Babbitt [antikvár]

íntroduction QUITE recently there has been a lively correspondence in the Press as to whether American books are read in England, and if not why not ? Mr. Sinclair Lewis himself was the first to stir the dust by his vigorous denunciation of our English patronage and indifference. We are, I think, in England indifferent to the Arts. We are, at any rate, quite sure that Life is of more importance than Art, and what we demand of Art is that it should be an assistance to our enjoyment of Life rather than a beautiful thing in itself. It follows from this that we are not, in the main, interested in the Art of other countries, and when an atmosphere seems to us ugly and alien from our own atmosphere we do not wish to hear about it. Now I do think that it has been the fault of somé of the newer American writers that, clever though they are, they have presented modern American life to us in so ugly a fashion-ugly in speech, in background, in thought. Joseph Hergersheimer, James Cabell and Willa Cather alone of the newer American novelists have not done this. Main Street, the book with which Mr. Lewis won fame in the United States, seemed to many English readers an ugly book dealing with ugly people. Personally I think that they were wrong and that both the heroine of that book and her husband were beautiful characters most tenderly revealed. But I do agree that very much of Mr. Lewis' detail was difficult for an English reader to penetrate, and that itdid vii