t
one of these books materially modifies the position of its author. "The
Arrow of Gold," I suppose, has puzzled a good many of Conrad's admirers,
but certainly "The Rescue" has offered ample proof that his old powers
are not diminished. The Dreiser books, like their predecessors that I
discuss here, reveal the curious unevenness of the author. Parts of
"Free" are hollow and irritating, and nearly all of "Hey, Rub-a-Dub-Dub"
is feeble, but in "Twelve Men" there are some chapters that rank with
the very best of "The Titan" and "Jennie Gerhardt." The place of Dreiser
in our literature is frequently challenged, and often violently, but
never successfully. As the years pass his solid dignity as an artist
becomes more and more evident. Huneker's last five works changed his
position very little. "Bedouins," "Unicorns" and "Variations" belong
mainly to his journalism, but into "Steeple-Jack," and above all into
"Painted Veils" he put his genuine self. I have discussed all of these
books in other places, and paid my small tribute to the man himself, a
light burning brightly through a dark night, and snuffed out only at the
dawn.

I should add that the prices of Conrad first editions given on page 56
have been greatly exceeded during the past year or two. I should add
also that the Comstockian imbecilities described in Chapter IV are still
going on, and that the general trend of American legislation and
jurisprudence is toward their indefinite continuance.

H. L. M.
Baltimore, January 1, 1922.

CONTENTS

I. Joseph Conrad 11

II. Theodore Dreiser 67

III. James Huneker 151

IV. Puritanism as a Literary Force 197

Index 285

A BOOK OF PREFACES

I

JOSEPH CONRAD

Sec. 1

"Under all his stories there ebbs and flows a kind of tempered
melancholy, a sense of seeking and not finding...." I take the words
from a little book on Joseph Conrad by Wilson Follett, privately
printed, and now, I believe, out of print.[1] They define both the mood
of the stories as works of art and their burden and direction as
criticisms of life. Like Dreiser, Conrad is forever fascinated by the
"immense indifference of things," the tragic vanity of the blind groping
that we call aspiration, the profound meaninglessness of
life--fascinated, and l