as others see us

University of Northern Iowa

As Others See UsLife of Thomas Jefferson by Francis W. Hirst; Beyond Hatred by Albert Leon Guérard; TheDividing Line of Europe by Stephen Graham; A Diplomat Looks at Europe by RichardWashburn Child; The Re-Making of the Nations by J. H. Nicholson; China and the West byW. E. SoothillReview by: Willis Fletcher JohnsonThe North American Review, Vol. 223, No. 830 (Mar. - May, 1926), pp. 176-182Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25113528 .

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176 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

Of the numerous illustrations in this handsome volume, the best are the reproductions of Mr. Pennell's comparatively early

etchings and pen-and-ink drawings made in Italy, such as the "Ponte Vecchio, Florence," "On the Arno," the "Skyscrapers of

Florence," the "Harbor at Leghorn," "Up and Down in Siena,"

"San Gimignano," the view of Urbino, etc., many of which were

first published in The Century Magazine. The later works,

lithographs and drawings on a somewhat more pretentious scale,

including the Panama Canal series and the Wonders of Work, are

not, on the whole, so satisfactory as the early examples. In

addition to his own works, Mr. Pennell has introduced a number of portraits of authors with whose books he has been associated as illustrator.

William Howe Downes.

AS OTHERS SEE US"

Life of Thomas Jefferson. By Francis W. Hirst. New York: The

Macmillan Company. Beyond Hatred. By Albert Leon Gu?rard. New York: Charles Scrib

ner's Sons.

The Dividing Line of Europe. By Stephen Graham. New York: D.

Appleton and Company. A Diplomat Looks at Europe. By Richard Washburn Child. New

York: Duffield and Company. The Re-Making of the Nations. By J. H. Nicholson. New York:

E. P. Dutton and Company. China and the West. By W. E. Soothill. New York: Oxford Univer

sity Press.

It is a noteworthy circumstance that many of the best books about nations or their great men are written by aliens. This is the case alike in the domains of history and description, of

biography, of sociology, and of politics. The supreme tribute to

the genius of Hannibal lies in the fact that all our histories of him were written by his foes, yet abound in panegyrics which his own

countrymen could hardly have excelled. The first great history of our Revolution was written by an Italian; the unrivalled his

tory of the Dutch Republic and the United Netherlands was the work of an American, as were the histories of the Spanish con

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NEW BOOKS REVIEWED 177

quests in the Western Hemisphere. Lincoln's best biographer is an Englishman. The first great exponent of American democ

racy was a Frenchman. The master treatise on the organization and operation of the American Commonwealth was written by an

Englishman, and a comparable work on the Government of Eng land by an American. These are the landmarks. The spaces

among them are filled with a multitude of others, increasing in number year by year; a highly desirable process. For the gift? and the exercise of the gift?"to see oursel's as others see us"

is splendidly profitable, both subjectively and objectively. It is well to have each nation made to know how it, and its institu

tions, and its great men, look to others; and it is well for those of one nation to study other nations. Thus is promoted that

reciprocity of knowledge and appreciation which is one of the best bases of peace and friendship. So we must regard it as one of the encouraging and hopeful signs of the times that

people are more and more writing about others: Specifically, Americans are writing about other nations more than they ever

did before, and so are men of other nations writing more and

more about America and Americans.

It might be excessive to suggest that Mr. Hirst has done for Thomas Jefferson what Lord Charnwood did for Lincoln. It is

possible to praise his work very highly without going so far as that. And indeed his Life of Thomas Jefferson merits cordial

though not unstinted commendation, for its comprehensive view, for its painstaking industry, for its generosity of estimate, and for its lucid, often epigrammatic and always interesting style. The fact that it appears to have been written in a measure as a coun

terblast to Mr. Frederick Scott Oliver's essay on Alexander Hamilton probably explains some of its most striking features, of both merit and demerit. Seeing that the traditional view of Jefferson is that of one usually unsympathetic and often actually hostile to Great Britain, it is a little unexpected to find an English writer making from first to last, and especially in his international

policies, at least as favorable an estimate of him as any of his most enthusiastic eulogists in America. In some important particu lars, indeed, Mr. Hirst gives him greater credit than any Ameri can panegyrist of whom I have knowledge.

