Diary of a Superfluous Man of Letters
Clifton Fadiman in The New Yorker for March 17, 1934:
One of the least appreciated of the older generation of American writers, I imagine, is Mr. Albert Jay Nock. The fact probably doesn't disturb him in the least, as he holds no very high opinion of American literary taste. He has written a book on Jefferson, which, whether or not you share its point of view, is a classic of harmonious scholarship, and one on Rabelais which is even better. And now a publisher has had the fine judgment to persuade him to release a part of his diary, covering the months from June, 1932, to December, 1933. It is called "A Journal of These Days," and its quiet wit, sharpness of phrasing, reverence for the English language, and unity of viewpoint deserve your consideration.
Mr. Nock is an anomaly, being at once a fastidious aristocrat and a devout Jeffersonian. His standards are those of Matthew Arnold; the word "civilization" is constantly on his lips. He embodies urbanity without snobbishness, cultivation without pedantry, and a concern for social justice which is not tinctured with sentimentalism. Unfortunately, his particular qualities are not those on which our present culture sets a high value. Hence his disdain for the entire mock-democratic, competitive society which has outlawed most of the virtues of the intelligence.
Mr. Nock has no faith in any political system, one must add, because he believes that it is human nature (of which he thinks rather ill) that creates society, and not vice versa. I disagree emphatically with this point of view, but shall defend, though not to the death, his particular method of stating it, which is Voltairean inits wit and elegance.
The "Journal" covers an amazing variety of subjects, from the NRA to light opera in Brussels, from Dumas as a political philosopher to the eminent virtues of Bret Harte as a parodist, from tone-deafness among the Chinese to Portuguese feminism.The informal prose is studded with memorable phrases and epigrams, two of which may be noted as fair samples. Referring to a late president of Harvard, he writes, "The worst calamity that ever befell American education was Eliot's refusal of the presidency of a textile-manufacturing company." Another flash: French is so poverty-stricken that about the only way a person can say anything intelligible is the right way."
Through these pages blows the breath of the culture of the eighteenth century, its skepticism, its wit, its frequently cold remoteness from the turmoil of ordinary living, its regard for form and harmony and proportion. I recommend Mr. Nock if you wish to establish contact with a shrewd and cultivated mind, rather old-fashioned perhaps, and beautifully representative of a tradition which, for good or ill, is dying.
Kirkus for March 14, 1934:
If you could pick an utterly delightful and refreshing and stimulating companion for a few hours conversation, Albert Jay Nock, as evidenced in these pages, would be the ideal. Failing that opportunity, don't miss a chance of reading you -- rselves and recommending it to all your intelligent customers -- men and women -- this random journal of six months (June 1932 -- December 1933). Politics -- personalities -- the daily news -- books --head line features -- casual events -- the big show of civilization today, from the point of view of a keen mind, a frankly iconoclastic kind of snobbery, a stimulating frankness. By turn of a phrase or twist of a viewpoint, he neatly picks off current figures, and modern, and modern foibles. A book to own, for pick up reading.
Entries from late 1932 in A Journal of These Days by Albert Jay Nock:
11 October--With all the handling that the Adams family has had, no historian or biographer, as far as I know, has clearly marked out the quality that really distinguished them. None of them, from old John down, seems ever to have been afraid of anything, least of all afraid of what the neighbours would say--neighbours in society, in business or in politics. Think of Charles Francis Adams, saying in the Boston of 1885 that he was a single-taxer, and whoever did not like it might lump it. This quality made the family stand out against that curious unreasoning fear that is the characteristic mark of the upper-class Bostonese--the fear that killed Sacco and Vanzetti. I hear Chinard's book on John Adams is coming out next year. I hope it will do justice to this quality.
