The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
THE HOME FRONT By William E. Bohn Morris Ernst: A Man Misplaced I HAVE LONG BEEN bothered, puzzled, fascinated and intrigued by Morris Ernst. The reviews of his latest book all record the fact...
...When I had finished the last page I imitated my level-minded diarist...
...He flew to England, France, Colombia, and was always popping off to Washington or Boston or some other major city...
...There would have been a lot of other fellows around of about the same general sort...
...This new volume, which travels under the title Touch Wood (Athe-neum, $4.95), is a diary from August 23, 1953 to August 22, 1959...
...All he has to do is to speak quietly in favor of good sense—and his voice comes out as a mighty roar...
...And when it comes to people, what a guy...
...It is all even and low-keyed, as nearly unexciting as the man can manage to make it...
...Every now and then he pointedly remarks that a lawyer is, after all, something like a priest hearing confessions...
...What he does is tell in the most unexcited and unexciting way about a walk around Washington Square or—glory be!— how he mended a window or laid out a path on his place on the charming island of Nantucket...
...He is not improving me, not even pretending to improve me...
...But this is one of the most interesting pieces of writing which I have come across in a long time...
...I am, honestly and openly, one of the greatest skippers in the business...
...But here I go—page after page—reading every little word...
...I don't owe Morris Ernst anything...
...You would think that they passed their time in dumb show...
...I kept asking myself: "What in the name of God is this that keeps me going...
...But in the society of 1960, the author of Touch Wood is something very special...
...He is not forced to struggle to give his writing distinction...
...Some have added that he is just about the liveliest human being in the metropolis...
...others have stressed the fact that he has covered a good part of the earth and is one of the most unprejudiced people in our rapidly increasing population...
...I am taking for granted that by then the Civil Liberties Union will have expanded to take in a good part of the population, that Negroes will, of course, be treated as well as white folks, and that those who set the style in social and economic matters will be fair and level-headed...
...He runs his sailboat up to Maine and just incidentally spends a night or two with Thomas Lamont...
...When he mentions Sacco and Vanzetti, disintegration of races or means of limiting population growth, he doesn't have to shout...
...His book is written in a curiously level, unemphatic, almost colorless way...
...But he does not spill any of this to the hopeful readers who have paid $4.95 for his fine, fat volume...
...The fact that some writer has had the nerve or the stupidity to write a mess of words and some publisher has had the bad judgment to publish it puts me under no sort of compulsion to trail along and wear my eyes on it...
...Morris Ernst would fit into this new age like—well, like a stout conservative into the Republican party...
...Now, I have no conscience at all about reading...
...Morris is generally known to enjoy one of the most human and luscious law practices on Manhattan...
...Millionaires, Presidents, Senators, poets, novelists, dramatists— they are all just common fare to Morris...
...The reviews of his latest book all record the fact that he is a successful New York lawyer concerned with civil liberties...
...To do him justice, this matter does seem to lie rather heavy on his conscience...
...I think I like Morris Ernst and can read every word he writes with what formerly seemed an inexplicable amount of interest because he is a very special sort of fellow—special because he is misplaced...
...And I believe that I have found the answer...
...You are doubtless prepared to have me say that this book is deadly dull or as dry as Arizona in summer...
...If he had lived a century-and-a-half ago, he would not have been any sort of riddle...
...Secrets confided to him are "sacred...
...I could not conveniently stroll around Washington Square or along his enchanted Nantucket beach...
...I suppose he has listened sympathetically to enough tales of wrecked romance to furnish plots for all the plays to be produced on Broadway during the coming century...
...But in the case of Touch Wood I read every syllable and punctuation mark...
...Not on your life...
...Or just imagine if Morris had been postponed for a century or two...
...But does he reveal an item about their conversation...
...He hardly ever takes the trouble even to report a word of their conversation...
...In the course of these 12 months Morris lived through a lot of really lively experiences...
...The fact that I was interested right up to the end was cause for mounting surprise as I went along...
...But Made-lin Garden runs across the rear end of my place here in Delaware—and in some ways it is just as alluring as the places where Morris takes in his fresh air and lets out his unhappy thoughts...
...So it was there that I strode to turn my problem over in my mind...
Vol. 43 • December 1960 • No. 49
