Books: Always Yes

HENRY VAN DYKE—Tertius van Dyke—Harper ($3.50).

As the biography of a man of letters, the career of Henry van Dyke (The Story of the Other Wise Man) is one of the most ironic in the history of U. S. culture. Sophisticated readers may ignore his achievements, may feel considerable discomfort that such a writer could be widely hailed and honored as a U. S. spokesman at a time when stronger talents werecondemned to frustration and neglect. Nor are such readers likely to derive much enjoyment from Tertius van Dyke’s pious biography of his father, with its exact and well-documented accounts of Henry van Dyke’s fishing trips, its exhaustive records of his ineffectual activities in politics, its methodical report of his achievements as pastor of the Brick Presbyterian Church of New York, its detailed study of the honors, awards and testimonials bestowed upon him by eminent figures in all walks of life. But despite Tertius van Dyke’s naive acceptance of contemporary estimates of his father’s greatness, the biography throws a vivid light on the kind of bland, well-meaning, complacent U. S. writing that flourished in pre-War years. “He always,” declares his son, “said yes to life.”

Henry van Dyke was born in 1852 in Germantown, Pa., son of an old, conservative, well-to-do Dutch family. His father became pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn Heights, was notorious for his Southern sympathies before the Civil War. Once during that War a mob surrounded the van Dyke home, demanded that the pastor display the U. S. flag as proof of his loyalty, was dispersed by elders of the church. Mentioning such conflicts with obvious distaste, Tertius van Dyke concentrates on Henry van Dyke’s idyllic boyhood, his carefree college years in Princeton, his travels in Europe, pictures him as the frail, pugnacious son of adoring parents. At the age of 26 he became pastor of the United Congregational Church in fashionable Newport, married happily, got involved in church politics, taking his father’s side in intrachurch squabbles, wrote a thundering attack on Huxley, whom he accused of ignorance, insincerity and arrogance. Moving to the Brick Presbyterian Church in New York, Henry van Dyke became a leader in a church reform movement, a vital issue which at that time attracted much newspaper attention. Hostile to ministers who took part in politics, he nevertheless advocated sound money, supported the Spanish-American War, urged the application of Christian ideals in political and economic life as an alternative to Socialism, sternly opposed income taxes.

It was in 1895—four years after the death of the almost unknown Herman Melville—that the success of The Other Wise Man made him a famed literary figure. This inspirational story told of one of the Wise Men who set out for Bethlehem at the birth of Christ, stopped to aid a distressed wayfarer, continued to search for Christ but always turned aside to help others. It was an immediate success. More than 800,000 copies were sold in the U. S. in 30 years; it was translated into 23 languages; formed the subject of thousands of editorials and sermons. Its author, whose literary idol was Tennyson, devoted more time to literature which he considered entirely in an evangelical light, eventually became professor of English at Princeton. There he opposed Woodrow Wilson’s reforms, calling them “unnecessary, unAmerican, undemocratic, unpractical and perilous to the Princeton spirit.” After relating the circumstances of his acceptance of his professional post in a chapter called “Princeton Finally Gets Him,” Tertius van Dyke describes Henry van Dyke’s pleasant family life, his pleasant relations with other writers, including Hamilton Wright Mabie and Struthers Burt, his pleasant fishing trips. His love of fishing and the great outdoors became notorious. At the time he opposed Wilson. Struthers Burt wrote to him, “What a splendid sportsmanlike speech. . . . Somehow men who know the big places and the woods do things and think things that other men don’t.”

Henry van Dyke enjoyed wearing colorful clothes, believed an author had a right to be theatrical, was once given a racing sheet by a traveler who thought him a sporting man. He strongly disapproved of Prohibition, enjoyed lunching at the WaldorfAstoria, which he called “The Walled Off Hysteria.” Appointed Minister to The Netherlands and Luxembourg before the War, he turned strongly pro-Ally, resigned to carry on War work. Of one of his War stories (“The Primitive and His Sandals”), Theodore Roosevelt wrote:”! wish it could be read as a tract by every half-baked and every wholly-baked parlor Bolshevist .in the land! Preferably I should like it read once a week after nightfall in penitential garb, by the light of torches made in each case out of the entire edition, for that week, of the New Republic.”

Disapproving of the award of the Nobel Prize to Sinclair Lewis, Henry van Dyke was quoted as having called it an “insult to America.” This he denied, but suggested that Booth Tarkington, Willa Gather, Struthers Burt, James Boyd and others were “more deserving,” because their views of U. S. life were more wholesome. In his speech of acceptance Author Lewis struck back, referred to van Dyke as “the fishing Academician.” After van Dyke’s death (TIME, April 17, 1933) an unpublished poem referring to Lewis was discovered among his papers. It ended:

You write a language hitherto unknown;

To Shakespeare’s tongue and faith, I fealty own.

So ride your road, Smart Aleck, gaily ride :

I keep my path; the future will decide.