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178 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

Certainly it is going far for an English writer to point out, with demonstrative citations, that Jefferson's conception of the Com

mon Law of England was in some essential respects more just,

logical and authentic than that of Hale and Blackstone. And when we reach the chapter which tells of his "glorious task" in

drafting the Declaration of Independence, we involuntarily turn

back to the title page to make sure that it is an English life of Jefferson and not a compilation of American Fourth of July ora

tions. "Of a document/5 says Mr. Hirst, "which stands in the

history of liberty with the Magna Charta, praise is superfluous . . . criticism is vain;" for that document is "an imperishable

expression of a great moment in the history of freedom, in the

history of nationality, in the history of republican government." For the reason which I have already suggested, it is not sur

prising to find Mr. Hirst a strong champion of Jefferson in his

quarrel with Hamilton. His description of the latter as posses

sing "French morals and English politics" is a deft touch, and far more just than some other of his reflections, not to say aspersions,

upon his hero's adversary. But the antagonism between those

two great men?both truly great?was so intense that it seems to

be entailed, even after the lapse of a century and a quarter, upon

nearly all who write about them. It is the rarest of things to find

the eulogist of one restraining himself from injustice to the other. In several other particulars, too, the author seems to be unduly

moved by his profound admiration for Jefferson. Thus he passes over the Genet episode so lightly as altogether to ignore the in

discretion?to use no stronger term?of which even his best

friends have had to admit Jefferson to have been guilty. And

seeing that by general consent the foreign policy of Jefferson's

second term is esteemed as the least admirable passage in his

public services, it will excite comment that Mr. Hirst roundly declares that it was equal to the best of all his achievements:

"Jefferson's statesmanship never shone brighter than in those

dark and difficult days of the embargo policy, for which he has

been so often and so unjustly assailed."

It might properly be wished that more attention had been

given to various essential details of the Louisiana Purchase, which Mr. Hirst scarcely treats adequately; and it is impossible to es

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NEW BOOKS REVIEWED 179

cape amazement at the extraordinary performance of giving

practically the entire credit for the Monroe Doctrine to Jefferson, and never so much as once mentioning John Quincy Adams in connection with it. On the other hand, there is an unnecessary

dwelling upon various economic, educational and other phases of

Jefferson's career. But these imperfections and faults are more

than outweighed by the undoubted merits of the work; and in deed are to be noticed chiefly, perhaps, by way of contrast to the

general excellence of a work which we must be glad to accept as an

English estimate of a great American statesman.

From the stormy policies and passionate hatreds of Jefferson's time we have not altogether emerged. But it is at least heartening to have publicists give earnest attention to the propagation of bet ter things. Such is the motive of Mr. Gu?rard's volume with the

suggestive title Beyond Hatred. Taking for his major theme the contrast between American and French republicanism, or de

mocracy, he discusses searchingly the racial, religious, lingual and other estrangements among the peoples of the earth; arguing and

exhorting against them with a fervor which by contrast makes

many a League of Nations propagandist seem coldly indifferent. Born in France, educated in England, naturalized in America, fighting against Germany in the World War, he loves all nations, and would have them all love each other. And however much

you may dissent from some of his ways and means, the end is of

course irreproachable?as irreproachable as, I fear, it is unap

proachable. The volume is, however, not unprofitable reading; with an almost incessant sparkling of wit, irony and epigram which suggests that the author may be a lover and disciple of Voltaire. When he tells us that America has principles and

Europe has traditions, he suggests a volume in a phrase. When he says that

" Germanophobia was merely a passing fever, a

sharp reaction against a temporary danger; but Anglophobia is an endemic disease throughout the world," he tells us that which

may be quite true, but which surely discounts hope of getting beyond hatred in our time.

Indeed, we may say that a veritable propagation and perpetua tion of hatred has been established along what Mr. Stephen

Graham appropriately calls by the title of his book, The Dividing

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180 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

Line of Europe. It is a dividing line, extending from the shore of the Euxine to the Baltic and thence northward to the Arctic Ocean. So much for its geographical significance. But still

greater is its political and social significance as a sanitary cordon,

separating Russia from Western Europe. Mr. Graham, who

knows his Russia thoroughly, makes clear the necessity of such a

barrier, for civilization's sake, until the final curtain shall be

rung down upon the hideous tragi-comedy of Bolshevism. Meantime it is perfectly clear in his vivid, vital and often fasci

nating views of life and speech and thought in those border re

gions that racial animosities and lingual differences are there be

ing cherished and developed as never before, while the cynically immoral propaganda and intrigues of Bolshevism in France and

Britain are making for enlargement and confirmation of interna

tional suspicions and hatreds.

If Mr. Graham discloses to us an Englishman's views of

Europe, an equally illuminating and even more authoritative

American view of much of the same field and of some other fields is presented in Mr. Child's volume, A Diplomat Looks at Europe.

