christian name of Mr. Verver in
The Golden Bowl
is
Adam.
What I call here "Americanization" meant to Herman Melville
something much closer to Europeanization: and, of course, Ameri–
canization is really the effect of Europe on America.
That England, when offering delights, casts a shadow across the
American soul, is the significance of two stories by Melville, "The
Paradise of Bachelors" and "The Tartarus of Maids." The first of
these
is
an artful sketch, which appeared
in
Harper's Magazine
in
1855, of a banquet of lawyers -
all
of them bachelors - at their
