Mary Hunter Austin by T. M. Pearce (review)

Reviews Mary Hunter Austin. By T. M. P e a r c e . (New York: Twayne P u b ­ lishers, Inc., 1965. 135 pages, $3.50.) It is now more than thirty years since my colleague, T. M. Pearce, and I separately and individually developed an interest in the work of Mary Hunter Austin, who had just died in Santa Fe, New Mexico (1934). Professor Pearce’s interest fitted precisely into his activities as editor, folklorist, and regionalist. As a complete outlander who had just come to New Mexico, I saw in Mary Austin the kind of figure who was deeply influenced by the intellectual 'currents and eddies of the first thirty years of this century, a nottoo -well-known writer who nevertheless seemed to me to have some importance and lastingness, one who, in spite of much eccentricity, wrote with uncanny insight into the basic intuitive gropings of the American culture towards some kind of adjustment to its environ­ ment and to its new responsibilities in the world. Mr. Pearce’s new book shows that Mary Austin has not disap­ pointed his expectations. I too find, upon reading the book and thinking back over all of my impressions of Mrs. Austin, that I give her higher importance than I did thirty years ago, despite the fact that the world has not gone her way or paid her very much atten­ tion. There is something very thoroughly American and Western in Mary Austin, and it has some lastingness. True, Los Alamos and the Sandia Corporation have more importance in New Mexico today than the Spanish Arts Fund; and Steve Claflin of Starry Adventure (1931), who Mrs. Austin tells us is the Rotarian of the future, would probably not be very understandable to a Rotarian of today. Never­ theless, beneath the confusions of change and growth, some inher­ ent characteristics that Mary Austin represented, even when she did not explain them very well, are still here and will probably be around for some time. In a short space it will be hard to say what these are, but I shall try. Reviews 131 First, Mary Austin embodies the incorrigible American trans­ cendentalism — which is part Puritanism, part Enlightenment ra­ tionalism, part romanticism (both English and American), and part native American pragmatism. It is optimistic, and it can believe ardently without precise formulation of what it believes. It does believe that man is cut out mainly for action in the world, but also that the man of action must have some inner sense of justification for what he is doing, and that this justification may come to him in occasional intense mystical experiences; that the love of nature and the power of reacting to nature are important; and, above all, that an individual destiny and a national destiny can be felt out if in­ stinct and intuition are trusted. It is for all these reasons that Mary Austin could on one day be a Fabian socialist and a short time later be convinced that Herbert Hoover represented the “spiritualization of American business.” Incorrigible American transcendentalism simply must have “spiritualization.” What it chooses to be doing, or what it is doing perhaps by necessity, must be right and must have destiny on its side. Beneath the hard pragmatism is a great deposit of vague romanticism and stern Puritanism. Your American does not wish to think; he wishes to act — out of a feeling that he is right, with the Super-Ego mollified. This is dangerous and heady stuff, but it is still very much around. In Mary Austin herself and in her fictional characters it is very much alive. Doubts about the nature of man, man’s culture, man’s destiny, which have come in with existential considerations have not yet deeply touched this native capacity for feeling justified in going on doing what we are already doing. “Wakonda,” the Cosmic Consciousness, is with us. The next consideration which makes Mary Austin so thoroughly American and which may help keep her work alive is that she has such a keen love of orderliness, common sense, the community sense. Being the mystical seer from the desert was one of her favor­ ite assumed roles...