Mr. Child had the double advantage of being at once a trained observer and writer and the American Ambassador to Italy and

incidentally an American official looker-on at the international conferences at Genoa and Lausanne. In these capacities he came

into intimate and authoritative contact with all phases of inter national complications in Europe, and these he was able to an

alyze and estimate, and to expound to his American readers in a

manner as authentic as it is vivacious. Moreover, it is gratifying to perceive, he continued always to look at Europe not merely as a

diplomat but also as an American, loyal to those principles which Mr. Gu?rard, as we have seen, contrasts with the traditions of

Europe. He flouts and scorns as sheer nonsense?as of course it

is, despite the petty patter of our Internationalists?the pretense that America lacks a foreign policy and that it is isolated from the rest of the world. He points out convincingly that America since the World War has done much more for the peace and wel fare of the world than has the League of Nations; and he exposes the folly and worse that would be involved in our entering the

League. Since our greatest service to the world is to be able,

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NEW BOOKS REVIEWED 181

when requested, to be an impartial mediator or arbitrator be

tween contending nations, why should we sacrifice that capacity for service by making ourself a party to all their broils?

Mr. Nicholson, in The Re-Making of the Nations, surveys the world almost literally "from China to Peru". Most attention is

given, however, as is fitting, to Europe, Egypt, and Asia. In

Europe a transition period prevails. Some States have shrunk, some have grown, and some have come into existence, or at least

had a new birth. To what extent the changes thus far effected are finalities, or how long they will remain as they are, if nothing in this world is really a finality, is a commanding problem. The

re-making to which the author refers is not, of course, merely that

which has been effected by the Treaty of Versailles, but even more

that which, either because of or despite that instrument, shall hereafter take place. In Asia, too, there are new States, under

the Treaty of Versailles, while the old empires are being mightily stirred by political, economic and religious motives. Upon the

problems of all those lands, and upon the efforts which are being made for their solution, Mr. Nicholson looks with an intelligent and impartial eye, always with an inclination toward optimism, though with full realization of the folly of "expecting all things in an hour". Void of dogmatism, he suggests rather than dictates; and for that very reason reaches, like Rasselas, a conclusion in

which nothing is concluded. In China and the West, also, Mr. Soothill strives to tell, with

admirable brevity, what has occurred, leaving it to the reader to

draw conclusions and to make forecasts. So far as comments are

made and opinions are expressed, these are instinct with a

benevolence and an optimism above all praise. A finer spirit animates no other book that I have seen upon the subject:

East sought West and West sought East. It was destined the twain should

meet. They each had ideas and commodities to share. They have met and are sharing them. Friction was the inevitable result. How to ease the fric

tion and live together in a shrinking world is the present problem. Other means than those of force must be evolved. It is the office of men of reason, of

goodwill and of large statesmanship, to discover and apply them. . . . Whether we like it or not, the nineteenth century has brought East and West to each

other's doors. We are no longer strangers, with all the uncouth notions pro

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182 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

duced by tribal prejudice. We are neighbors, and must answer the question "Who is my Neighbor?" with a wider definition.

Action upon that benign principle is the supreme attainment to be had through possession and culture of the gift

" to see

oursel's as others see us."

Willis Fletcher Johnson.

THREE GLIMPSES

Wellington. By the Hon. John Fortescue. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company.

The Earl Bishop. By William S. Childe Pemberton. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company.

Wiluam T. Stead. By Frederic Whyte. Boston and New York:

Houghton Mifflin Company. "

A very deep ravine separated the two commanders, who stood

only five hundred yards apart." These words of Mr. Fortescue's

written about Wellington and Soult the day before the battle of Sorauren in the Pyrenees campaign of 1813, describe the difference between the way men waged war then and would or

do wage it to-day. Compare the cannon range of the Napole onic Wars with that of the modern .75's and you have explained to you how Arthur Wellesley could do what he did. Yet, al

though in physical terms the scale of everything was smaller, the spiritual factors were quite as mighty as they are now. Had

one intimated to General Wellesley or the Duke of Wellington that he was spiritual, that hard-bitten man would have been

surprised, but not unflattered, for he embodied the spiritual factor in the military sense necessary to a world that must either

destroy Napoleon or be his province. We do not know what might have happened instead of what did, we are not sure that Welling ton was the best soldier that fought Napoleon, but we do know that it was Wellington who raised his hat on that June evening at Waterloo as a signal for the British line to advance, and that as it advanced Napoleon was forced back into the past.

The man who raised his hat at Waterloo and never afterwards boasted of his controlling part in that event, has had so much written about him, has so much been conventionalized like

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