Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-07-20
SISTER CARRIE. BY The


would not be too much TO say that. from
certain viewpoints, it is the most i'm
portant novel published in the United
States for several years. In plot 1t is the
story of an American woman driven. In
part by circumstances and in part by tenn
permanent. into life reprobated by all So
Ciety. With her career is hound up the
downfall Of Hustwood, the second of her
lovers. The purpose @! the book seems to
be threcfold: To arraisn the social and
economic conditions which can produce
DCoUet ANA Carrie and HurstwoOd; to eX-
plot Mr.. prcis T ; own conception of the
temperament Of the artist and to present
the evolution Of two types which every hon
est-thiaEiIg man VIII admit are but too
common to our civilization. In his first
purpose it must he conceded that the author
has succeeded. No more pit'leSsiy true pie
tUrr Of certain conditions of American low
CT and middle class life has been presented.
To the second purpose-which would make
Carrie an exponent Of the type OF which
artists are made-many will take exception.
But no one can fail to respond to the I'M
erring realism with which Mr.. Dresser has
reproduced the lives of Hurstwood and Of
Carrie.
The author has explained the infallible
instinct with which Carrie chooses the
easier materially comfortable, way in part
by the cruelty of economic conditions
which make almost impOssibly hard the
lot of the unskillei working girl, and in
part by the fact that she feels rather than
thinks, that she has the instinct of the
artist in following the lure of beauty.
He apparently considers that the artist is
all emotion. that he need have neither
mind nor will The discussion of this point
brings up the eVer-rCCurrinS controversy
over the artistic temperament Mr.
Dreiser's position will probably be com
batted by those thinkers who hold that
art is not art where it is not the express
I'll II ION fph
could he expressed. if necessary, in an
alsebraic formula. However that may be,
Mr.. Dresser has bu.lded better than he
knew. For Carrie Is not the sport OF cir
cumstdnce because she has certain imita-
tive faculties which ultimate by giving
her a vogue on the stage. She yields be-
cause she is the feminine exponent of
class of which Hurstwood is the masculine,
class to which belongs the mass of the
population which have no moral standards
other than conventional and superficial
ones, the class which has no moral back
bone. from which are recruited the army
of suddenly defaulting bank cashiers and
the sorry ranks of frail women. She has,
as has Hurstwood, on the whole, an in
Cllnation toward things that are materially
refined and conventionally moral But she
Is morally faced, she has no power of
resistance.
The artistic triumph of the book is the
character of HurstwOod. There can be no
controversy as to the purport of his life.
courteous handsome devoutly worshpful
OF the external signs of success, resistless
in his bland determination to have what
he wants. He is conventionally a hus-
band and specifically a father The man
looms up as a monster because of his
vacancy of any trace either of spirituality
or of thought. The presentation of the
stages of his downfall following the i'm
pulse which makes him give up his solid
advantages in pursuit of the latest thing
he wants, is mastery. The successive de-
grees of sordidness into which he sinks
with Carrie are inevitable. Out of ruin he
vanishes, through stages of starvation, to
ultimate suicide; and out of 1t she rises.
And the reason Is, not that she is better
or greater than he. but that she is twenty
years younger. He is unable to recover
from the wrench by which he has brought
his house of life tumbling about his ears.
But she has formed no scheme of life to
be shattered, she is untouched because she
is faced. And her qualities of beauty
and light adaptability have market value
on the stage.
OF the minor characters Drouet is as
real as are Carrie and Hurstwood. Every
one who has observed Will recognize the
type There are certain Crudities of Mr..
Dreisers diction which are subjective,
rather than native to the classes of which
he writes As whole, however, the book
must stand as a painful memorial to the
worst tendencies Of contemporary Ameri-
can life.
II l.
Guuck, MD. With doutle-page from
ttspiece New York: Doubleday. Page
& Co. Washington: Woodward x
Lothrop.
DR.. Gulick is director of physical training
In New York city. His volume is an ad-
mirable treatise on the means for keeping
t}le body in health. and hence an effective
organism. On the theory that the office of
medicine is TO prevent disease, not to cure
F..Tf 10 E...tt fk.,,,
medicine chest.
GERMAN IDEALS OF TODAY; and Other
ESSAYS on German Culture. BY kuno
FrauCke. Boston: Houghton Mifiln &
Under the title Of the first article Mr.
Fraucke has gathered together an inter
estlng and significant series OF comments
on the higher life OF contemporary Ger
many. All but one of the articles have
been previously brought out in American
publications, But, taken together, they
have significance which would inevitably
be missed by one who had read only
fraction OF the series. The consciousness of
the German nation. the art and literature,
and tAe attitude of the people toward these
matters. tile national issues and the phlIo-
sophie standards-all these are analyzed
by a man who IS at once an enthusiast
toward MS own nation and discerning
critic uf faults as well as virtues The
result is work which must be of peculiar
value 70 The man who desires 10 be, in the
best sense. cosmopolitan. 1t is safe to say
that there have been few publications which
have treated contemporary topics in
ktcncr, sauer fashion than German Ideals
of To-day Those who are not able to
read in the original the works of Suder-
mann, HaUptmduu. WId"rnauu. Grimm and
the rest will rejoice Ia Mr. Franckc's pres
entatiun of these Characteristic publications.
THE MASTER OF STAIR By Marjorie
Bowen. author of The g!per NJ Mi
Ian. New York. Mcclure p.IIir,v Il
Co Washington: Woodward 4 10th
rop.
story written around the massacre ~
the Macdonalds at Glencoe cannot fail Ia
have picturesque, If tragic. background
Miss Bowen has made admirable use OF nor
material The picture OF the half-savaRe
Macdonalds. with theis character oddly
composite of Canny Scotch acquisitlveness
and barbaric heroism, is yiviu and convInc-
ing. The atmosphere of the wild Scotch
highlands stirs the blood from the open
ing paragraph. And the character of the
Countess Peggy. the wife of Jock O'Bread-
albane, is a really remdrkab.c creation.
With her red hair and thin scarlet lips her
alteration for her husband and her hatred
81 her enemies, her Willingness to take any
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