BOOKS
625
Some of the discomfort disappears if we regard the work as
essentially a poem in prose. The narrator would have us curl up
for a cosy tale: "This is a story to be read in bed in an old house on
a rainy night. " Don't believe it. A much better comment on the
spirit of the work is what the Balkan soothsayer says to Sears in
her incomprehensible language. "'I have no idea what she
means,' said the interpreter, 'but what she said was
"La grande
poesie de La vie".' "
The poetry of earth is Cheever's true
subject in this book; his genre is the poetry of praise.
RACHEL HADAS
THE INNER GENTLEMAN
THE GENTLEMEN IN TROLLOPE: INDIVIDUALITY AND MORAL
CONDUCT. By Shirley Robin Letwln.
Harvard University Press. $20.00.
It
is unfortunate that the title of Shirley Letwin's book,
though accurate enough in a narrowly descriptive sense, is likely
to give many potential readers the wrong idea of what to expect.
Ms. Letwin is certainly not unaware of the problem. The subject
of the English gentleman, as she points out with wit and economy
in the early section of her book, conjures up images of snobbery
and class privilege, characters who are alternately stuffy and ridi–
culous.
In
fact, it is Ms. Letwin's purpose to challenge most of the
commonplace sociological and economic definitions of the term
in favor of one that is essentially moral. According to her argu–
ment, it is not wealth, property, genetic purity, accent, clothing, or
manner that makes the English gentleman, but a concept of the
self and the moral conduct that is its consequence.
"The morality that is the subject of this book denies that hu–
man beings are divided between reason and passion. " Thus stat–
ed, Ms. Letwin's thesis appears deceptively simple. Her exposi–
tion and elaboration of it, however, is subtle and intriguing.
It
is
her contention that continental views of the gentleman derive
from classical conceptions of an ideal universe that man, because
of his divided nature, can imagine but not truly conform to in
