OCR Text |
Show ' I THE CITIZEN but never in the falsely roseate hues with which we are so prone to adorn our daily doings. Dreiser paints for us no people born of a vivid imagination and a faraway ideal, but rather men and women such as we know in fact, ourselves. His Edited By WILLIAM C. WINDER, Jr. people are what they are because they never been, and are not now, friendly have lived and have often been hurt to any change for the better. We by life. Their hearts are filled with are hedged in by iron bands inherited the hopes, longings and desires that to our came there are ours; and these stories are the from our ancestors of a time when QUITE recently a short appreciation of the was at a very low ebb history of their seeking for that satwork of Mr. Horace Liveright, the when it was a good policy to glorify isfaction which is always just beyond. publisher. With no little amusement, the ugly and .the common. Mankind, These book people do not follow a we read that, owing to his bringing bein its slow march toward freedom, has single path toward the end of the fore the public certain writers of advanced in many ways, but has held rainbow, but serike out in many direc- merit, - he - might - be excused for pubfast to all the old beliefs and supersti- tions, and their experiences and dislishing the books of such abnormal tions in which each generation has appointments are many before they authors as Mr. Ben Hecht and Mr. been born. These men found that are called to the final reckoning. But Theodore Dreiser. It is our custom to to advance industrially was necessary whether the lure be of sensation or of be usually preaching against intolto existence; but, on the other hand, the intelect, the end of the rainbow is erance of one kind or another, but it to allow the better half of the mind, not quite discovered. stretches our own tolerance all out of that part which would make this exDreiser wrote his books to please find one some seriously say- istence realy worth while, to lie dor- himself to satisfy that urgent deshape to ing that to publish the books of Mrs. mant, would save them so much ef- mand of self expression. Had his Atherton, an example of the elect, fort and trouble. In so far as things motive been otherwise, despair would would redeem the mistake of publish- mental are concerned, our ignorant have chilled his hand long ago. PubDreiser Americas and intellectual lething Theodore lishers dared not accept his manunovelist. to our are blame for ranking presargy largely scripts, and even when published they abent What a crime it is to be an pitable condition. were one after another suppressed. normal writer, whatever the word Further, we could not even now ob- His first book, Sister Carrie, was may mean! (With proper apologies to ject so strenuously if this published in 1900, after two years use of the term, of toil. The greatest minds of EngIbsens Peer Gynt for would only exist in a passive we find this country overflowing with form. Instead of this, it seems to find land recognized the fine promise of those busy, busy it necessary to protect itself against the book. That country, regardless of people who spend thedr lives with no any innovation in thought which her prudery, accepted it with acclaim, and with no might put before it certain questions but not. so the America of his time. tool but a casting-ladldesires other than an insatiable appe- which would require of it investigaYears elapsed before it was publishtite for human victims. Of course, all tion and an answer. It defends itself ed here and even then under great difthese buttons must be uniform, or in the old, old manner, by oppressing ficulties. Yet, having read it, and in would normal be a better underall who dare to differ with it, by strikgoing back to it time and again, it milword? result The stood sixty ing down those who deny its old values seems incredible that even prudery million lion uniform males and sixty and substitute new ones, made of the could go so far as to condemn it. Cur uniform females, all from the uniform lives an loves and impulses of a new particular volume has never been excasting-ladleIs it, then, any wonder century. These old rules of conduct purgated, yet we have looked and that there is a howl of horror when tell us .that life was conceived in hunted for one objectionable passage. an abnormal person, a real individshame, that human instincts cannot It is our experience, however, that ual, refuses to be melted down by the be trusted, that impulses lead the inthose who most blatantly denounce livfinds in even and joy nocent astray, in fact that the most a book or an author are the very ones moulders, life? own beaultiful things of life are questioning his who have neer taken the time to read The world has never before known able. Woe, then, to the youth, who and investigate for themselves! in an made manhoods morning, finds that life After Sister Carrie came a considera civilization which it honor, almost a necessity, to conform at least and its impulses and instincts are able number of novels, essays, plays, 99 per cent to the habits, customs, begood that the world holds a beauty short stories; none being of greater liefs, superstitions, loves and hatreds unknown to the many and then merit than the first, but all plainly the of at least 99 per cent of ones conthrough artistic creation, endeavors to work of an artist who looked on life temporary brethren. The glory of pass his joyous message on. What ab- with sympathy and understanding and Greece rested in her individuals that normal man is this, who dares disturb pictured truthfully what he saw there. In our opinion his outstanding books constellation of stars whose radiance our complacency? Make away with still shines down through the cen- the man who tells us things we have are Sisters Carrie and The Titan. s turies ; yet in