Arizona republican., 1919-01-12

bigger topics, that will be treated lightly in the columns of the news papers, when the delegates assemble for the formal discussions that will so nightly affect the future of the entire world
 "FREE." This is book of short stories by Theodore Dreiser, the writer that many regard the greatest realist in this country, if not in the world. Dreiser isabsolutely not worth while to the casual reader. To the thinker, the philosophical reader, Dreiser is a rich contributor to the lit erature that strikes hard at modern problems. This story, Free for in- stance, is a fair sample.
 It is no more than a soliquy on a subject that has bothered tens of thou sands of men and as many women. The central figure is a man past 60- In an adjoining room. his wife for more than 30 years is dying. The soliloquy takes place between the time the physician tells him of the prox- unity of her death and the moment of her dying. In this period, he reflects | that he first met her when the twain were children in a small Michigan vil- i lage. They grew to youth and pledged each other in marriage. Before be- 1 ing married, he went to New York; remained for many years; became suc- 1 cessful; but kept in continual corre- l spondence with the affianced girl. Many years after his departure, when | both had arrived at maturity of age and ideas, he returned and married her
 The wife, meanwhile had remained in the conventional confines of the small village. The husband had ab- sorbed the advanced ideas of the bigger i place. To abandon the thought ot marrying the village girl had not once entered his consciousness. Neither had the fact that their views of life had been developed along very divergent l lines. The longer they lived, unmar- ried, the further apart they would be- come. Yet, with never q thought oi this fact, clinging to the conventional promise of his youth, he married her During thirty years of conventional happiness" there had been gnawing at his soul the horror of the mistake that had been made. In all that time, al- 1 though wildly desirous of exercising an 1 aesthetic and artistic temperament, he had remained steadfastly loyal to the wife of his early choice, now no more suited to him than an utter stranger On her part, although we are not per- mitted to analyZe her conceptions 1 there must have been a subjective realization of his sacrifice for her. Yet l believing, as most conventional people do, that her way was the right way l she must have regarded his sacrifice as necessary one, not charitable | one.
 As death drew near. his desire fol freedom became frenzied. He longed for her to die. Yet, again, when he stepped to her room, looked upon hel
 patient face and remembered the care and attention and sympathy that sht
 bad always bestowed upon him, ttit
 wish blended away in softened sym I pathy and he repented it. The niga
 before she passed beyond, his desir'
 for her death was unusually stcons
 and later, when he was called to he
 room to witness her last conscious
 struggle, it occurred to him that thu
 mental suggestion that had originated
 in his mind that night might hav'
 hastened this very thing.
 However. he was free. And, he ask
 himself, at 50 years, Free to do what?
 The answer came quickly: ITO die.
 JANA HEAD" comes as near beins : masterpiece as any of the year novels. As it is, it marks the higl , water mark of leading novelist Jo