New-York tribune., 1922-12-31

,sventfalness Of Mr.. Dreiser's youth.
Nothing in particular happened to him.
- A.. sueethearts; but what youth has
~ 80 .v;,h more rapid frequency. greater
.,r.hl,, .sr happier novelty and more signal
... -. han had Mr. Dreifer7 During al his
newspaper reporter in Chicago,
to,,. Pittsburgh and New York. he
- have had 5ut one adventure, to have
,,,,ness 10 or assigned 20 cover but one
...,,,ophe ard that quite by accident. You
t,, % remember that he was reporter
i. chicago during the wide-open days fol-
~. Worlds Fair in Pittsburgh when
,,,~ VAS lust reaching its apotheosis
=. eommuni'y Of s'eel and poverty, IN New
vi when Richnd Harding Davis. David
s,,hsm Phillips. Arthur Brisbane and Sam
,peukins Adams were on the rise as news
..,,r men. TO wonder what Mr.. Dresser was
1.e when a great deal Of interesting hell
ss popping an about him.
There is an unconscious irony in these
,.,,stions Or perhaps the irony is con-
.ieus There was never youth who
.,,r,ed out In life with a more erandiose
,rpe6inent OF romantic illusions. and there
r,s revef "a romantic youth who en-
,osstered fewer dragons 20 slay, fewer
maisens TO rescue and fewer varlets TO put
IN their place than Mr. Dresser He had al
mos. no fun st al He held hands here and
,tere; he missed he tells US. one or two
ert6rtunit,cs; having his breakfast in
diner once he had the momentary satisfae
lion Of an aristocrat when yokel on the
tlatftrm CT bleak way station gazed upon
him in saucer-cyed envy and admiration;
he bought Stetson hat broad -brimmod
eroueh for Buffalo Bill and a military coat
long enough to III the late Grand Duke
Michael Mithseloyitch to go counting in; he
plsyed up 90 his relatives once far too ef-
foctively for solvency as a nan Of mark,
rosition and salary; Arthur Brisbane was
once kind to him; and he chaperoned a dele
cation Of school teachers on a visit to the
Worlds Fair But the unexpected, serio-
comic. ludicrous- pathetic, Rabelaisan esca-
rsdes and adventures the cavaliesi reporter
is usually heir to, Sir Dresser never had
Eis brother. Paul Dresser, had them, and he
was not newspaper man. One gets an i'm
pression Of Theodors as moony. much
troubled, po.tic, shy and diffident young man
stumbling dresmily, vaguely through the
nurky strests Of Chicago and Pittsburgh,
the self pity Of his poverty into
IN easy and comforting pity for the people
II the slums. challenging the God Of his
a.. lolt. "a IN
he miseres Of the world and his own, fnd-
ne a momentary solace in the Asttery Of a
mile or a kiss, catching heeting glimpse
" beauty in sunset, the shadows of city
street, the foliage of city park, the trim
tody Of pretty girl, or Of a campanile
agsinst winter sky. But his adventures
were those Of the spirit, not Of the flesh.
That is Why II was on the calendar that
Mr.. Dresser should become a novelist and
no, great newspaper man. All the factors
Of his early life, which may be discovered
in the frank and beautiful pages Of "A
BoOsier Holiday" "A Traveller at Forty" and
the chapter on his brother Paul in Twelve
Men" tended TO mold him into a man Of
dramatic Imagination. rOmsntically inclined.
And life is not dramatic; only art is that.
Life is melodramstic, with elements Of low
comedy relief; and TO be a good journalist,
4 good reporter, one must recognize this
truth. Mr.. Dresser was not n good re-
porter: he might have made a fair to mid
ding editorial writer or a Sunday feature
nan, for he thought in dramatic terms. with
eistful Overtones Of criticism and Of won
Ter, but he had not the equipment to see
iyents in a cynical, cool light as a spectacle,
InuSng, pathetic. ephemersl-ss ePhemeral
IS last years great murder mystery. He had
much. far too much, soul