The Saga of American Society
by [Scribners, $4.00]
DESPITE its impressive bibliography, Mr. Wecter’s volume is the first serious attempt to chronicle the rise and fall of the Four Hundred and of those decimal fractions of the great republic outside of New York City which tread on less enchanted ground. It is an amazing, rich, and juicy chronicle, starred with pungent anecdote and enriched by the sardonic comment of its author. To dismiss Society as vanity, says Mr. Wecter in his foreword, is ‘to throw away a rich segment of human experience, moulded of wisdom and folly, graciousness and snobbery,’but at the conclusion of his panorama the author is compelled sadly to confess that ‘in review the self-justifications of society in America are none too impressive.’ For, unlike the British aristocracy. .American sooiety has not produced an impressive number of what the English call public servants. In truth, Mr. Wecter’s vindication of the Elect is distinguished mainly for its negativism: —
It has bought Old Masters, hut fed few living artists. Us tastes in music and opera have been both timid and grandiose, and its patronage of literature has been negligible. Unhappily it forsook politics more than a century ago, though for reasons not wholly unselfish it longs just now to return. With generosity it has sometimes given to charity and education, though it has wasted other great sums in foolish ways. To the wisdom, goodness, and piety of mankind it has afforded at best, an erratic and whimsical support.
But the true weight of Mr. Wecter’s colorful study does not lie in the discovery that ‘Society’ in America is sociologically useless. Rather he gives us a social history of the United States from a special and very illuminating point of view. His discussion of etiquette books, the rise of clubs, society journalism, and the emergence of women as dominant figures in the social scene is in fact an acutely written social history of the republic, and should be of value to both the political and the literary historian.
Despite some slips of fact, Mr. Wecter’s book is bound to become standard. Few volumes of this weight carry a load of research so gracefully; and to those who flee from thoroughness it should be said that the book is almost uniformly entertaining.
HOWARD MUMFORD JOSES