478
GEORGE STADE
writing was a lways in some sense politica l, his best writing at once rea listic
and sa tirical, if not exactly funn y.
If
his political intelligence was never as
precise as Orwell's, not even before World War II, it was a lso never made to
perform strange tricks by its owner' guilt over having been born into the
middle class. Even in 1930 Do Passos could admit that he was " a middl e-class
liberal, whether I like it or not. " But unlike Orwell, he did not die in 1950. The
las t letter in
Th e Fourteenth Chron icle
is one recommending William Buckley
to the Century Association . Orwell wo uld have seen throug h that sneering
toad immediately, as would a younger Dos Passos, who had satirized a number
of equivalent types on the left, and who wrote that " undoubtedl y the worst
abomina tion and the commonest is snobbery."
Even if
Th e Fourteen th Chronicle
sho uld not enhance Dos Passos's
reputa tion, it is a good book to have around .
It
is excell ently edited; and its
eight sections of letters and extracts from diaries, a long with Ludington 's bio–
graphica l introductions to th e sections, provide the full est account we have of
Dos Passos's life, hi s development as a writer, his feelings about the United
Sta tes, his shifting political commitments.
He was bo rn in 1896, fo urteen years before his parents were able to marry.
Hi s fa ther, lawyer, se lf-made man, fri end to McKinley, expert on brokerage
law and advisor to the grea t trusts, was married to a woman whom Ludington
describes as menta ll y ill; divo rce was no t possible. By the time his father was
free to marry his mo ther, th e la tter had been inva lided by heart disease. Al–
th ough the bonds o f affection between the three o f them seem to have been
remarkabl y strong, they were never able to have much o f a life together. Before
hi s mo ther became an inva lid, Dos Passos and his parents had traveled a good
dea l in Europe, where they could a ll appea r together openly.
It
was "a ho tel
childhood ," as Dos Passos put it later. He was educated in boarding schools
and by tutors, abroad a nd in th e Sta tes. Wherever he was, he seemed foreign to
hi s schoo lmates. He was shy, awkward, and nearsighted. His ho tel childhood
left him with an incurable sen se o f lo neliness, a compulsion to travel, and an
addi ction to litera ture- "was ever a crea ture more dependent on litera ture for
life and stimulus-God-I mu st be either on the move externa ll y or interna ll y
via litera tu re."
H is lo neliness was mo re o ften a condition of hi s character than o f his
circumstances. At the age o f twenty he wrote to a fri end tha t he had found it
" hard to shake th e habit of so litude," that " there a re people who sort of have
solitude in their blood, who a re just as lonely in a crowd or on a mountain
top." At the age of sixty-three, married to a "cordial" wife, father to a weli –
loved da ughter, much so ught a fter for hi journa lism , he was still describing
himself as "a borderer, a dweller in no man 's rea lm. " Even during his days of
close a llia nce and da ily contact with po litica l orga niza tions and literary
crowds his ticklish refu sa l to immerse himself in an y set of ideas or people kept
him as much outside as in side whatever hi s circumstances. Altho ugh he some-
