S. ICHIYÉ HAYAKAWA

[It is] disconcerting for the ardent student of Eliot to find, in [After Strange Gods], no indication of a richer spiritual life as the result of his conversion [to Anglo-Catholicism]…. After Strange Gods, which announces itself as "A Primer of Modern Heresy", far from showing any enrichment of Mr. Eliot's life, indicates on the contrary an increasingly fastidious (perhaps it would be more accurate to say pernickety) disapproval of men, manners, and ideas. I would not for a moment suggest that there are not things in the modern world that ought rightly to be disapproved of; however, it is profoundly indicative of the peculiarities of Mr. Eliot's temper that he has found in Christianity a convenient platform from which to indulge his favorite pastime of deploring (to use a favorite word of his), instead of a river of life from which to irrigate and fructify his waste land. Distasteful as such an obvious line of explanation is to an admirer of Eliot, one finds difficulty in escaping the conclusion that he has inherited from his New England ancestry and background so strong a habit of disapproving that he can make no greater progress in Christianity than to advance from witch-hunting to heresy-hunting. (pp. 366-67)

Mr. Eliot's literary perceptions, which read accurately into the meanings of the authors he deals with, are extraordinarily acute, and their acuteness is sharpened by his ethical sensitivity…. Mr. Eliot, who is as richly cosmopolitan in his learning as Babbitt or Pound, has a genuinely traditional way of feeling about literature: his erudition and his sensitive reading have given him a European background, a European tradition, the lack of which has made possible the many and various heresies of the modern world which he rightly deplores. The heresies which are uttered in the name of self-expression, nationalism, romanticism, science, and society, would be impossible, if a unified "way of feeling" based upon the past experience of the race had a more lively existence. We are sadly in need of traditional men, in Mr. Eliot's sense…. Mr. Eliot demonstrates, in his own literary criticism, the advantages of a traditional literary culture as a safeguard against erratic and half-formed ideas.

Unfortunately, Mr. Eliot does not come to us in these lectures as a literary critic; he writes, "I ascended the platform of these lectures only in the rôle of moralist". Therefore the social implications of his definition of tradition become matters of great importance in his book. It is here that Eliot reveals prejudices that distinctly mark his thoughts, in some respects, "trifling and eccentric", "provincial in time and place", to use his own terms of derogation. (p. 368)

[Mr. Eliot's concept of tradition as that which demands a homogeneous population, in terms of race and religion, perhaps] gives us a clew to some of the things that have disturbed us about Mr. Eliot's work even at times when we have admired him most: his frequently stuffy archepiscopal manner, his contempt of his readers, his scorn of all contemporary authors (no matter how excellent) who have in any way achieved a wide popular acclaim. Enthusiastic as we have been about his work, there are few of us who have not ground our teeth at one time or another at some of his mannerisms. He has the irritating habit of explaining at great length things that are obvious to the reasonably cultivated reader, and the accompanying habit of saying in a subordinate clause (or in a parenthesis) things that really need further elaboration or explanation…. In After Strange Gods, his mannerisms have become accentuated (partly, perhaps, because the essays were lectures), and there is an amazing increase in the number of cautionary phrases…. There is, in the sum-total of these mannerisms which always mark Mr. Eliot's prose, an unmistakable condescension, a superciliousness toward his readers.

These stylistic eccentricities, like the eccentricities of his social and moral views just examined, are trifling and personal. If they merely trespassed momentarily upon our enjoyment of his splendid literary criticism, they would cause little concern. But they go more deeply than that. The snobbery that these eccentricities reveal explains why the negative aspects of belief, the persecution of errors and heresies, are more congenial to him than the positive aspects of belief—joy and serenity and cheerful labor in the vineyards of the Lord. It is surely not without significance that "deplore" and "deprecate" are his favorite verbs. (It is unpleasant to bring such a charge as that of snobbery to Mr. Eliot; it is done, therefore, with the greatest reluctance, and, I hope, in the true spirit of humility which he enjoins to us.) It is devoutly to be hoped therefore, that as Mr. Eliot spends more years in the fellowship of the Son, Divine Mercy will enlarge his sympathies and sweeten his temper. Mr. Eliot is a great writer; for all his eccentricities, it is not without reason that everything he says and writes commands the immediate and respectful attention of the entire English-speaking world. One looks forward, therefore, to his next book with keenest interest; the general expectation is, of course, that he will grow narrower and more disapproving in tone as he grows older. But Christ has worked miracles before. (pp. 370-71)