Theodore Dreiser is old—he is very, very old. I do not know how many years he has lived, perhaps thirty, perhaps fifty, but he is very old. Something gray and bleak and hurtful that has been in the world almost forever is personified in him. When Dreiser is gone we shall write books, many of them. In the books we write there will be all of the qualities Dreiser lacks. We shall have a sense of humor, and everyone knows Dreiser has no sense of humor. More than that we shall have grace, lightness of touch, dreams of beauty bursting through the husks of life. Oh, we who follow him shall have many things that Dreiser does not have. That is a part of the wonder and the beauty of Dreiser, the things that others will have because of Dreiser. When he was editor of _The Delineator_, Dreiser went one day, with a woman friend, to visit an orphans’ asylum. The woman told me the story of that afternoon in the big, gray building with Dreiser, heavy and lumpy and old, sitting on a platform and watching the children—the terrible children—all in their little uniforms, trooping in. “The tears ran down his cheeks and he shook his head,” the woman said. That is a good picture of Dreiser. He is old and he does not know what to do with life, so he just tells about it as he sees it, simply and honestly. The tears run down his cheeks and he shakes his head. Heavy, heavy, the feet of Theodore. How easy to pick his books to pieces, to laugh at him. Thump, thump, thump, here he comes, Dreiser, heavy and old. The feet of Dreiser are making a path for us, the brutal heavy feet. They are tramping through the wilderness, making a path. Presently the path will be a street, with great arches overhead and delicately carved spires piercing the sky. Along the street will run children, shouting “Look at me”—forgetting the heavy feet of Dreiser. The men who follow Dreiser will have much to do. Their road is long. But because of Dreiser, we, in America, will never have to face the road through the wilderness, the road that Dreiser faced. _Heavy, heavy, hangs over thy head._ _Fine, or superfine._ To John Cowper Powys, on His “Confessions” ARTHUR DAVISON FICKE I. Old salamander basking in the fire, Winking your lean tongue at a coal or two, Lolling amid the maelstroms of desire, And envying the lot of none or few— Old serpent alien to the human race, Immune to poison, apples, and the rest, Examining like a microbe each new face And pawing, passionless, each novel breast— Admirer of God and of the Devil, Hater of Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell, Skeptic of good, more skeptic yet of evil— Knowing the sick soul sounder than the well— We mortals send you greeting from afar— How very like a human being you are! II.