Page:The Genius of America (1923).pdf/234

 the novel of which I have already spoken, Dust, by Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius.

But the interesting pessimistic and critical note in our current literature is by no means confined to representations of country life and the small town. Take Mrs. Wharton's pictures of metropolitan society, from The House of Mirth to The Age of Innocence, remembering only that Mrs. Wharton cannot be classed as a Jacksonian; then consider the dreary wide wilderness of Mr. Dreiser's picture of big business; Ben Hecht's story of a city-editor in Erik Dorn; Mr. Cabell's Cream of the Jest; Mr. Norris's broad picture of the California scene in Brass; Mr. Fitzgerald's account of the younger generation in The Beautiful and Damned; Mr. Hergesheimer's admirable new novel, Cytherea; and, finally, Mr. Lewis's Babbitt.

Here we are invited to consider a class of which the discontent cannot be explained by their struggle with the churlishness of the soil and the rigor and tragic whimsicality of the elements. Most of the characters, indeed, have reached a level at which even the economic struggle is as much a pastime as a necessity. They are business men and their womenkind, with a sprinkling of professional men, people who, as we say, know 'how to live,' people who