The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-12-22
1.-THE FINANcIER." i"

New York.
 The extraordinary vitality and real ism of Theodore Dreiser's new novel. s'The Financier," win surprise even the warmest admirers of his art. For here is such an understanding of character and of life such as we hardly expect to find short of Balzac and the very great est realists, and here also is a bigness of theme that gives the truly epic qual- sty to a story which is at the same tine convincingly faithful to the things of everyday existence~-to the little sig nificant events and feelings that count tremendously to the individual and to the hopes and plans and personal force that make the individual count tremendously in the world. From the beginning the reader feels the inevitableness of the cs- reer of Frank Cowperwood. The son of commonplace Philadelphia bank clerk, born before the Civil war, he is gifted with a mind predetermined fer finance, and his life falls in a time full of financial opportunity. The tempeca- ment that goes with the mind is revealed to us with a naturalness that fairly stops the mouth of praise or blame. We arc off our guard and begin to idealze hiu later we are inclined to judge him harsh ly: soon we see that we can do neither. He is far from deighting in cruelty for its own sake, as far from the abnormal ity of vice, as a tiger. With extraordi- nary candor and clearness he sees life as a struggle for existence, and in this struggle he is wholly absorbed. Which of us, we ask ourselves, having his iii- tellectual power and his temperament, would have thought or acted otherwise It is remarkable that we feel all this in Cowperwood as a boy. We are compellcc to regard him as a tremendous force a force to be reckoned with-and at the same time we cannot help thinking O. him as a human being, if anything moro normal in mind more sentient, mo e alive than ourselves.
 ' In Cowperwood's progress from one f. nancial position to another, his expert ence with a commission house, in bro- kerage firm as ote-broker-always the human side is emphasized; we see the everlasting distinction between the merely shrewd man and the man of real foresight, between the man adopted to his environment and the man who has the power to adapt himself. In this nov el big men and little men-men of all Ge- grees of bigness and littleness-shoulder one another. and there is no confusion of types: we learn to know them for JIst what they are. Even the least of them are vital in their way-vital in their cow ardice. in their rough h-and-ready efficien- cy, in their limited shrewdness.
 Side by side with the politics and f. nance of Cowperwood's struggle for sue cess, blending with these elements in the general human picture, is the story of his personal life-of his forceful wooing of a woman older than he in years, far younger in mind-the inevitable marriage. the slow weakening of a passion origi- nally strong enough to rule two lives
 Here we see a man loving strongly and deeply enough to be faithful to one worl- an and happy in her passive affection for years, yet at length giving himself up to another passion-a picture terri ble. perhaps. but convincing in it's logic of thought and emotion
 Availing himself of the corrupt alliance between business and politics in Phila- delphia-Cowperwood gradually becomes financial power. Meanwhile he has formed a liaison with Aileen Butler, daughter of his associate in the polit- ical-fnancial game-a liaison which seems as inevitable as his success or his mar riage. Then comes the great Chicag 50 fire Cowperwood has spread himself out too thin" The politicians wish to make him a scape-goat. Finally Butler discovers his daughters shame and de- termines to ruin the man who has ruined her. After a dauntless. tenacious legal