29 October--At lunch with Henry Mencken yesterday. What I heard from him, and from Hamilton Owens yesterday morning, concerning the public schools of Baltimore, made me wish someone would write a perfectly dignified presentation of our educational practice in the light of a racket. It is time that somebody went after the scandalous organized rascality in our educational system. If the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching would undertake such an investigation in any kind of sincerity, it would almost justify its existence. Mencken said he believed the United States would never become civilized, if for no other reason, on account of its schools. I quite agree with him. Cassandre has an interesting notion that some peoples are cut out by nature to be civilized, and others not; and that those which are not can never be civilized or ever succeed in civilizing themselves. She points out indications in history which rather tempt one to believe that.
1 November--I never knew a family that had as many proverbial expressions as my mother's family, most of them quaint, and many that I never heard of elsewhere. For instance, my mother used to say that a suspiciously good bargain offered "too much pork for a shilling." When some occasion was over with, she would say, "That burying's got by"--a simile drawn from rural interest in funeral processions, people stopping work to look at them. To justify some small extravagance, she would say, "What's a shilling on a show-day?" I have often thought of jotting down these sayings as they recur to me, and making a list of them. Curiously, I never heard a single one that pointed a conventional moral, like those in Poor Richard's Almanac; but perhaps this is characteristic of a notably free-thinking, clear-minded lot, as my mother's people all were, without exception.
2 November--Cassandre told me of going up to the North Point lighthouse on Nantucket last summer, and finding that they use oil for their light; electricity is too uncertain. There is an odd sort of allegory in this. Modern devices are convenient and work first-rate when things go all right, but sometimes when you want something you can rely on, you have to go back to the old-fashioned method. This may also be true of certain modes of thought. In a pinch, some of them still look pretty good, and are found capable of doing work at which later modes have broken down. We had a brand-new system of economics ten years ago. All sorts of old principles were shelved, supply and demand, Gresham's law, the law of diminishing returns, etc. Well, we are looking them over again, now, and they don't seem so bad. Also we are considering the old idea that goods and services can be paid for only in goods or services, whatever you choose to use for counters, whether gold, silver, paper or the shirt-tails of East Side Communists. Some day, if we can only keep on going to pot, we may find it worth while to learn what rent is, and interest, and wages, and why; what capital is and what monopoly; what the three factors in production are; and what laws govern the distribution of wealth among monopoly, capital and labour. I would bet my head that you could take this list of questions from one end of Wall Street to the other, and into every college and university in the country, and not find ten persons in the whole lay-out who could answer them properly to save their souls from Tophet.
8 November--Election Day, far better spent here in the country than down in town, saving the republic. You are reminded that neither Mr. Roosevelt nor Mr. Hoover can bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, bring forth Mazzaroth in his season, or guide Arcturus with his sons. Whichever may be elected, the cows will still calve, and seed-time and harvest will recur. I once voted at a Presidential election. There being no real issue at stake, and neither candidate commanding any respect whatever, I cast my vote for Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi. I knew Jeff was dead, but I voted on Artemus Ward's principle that if we can't have a live man who amounts to anything, by all means let's have a first-class corpse. I still think that vote was as effective as any of the millions that have been cast since then.
18 November--I resumed reading the newspapers the other day. What a thundering joke it would be if Brother Hoover and his lame-duck Congress would pass a real economy bill, one that would cut a billion dollars off Federal expenditure, which certainly could be done without impairing a single useful function of the government. That would be a lovely legacy to leave to Roosevelt and his hungry horde of job-seekers, for I imagine he would have to accept it. There would be joy in the presence of the angels between now and next March, if anything like that happened. I can't imagine anything more plangent than the squeals of a crew of ravenous Democrats side-tracked from access to the trough; and how it would delight me to listen to them!...
28 November--Two interesting conversations yesterday, one at noon at the Round Table in the Club Anonyme, one at night with Henriette and her two friends. Literature at noon, literature and music at night. What made them a little unusual was that we all talked about the things we liked, with not a word about the things we disliked; no invidious comparisons and no one laying down the law. This gives conversation a tonic quality that is valuable in these days when disagreeable topics are perforce uppermost in our minds so much of the time.
