The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-11-09

rived, after brief protests against a
mere change, at the understanding
that she couldn't, in her feminine
sphere, be peculiar; but wondered
how, no longer than ten years ago,
women had been so successfully Sc
ductive without such aids. Perhaps
it was that the affair of seductive
ness had in itself, as an end, grown
more important. l could see that the
competition had become sharper, the
rules were notably relaxed; lips today
must be red, charm carried abroad on
scent, at any price"
In this tallest of ivory towers in
America our artist lives, surrounded
by cowboys and highboys, field beds
and hunting boards, Chippendale
sofas and Windsor chairs, rat-tailed
spoons and a Philadelphia silver tea
set. He tells US how he sits and
gazes upon these objects, and dreams
stories that are not stories, but merely
characters to "hold together" the cup
boards and pewter, the William and
Mary chairs and Phyfe tables.
What stories come from such a
source? "The Three Black Pennys"
"a novel about three generations of
Pennsylvania ironmasters, and how
they loved ladies of that charm which
ivory tower artists require in ladies,
and how their line thinned out into
elegant sterility. Here, at the begin
ming of his writing career, we dis
cover Joseph Hergesheimer as a
"real' artist; he is going to bring
his lovely characters to ruin-or, as
he himself phrases it, be "a merchant
in unhappy endings." He doesn't be-
lieve in the power of the human will
to master circumstance, and he doesn't
thing it matters much anyway. 81
didn't much believe in the triumph OF
Importance of the individual" What
is the origin of this curse laid upon
the leisure class, an evil spell binding
them, so that they can do nothing but
go down with mournful dignity to
their ruin?
And then "Cytherea," picture of
the fashionable free-spending set,
moved from West Chester to Long
Island as matter of courtesy to
Dorothy's folks. These people live,
not by producing wealth, but by
specializing in paper titles to wealth;
therefore they have no creative pur-
pose, and no moral resistance, and
corruption gnaws in their bones. A
young stock-gambler bored with his
own wife. conceives a passion for his
friends wife, and runs away to Cuba
with her and sees her die amid
tropical horrors, corresponding to
those in her own soul. A familiar
enough theme, but with new fea-
ture derived from Mr.. "rgeshcimer's
custom of gazing at articles of furni-
ture and objects dart, and writing his
stories around them. Perhaps it was
Christmas time, and one of Dorothy's
friends had sent her a "kewpie" doll,
one of those comic figures that are
set up on nantes in the nursery;
anyhow, the hero of this novel brings
home a painted doll and gazes at it
until the creature becomes Cytherea.
the ancient Paphian goddess of sex
license, and he falls under her spell.
This is what is called 'high art" in
the present-day high art world. And
don't think it is meant with any hui
mor-no, we are standing at the tip
top of the tallest ivory tower in
America, and being as solemn as ever
we know how. On the cover of the
"Dower House" book we encounter an
opinion from the very highbrow
Saturday Review" calling it
stately book; and that is the word
to describe Mr.. Hergesheimer and his
reputation. That is how he takes him
self; to my friend George Sterling
he said, 81 am as big a man as
Dresser"
ITO Re Continued \