So keenly do they love their own
conception of true living that their imaginations dwell with a
kind of horrid fascination upon the ugly things that thwart them.
Hence in a novel like "Main Street," the interest slackens as one
begins to feel that the very vividness of the story comes from a
vision strained and aslant, unable to tear eyes from the things
that have cramped life instead of expanding it. The things that
these writers love in life often they never reach until the last
chapter, and about them they have little to say, being exhausted
by earlier virulence.
Waste, of course, is a symptom of youth and vitality as well as of
unbridled romanticism, but that is no reason for praising a book
because it is disorderly. We do not praise young, vigorous states
for being disorderly. Life may not be orderly, but literature must
be. That is a platitude which it seems necessary to repeat.
It is difficult to estimate absolute achievement except across
time, and the time has been too brief to judge of the merits of
the young romanticists. My guess is that some of them will go far.
But the diagnosis at present seems to show an inflammation of the
ego.
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