Dreiser's Bulwark and Philadelphia Quakerism

FRIENDS WILL READ this book with strong to violent disapproval. I propose in this review to suggest some of the reasons for this feeling and at the end to deprecate this negative attitude and to advise Friends to read the book seriously, taking it for what it primarily is and not for what it is only secondarily, a picture of a special phase of Philadelphia Quakerism "late in the nineteenth century." This novel tells the story of Solon Barnes, the son of a Maine Quaker couple, Rufus and Hannah Barnes. By quite natural devices Dreiser moves his shrewd, devout farm-storekeeping New Englanders to the neighborhood of Philadelphia, to a place called Dukla (Uwchlan), twenty-five miles from Philadelphia and six from Trenton, in Pennsylvania. They take up their residence, with their two children, Cynthia and Solon, the hero of the story, in a very large house, quite dilapidated and long unused, surrounded by immense lawns and gardens all in a state of melancholy decay. It is around this estate of Thornbrough that the story centers. What is this novel about? For one thing it is a picture of the break-up of a Quaker family under the Stress of money and changing times and customs. Another theme, common to Dreiser, is the rebellion of the younger generation against their misunderstanding elders. To a lesser degree it is a satirical picture of the crooked and near crooked dealings of financial magnates, another favorite Dreiserian motive. But it is safe to say that the central theme, for Dreiser, was a religious theme. In his later years, like so many modern writers, he became interested in mysticism. After a long series of naturalistic novels, he found himself caught up in the contemporary trend toward mysticism. Aldous Huxley is the most read and most talked of writer in this field. Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge is an example of another naturalist turning remuneratively to the current fad, if fad it is. It is an interesting fact that Dreiser was born a Roman Catholic and reacted violently against his father's faith.