This is outspoken enough and needs no comment. In “Man and Superman,” G. B. Shaw also tried to sacrifice Don Juan to the Vital Force, but he did it with a bit of salt and a few flowers. In the case of Dreiser, this cynical outlook is without any irony, poetry or appeal. It is very likely erroneous, but much less so than Puritan sophisms, and may serve as an antidote against the romantic falsifications of sex appeal. * * * * * “The Genius,” published in 1915, is the most direct and important contribution of the author to the study of sex psychology. The reading of this enormous book is disappointing. The title is evidently sarcastic, since the hero, Eugene Witla, blunders in life from the beginning to end. A self-made man, an artist, a business man, and above all a self-appointed superman and notorious erotomaniac, Eugene is the _reductio ad absurdum_ of Dreiser’s theories concerning the irresistible impulses of one’s temperament. Eugene has the soul of an idealist. He craves for beauty and possesses a fine talent. His paintings have made a great impression on a French art dealer, M. Charles, and I cannot help quoting from the catalogue of his exposition a passage which throws a great deal of light on Dreiser’s own realism. The following is supposed to be taken from a criticism of Eugene Witla’s paintings. Somebody had dared to compare Eugene with Millet. This the alleged critic cannot admit: The brutal exaggeration of that painter’s art would probably testify to him of his own merit. He is mistaken. The great Frenchman was a lover of humanity, a reformer in spirit, a master of drawing and composition. There was nothing of this cheap desire to startle and offend by what he did. If we are to have ash cans and engines and broken-down bus-horses thrust down our throats as art, Heaven preserve us. We had better turn to commonplace photography at once, and be done with it. Broken windows, shutters, dirty pavements, half frozen ash cart drivers, overdrawn, heavily exaggerated figures of policemen, tenement harridans, beggars, panhandlers, sandwich-men--of such is Art according to Eugene Witla. M. Charles, on the contrary, is quite enthusiastic about Eugene. He is not afraid of his painting of a