The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-04-13

40 Lao NIL anu hC C<hlAoCo VI thAo
disconcerting wabbling, though they are
instructive, 1 need not go into here. I
have touched upon them elsewhere, and
shall expose them in detail in forthcom-
ing work. More important to the present
purpose is one of the effects. 1t is this:
That one approaches new book by Drei-
ser as one always approached a new book
by Mark, with certain uncomfortable
uncertainty-witho ones aesthetic heart in
ones mouth. 1t may be a new Sister
Carrie or Jennie GerhGrdt or Titan or
HooSier Holiday, and so praise God!-
but on the other hand, it may be a new
Trdreler at Forty or Hand of the Potter
or Genius, and so thousand damns!
Well, here is Ttoelre Men, just off the
press. To which of these categories does
it belongf Let all cognoseenti be of
cheerl Not to the second, surely! But
TO the frstf Almost am tempted to say
clearly to the first. The high swing is
undoubtedly there, and though there are
also occasional dips to much lower levels
the general effect is that of Dresser at
his most penetrating and persuasive. In
more than one way he has done nothing
better since The Titan. 1t shows, with a
few unimportant breaks, a deliberate re-
turn to his first manner-the manner of
pure representation, of searching under
standing, of unfailing gusto and con-
tagious wonderment. There is no banal
philosophizing. There is no torturing of
fabby theory. There is, above all, no
burden Of ethical purpose, no laboring of
a duty to be performed. Instead there
are simply dozen sketches of character
-rotund, brilliantly eolored, absolutely
alive. The thing is done capitally, and, at
its top points, superbly.
Most Of these dozen men are reaLper-
haps all. The authors brother Paul-the
famous Paul Dresser, author of On the
Banks Of the Wabash and Just Tell Them
That You Sd,c Me-appears in his proper
person. 0thers-for example, Muldoon,
the trainer; Harris Merton Lyon and
Dreisers father-in-law-are easily recog-
nized. But this actual reality has little
if anything to do with the reality they
show upon the printed page. That reality
is due altogether to the extraordinary
skill of the man presenting them. What
he produces is not merely an objective
it is a searching and at times
almost shameless inner genuineness. He
gets into them; he understands and in
terprets them; he turns them inside out
And always in way that somehow seems
with a guileless and off
hand air. Not once is there any creaking
Of literary blocks and tackles. Not once
is there a formal vivisection. 1t is ever
a picture he presents, not diagram.
And what a gaudy and diverting pic
ture it often is! Consider, for instance,
the chapter devoted to Dresser-Dreiser,
the song writing, tear squeezing brother
the Indiana Rouget de Isle and Fran
lis Scott Key. Intrinsically, he was an
interesting man, huge in body
md yet ready to weep like a fapper, a
'ellow Of remarkable talents and vet as
levoid of elementary taste as green
,rocer or a Congressman, a great success
md yet pathetic failure. But even more
than the man himself was the
world he moved in and the culture he rep
world and culture OF the old
Broadway, of vaudeville theatres, Of the
pangled demi-monde, of faeile friend
hips, maudin sentiments, gross revels,
shady enterprises, stupid and hoggish
'olk. In such scenes he was a man of
mark. He was the peer and intimate Of
,ther men Of mark. He drank, Grabbed
and whooped 'er up with the best of them.
But all the while be was something far
finer than the others-a man of feeling, a
dreamer of grutesque dreams, almost a
poet. 1t was the contrast that made him
salient and memorable, and it is the deft
and poignant evocation of that contrast
that makes his brothers portrait of him
30 brilliant and SO excellent.