our America the always suspected, but never dared to Around the pivotal characters of the woman in Sister Carrie and the man have seldom permitted an believe! dividual to even exist, much less creIt is, then, for some of us, a won- in The Titan, his people from the other ate. It is really a glory to be so uniderful relief to know that there are books are largely drawn. Jennie is of a different class than is form and normal, exactly like the mila few Dreisers who defy the crowd lions and millions of others, and, with and continue to create. Dreiser is an Carrie Meeber, but the pictures of both them, go down into nameless graves? American, and this country needs him are pictures of the feminine heart, Is it a privilege to walk that uniform and all like him, to whom it can lay with all its longings and aspirations. His Frank Cowperwood of The Titan chalk-lin- e for a million miles, hedged claim. He had an ideal, he possessed in by all the crude morals and proa gift, and he scorned to bow to the is a masters painting of the blind prieties of bygone centuries? How public demand. The laws of nature struggles of the eternal man, driven by his desires and passions, following many jokes we have heard about the bade him create he heard and unthe lure of his ideals as a moth its German Verboten, buit in all the derstood the voice, and has never beflame, finally bruised and beaten, nevGerman cities we have never counted trayed .the trust. He found a hidden er to know satisfaction. The men of so many Forbidden signs as we beauty in existnee, he looked upon The Financier, The Millionaire, and can count in an hour in our own nornatural life and found it good. He The Genius, are but the searchings of mal conscience. found that under the censorship of other foolish moths which have been We could not seriously object to ignorance, its fair and smiling face attracted by other lights of different a uniform standard for all if it were a had been defiled; he accepted the hues. Of these men, 'Eugene Witla of challenge and pictured life as it exhigh one, if only it were susceptible The Genius is the nearest approach in to an occasional new idea. However, ists, with its beauty and tragedy side artistic finish to Cowperwood, but the our mental and moral standards have by side and sometimes interwoven, final living quality is missing. This giiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimtiiiiiiiiiiiiiifiiiiiiiiiiiiitiiitiitiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin THINGS BOOKISH ! if - Theodore Dreiser self-satisfacti- on ; self-satisfacti- on button-moulder- s, e, s. button-moulder- Ger-har- dt book is still under the ban of t censor, although the first writers England and America have made co mon cause in its behalf. It might interesting to note that in the p ceedings brought for the suppressii of The Genius, there were 89 allegi . floutings of the code 75 described lewd and 14 as profane. In looki&t a over this list, one must wonder at tUj int condition of the minds of these sefcwar appointed keepers of the public weaken Do we not read somewhere somethiEjany-t- o the effect that to the impure e are Mencken well things impure? scribes the proceeding thus, Every kiss, hug and tickle of the chin in tijsatio chronicle is laboriously snouted oifctie T3ay empanelled, exhibited. Dreisers plays, short stories and says, all contain much of high mertiill His plays will not achieve popular a iie s proval. His The Potters Hand, w jeco fiercely condemned, as being too utter e t ly morbid. Yet is not life often bid, and is it not arts purpose to prt )f tl sent life truthfully? In his essays thcA'j efe-Ih- mor-lig- ht is much splendid stuff. We commeni stri most heartily the volume Twelve ran Men, portraits of his brother ani'iy 1 eleven unnamed friends. His materials be t are solid and his method is original W In his Free and other Stories is to nf be found some writing of real wortll sho These stories lack the required happy bea ending, so, of course, will never find low a wide audience. From every dayime themes, little inconsequential things !acl which we pass lightly by, he creates the pictures that live and will continue to no live. Once read his Free and The by Second Choice and then try to forget ;lor them ! After all is said and done, the by fame ;ka he die to excellence m of Theodore Dreiser, should morrow, would rest on the of his first book. Sister Carrie. It is it fitting, then, to look at it more closely, This book is the story of a womans rise and a mans decline. Carrie Mee- - tl her, having given herself freely and without the conventional ceremon accepts the responsiiblity and faces life as it is, and conquers. Hurstwood, the man, a splendid drawing, leaves his influential friends, and, being com-- ; pelled to face an unsympathetic himself, struggles and then into degeneration andj death. Dreiser had, from boyhood on, been facinated by girls and women, even though for years he was too bashful to do more than look from afar. But he learned to know the heart of a woman as few others have ever done,! and with all candor he pictured it. His drawing of Carrie has been almost uni- versally praised for its clearness. It seems to us, though, that this is but half the truth. The picture is indelible you can never forget the girl but at bottom the thing that is clearest is that the mystery of woman is insoluble. Many of her actions one j can see and understand; but of the im- - j pulses of sensation and mind, of her reactions to varied conditions, neither Hardy, nor Dreiser, nor Phillips, nor George, has given us the solution. But we do know one thing that woman, no less than man, is still without a complete answer to the yearnings of the heart. Dreiser understands that thoroughly, and he knows much of life and its limitations. He has felt and ; lifej-b- y slips-graduall- ex-j- 1 |