“Chemic compulsion” draws Roberta Alden as it draws other substances. “Chemic compulsion” epitomises the book. It “just happens”--and this is all--that “chemic compulsion” entangles Roberta with the squid--Clyde Griffiths, the defeated squid. For readers of Mr. Dreiser’s “epic” tale, _The Financier_, who recall the apologue of the lobster and the squid cannot fail to recognise Clyde Griffiths as the embodiment of the latter--and his cousin Gilbert as the patient, triumphant lobster. The squid, it need scarcely be said, commands no more sympathy than Roberta;--indeed, most readers inevitably must sympathise with the spirit of the “irate woodsman’s” brutal question during the trial. This undefiled son of the forest asked: “Why don’t they kill the God-damned bastard and be done with him?” But, just for this reason, it has to be remembered that Mr. Dreiser exhausts every possible means so to account for Clyde as to preserve him from all blame. The squid is the complete plaything of “chemic compulsion,” the paragon of irresponsibility, the perfect exemplar of the truth as the truth has been revealed to his creator. This being so, it is little less than a miracle that Mr. Dreiser has contrived--through the infinite detail of a merely circumstantial realism--to save Clyde Griffiths’ humanity sufficiently to maintain the reader’s “suspension of disbelief” until the end of the book. Undoubtedly he has done so, though he has not succeeded in making all readers feel that patience has been adequately rewarded. They have been impressed, as is fitting before so monumental a composition; they have been troubled; they have not been recompensed. Eight hundred and forty pages devoted to the unconscionable prolongation of a mere sensational newspaper story! Remarks to this effect I have heard more than once; and they roughly indicate the real difficulty--the inevitably self-destroying effect of such an effort as Mr. Dreiser’s, in proportion as it is successful.