5 December--I went last night to hear Georges Barrère and his little orchestra in a programme mostly of old music. He is doing a fine public service. As an intermezzo, he played the Bach solo concerto. It reminded me of how much the world owes to the fact that Frederick the Great happened to be a flute-player. I think one of the grandest scenes in history is the one at Potsdam, when Frederick abruptly adjourned a meeting of the Crown Council, saying, "Gentlemen, old Bach is here." All business of State was off for the next couple of days, while Bach pounded the harpsichord and Frederick blew the flute, and the world has netted the great flute concertos out of that visit. If I were making a study of Frederick, I would let his military genius go pretty much as it lies, and bear down on what you see of his character in incidents of this kind, and in his letters to Voltaire, for instance. He was a really great ruler, but his military and political achievements are only incidental to his real greatness.
8 December--Einstein was put up on the carpet by our consular service, over getting a visa to come here. I have been interested to see how the country took it. It seems that the Woman's Patriotic Corporation served notice on the State Department that Einstein was an undesirable alien--Bolshevist, or something of the sort--and some of Stimson's small-fry passed the word along to our consulate in Berlin. There has been some facetious comment, but no serious treatment of the fundamental question of what kind of State Department it is that takes direction from a flock of meddling fools like the Woman's Patriotic Corporation...I would not care to be our ambassador in Berlin when he meets the diplomatic corps after the Einstein incident, though they have been so long used to seeing our representatives in a humiliating position that an incident more or fewer probably does not count for much.
10 December--A pleasant young Spaniard named Don Beltran de Garbanzos, or something of the kind; I did not catch it, exactly. His father's name, Don Primitivo de G. What a delightful name, Don Primitivo! Once at lunch at George Bernard Shaw's, when we were talking about theatrical matters, I asked Massingham why somebody had not made a comic opera out of the famous incident of Don Pacifico, back in the 'sixties, I think it was, or a bit earlier. The libretto is all in the history. It does not call for a scrap of invention, and even the title is there, inimitable. (There is a light opera called Don Bucefalo; I never heard it.) Shaw whirled around on me, and asked, "Why, who in the United States knows anything about Don Pacifico?" I answered by telling the story of Ouida, the novelist, refusing to see an American woman who called on her. When the servant opened the door, Ouida called down from upstairs, "That's an American voice. Tell her to go away." The woman called back, "You needn't be so sniffy about Americans, for they are the only people who will read your nasty books." Shaw, who likes to have the laugh turned on him, enjoyed this as much as the rest did.
From Hello Goodbye Hello: A Circle of 101 Remarkable Meetings by Craig Brown
30 December--Someone in the club here has been talking about his youth, with the hankering air of one who wants it back. This is a common sentiment that I was never able to fall in with or even really to understand. I would be willing to go through life again, I think, but I would not care to have my youth protracted beyond its time. Mine was easy and happy, and I was as decent as most, but when I remember how ignorantly mean, self-centred, undisciplined, trivial and cruel I was, I don't want any more of it. There may be something very wrong with me, but I do not regard youth as in any way attractive or desirable. It is merely something to be got over. I should say that it has been enormously over-sentimentalized in this country. Perhaps the reason is that our whole civilization is so deplorably immature, and therefore in glorifying youth we are glorifying ourselves, which everyone more or less likes to do.
31 December--The last of 1932, and I am glad to see it go. I am not sure that we are changing for the better, but mere change, in this case, is good, even if it be for the worse. The chance for improvement in business is perhaps about even. We may be at the bottom and on our way across the valley; I think we are. We don't know how wide the valley is, however--that is the trouble. After 1873 there was very little doing before 1881. Then again we may discover that times like these are normal, and having adjusted ourselves to them we may find that they are not so bad. I doubt this, however. I think that in time, though not very soon, we shall have a return of "prosperity" with a repetition of all the idiocies and imbecilities of the last dozen years. Having learned nothing from similar experiences, why should we think we have learned anything from this one?
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