Tonight I am alone, A long way from that Chinese restaurant, A long way from wherever you are. And I find it difficult to recall to my memory The image of your large laboring inexpressive face. For I have just turned the last page Of a book of yours— A book large and superficially inexpressive,—like yourself. It has not, any more than the old ones, The style of Pater. But now there are passing before me Interminable figures in tangled procession— Proud or cringing, starved with desire or icy, Hastening toward a dream of triumph or fleeing from a dream of doom,— Passing—passing—passing Through a world of shadows, Through a chaotic and meaningless anarchy, Under heavy clouds of terrific gloom Or through ravishing flashes of knife-edged sunlight— Passing—passing—passing— Their heads haloed with immortal illusion,— The terrible and beautiful, cruel and wonder-laden illusion of life. Theodore Dreiser JOHN COWPER POWYS In estimating the intrinsic value of a book like _The “Genius”_ and—generally—of a writer like Theodore Dreiser, it is advisable to indulge in a little gentle introspection. Criticism need not always impose itself as an art; but it must at least conform to some of the principles that govern that form of human activity. The worthlessness of so much energetic modern criticism is that it proceeds—like scum—from the mere surface of the writer’s intelligence. It is true that all criticism resolves itself ultimately into a matter of taste;—but one has to discover what one’s taste really is; and that is not always easy. Taste is a living thing, an organic thing. It submits to the laws of growth; and its growth is fostered or retarded by many extraneous influences. In regard to the appreciation of new and original works of art, it belongs to the inherent nature of taste that it should be enlarged, transmuted, and undergo the birth-pangs of a species of re-creation. In the presence of a work of art that is really unusual, in an attempt to appreciate a literary effect that has never appeared before, one’s taste necessarily suffers a certain embarrassment and uneasiness. It suffers indeed sometimes a quite extreme discomfort. This is inevitable. This is right. This means that the creative energy in the new thing is getting to work upon us, unloosening our prejudices and enlarging our scope. Such a process is attended by exquisite intellectual excitement. It is also attended by a certain rending and tearing of personal vanity. One is too apt to confuse the existing synthesis of one’s aesthetic instincts with the totality of one’s being; and this is a fatal blunder; for who can fathom the reach of _that_ circumference? And it is of the nature of all syntheses to change and grow.