The New York herald., 1922-02-12
In Which We Renew an Accusation Against
Certain Realistic Novelists, Dip Into
American History and Glance Hastily
East and West.
By DONALD ADAMS.

1t pleased us the other day to find
some first hand testimony support
ing a pet theory of ours as to GER
tain shortsightedness we have OBJ
served in some of the realistic novel
lists. While discussing Sherwood
Anderson we said we thought he
Sensitized his characters too much,
that he ascribed to people of duh.
monotonous lives a discomfort and
dissatisfaction with their lot and
with life in general which is seldom
to be remarked in them.
We think that Mr.. Anderson's fac
tory foreman who found life too
intimate" because every night he
could hear his mother-in-law creak-
ing into her bed wouldn't last more
than week as factory foreman
BY that time he would be telling
himself that the sight of man doing
the same thing so many times over
was nauseating. We are sure that
he would throw up his job in des-
peration and rush out to become q
realistic novelist.
And now here is Cornelia Stratton
Parker, who wrote 4" "An American
Idyn," with her book, working
With the Working Woman" (Iar-
PERI, backing us up splendidly. Mrs.
Parker spent q few weeks or months
in an ol.: red tam and shabby blue
serge suit, working first as 4 choco-
late packer in a candy factory, then
in a brass works. where she punched
holes in something until she could
stand it no longer. and went on to a
laundry. then to a dress factory and
a bleachery, ending up as a pantry
girl in a large motel.
1.-THE factory girl" writes Mrs.
Parker, from my short experience,
is not fussing over what her job
looks like compared to tea at the
Biltmore. She is comparing it with
the last job or with home. And it is
either slightly better or slightly
worse than the last job. Anyway
round. nothing to get excited over.
An outsider. soul filled college grad
uate with mission, investigates a
factory and calls aloud to heaven:
Can such things be? Why do wom-
en- stay in such a placer
'The factory girl, if she heard
these anguished cries, would as like
as not shrug her shoulders and re-
mark: Ugh! She sh'u'dda seen IS
factory where / worked q year ago.
Or, 'Gawd! What does she think a
persons goin' to do-sit home all
day and scrub the kitchen?'"
1t is far from our intention to con-
tend that the factory girl sits sing
ing light heartedly hour after hour
at her work. but neither do we pict-
ure her sitting and saying over and
over to herself. and to anybody else
who will listen, why is my life so
dull. so uninteresting, so stupid?
Isn't life rotten, anyway" Much
more likely. we think. that she is
incoming over what peach of O time
she had last night.
Don't mistake us. We are not pro-
claiming that this is a glad, glad.
beautiful world. and we are not howl
ing for the blood OF novelists who
prowl about in darkened chambers.
We are merely finding fault with
those realists who transfer indis-
criminately their own sensitive re-
actions to persons who arc not both
cred with such feelings at all. It is
often difficult for the man or woman
who hungrily reaches out to make
as many contacts with life as posi-
BILE to understand how little the aver
age person demands of life.