Sinclair Lewis Remembered

36. Charles Breasted

36 / Charles Breasted Charles Breasted (1897–1980), the author of a memoir of his father, the archaeologist and historian James Henry Breasted, also befriended Lewis in London. Source: Charles Breasted, “The ‘Sauk-­ Centricities’ of ­ Sinclair Lewis,” Saturday Review of Literature, August 14, 1954, 7–8. I first met ­ Sinclair Lewis in the United States, when he was capitalizing on the success of Main Street by lecturing far and wide; but our real acquaintance and eventual friendship dated from a February afternoon in 1922, when we both happened simultaneously to converge upon the Ameri­ can Consulate General in London to have our passports extended. Lewis was then completing Babbitt in a bare-­ walled, single-­ windowed room, furnished with a table and two chairs, which he had rented in the Middle Temple in London. During those days he used to join me periodically for dinners and simple soirées at the homes of old friends in the Holland Park and Camden Hill sections of London, where we met such diverse personalities as George Peabody Gooch, the English his­ torian;14 Hermann Gollancz, the Semitist15 Maxwell Armfield, the sadly crippled yet extraordinarily active artist;16 Cyril Scott, the composer;17 Edmund Dulac, the illustrator ;18 and many others. Lewis had already struck up a warm friendship with H. G. Wells (which was to prove sadly short-­ lived), and had met Galsworthy ,19 Claude Lovat Fraser,20 Barrie21 (his historic visit with Conrad,22 which Wolfe so witheringly described in The Web and the Rock, came much later), and other leading fig­ ures of the day. He was greatly impressed with what seemed to him their un-­ British easy informality, and with the fact that their social gatherings included every age level and that the young people in their teens seemed genuinely to enjoy such association with their elders. He would always compliment his hosts especially on this latter aspect of their social life, which was in such contrast to the separation between generations in the United States. This in turn would lead him to expound upon the foibles and fortes of life in America. If the occasion included games, he was likely to be in the middle of them, usually Part 5. Zenith / 103 on the floor; and as often as not he would end up by teaching a group of guests, including the prettiest girl present, the subtleties of poker. One evening when we were on our way in a taxi to some such gathering I asked Lewis if Main Street wasn’t largely autobiographical. He answered that of course Doc Kennicott was a portrait of his father. Then I said, “What about Carol Kennicott—isn’t she a portrait of you?” He seemed startled and said that only a very few people has guessed her identity. “Yes,” he added, “Carol is ‘Red’ Lewis: always groping for something she isn’t capable of attaining, always dissatisfied , always restlessly straining to see what lies just over the horizon, intolerant of her surroundings, yet lacking any clearly defined vision of what she really wants to do or to be.” ...