The Genius by Theodore Dreiser Read Free Book Online Page A

wonderful city. It was nice to be here. He
felt that now. It was all worth while. How could he have stayed in
Alexandria so long! He would get along here. Certainly he would. He
was perfectly sure of that. He knew.
    Chicago at this time certainly offered a world of hope and
opportunity to the beginner. It was so new, so raw; everything was
in the making. The long lines of houses and stores were mostly
temporary make-shifts—one and two story frame affairs—with here and
there a three and four story brick building which spoke of better
days to come. Down in the business heart which lay between the lake
and the river, the North Side and the South Side, was a region
which spoke of a tremendous future, for here were stores which
served the buying public, not only of Chicago, but of the Middle
West. There were great banks, great office buildings, great retail
stores, great hotels. The section was running with a tide of people
which represented the youth, the illusions, the untrained
aspirations, of millions of souls. When you walked into this area
you could feel what Chicago meant—eagerness, hope, desire. It was a
city that put vitality into almost every wavering heart: it made
the beginner dream dreams; the aged to feel that misfortune was
never so grim that it might not change.
    Underneath, of course, was struggle. Youth and hope and energy
were setting a terrific pace. You had to work here, to move, to
step lively. You had to have ideas. This city demanded of you your
very best, or it would have little to do with you. Youth in its
search for something—and age—were quickly to feel this. It was no
fool's paradise.
    Eugene, once he was settled, realized this. He had the notion,
somehow, that the printer's trade was all over for him. He wanted
no more of that. He wanted to be an artist or something like that,
although he hardly knew how to begin. The papers offered one way,
but he was not sure that they took on beginners. He had had no
training whatever. His sister Myrtle had once said that some of his
little thumb-nail sketches were pretty, but what did she know? If
he could study somewhere, find someone who would teach him… .
Meanwhile he would have to work.
    He tried the newspapers first of course, for those great
institutions seemed the ideal resort for anyone who wanted to get
up in the world, but the teeming offices with frowning art
directors and critical newspaper workers frightened him. One art
director did see something in the three or four little sketches he
showed, but he happened to be in a crusty mood, and did not want
anybody anyway. He simply said no, there was nothing. Eugene
thought that perhaps as an artist also, he was destined to be a
failure.
    The trouble with this boy was really that he was not half awake
yet. The beauty of life, its wonder, had cast a spell over him, but
he could not yet interpret it in line and color. He walked about
these wonderful streets, gazing in the windows, looking at the
boats on the river, looking at the ships on the lake. One day,
while he was standing on the lake shore, there came a ship in full
sail in the offing—the first he had ever seen. It gripped his sense
of beauty. He clasped his hands nervously and thrilled to it. Then
he sat down on the lake wall and looked and looked and looked until
it gradually sank below the horizon. So this was how the great
lakes were; and how the great seas must be—the Atlantic and the
Pacific and the Indian Ocean. Ah, the sea! Some day, perhaps he
would go to New York. That was where the sea was. But here it was
also, in miniature, and it was wonderful.
    One cannot moon by lake shores and before store windows and at
bridge draws and live, unless one is provided with the means of
living, and this Eugene was not. He had determined when he left
home that he would be independent. He wanted to get a salary in
some way that he could at least live on. He wanted to write back
and be able to say that he was getting along nicely. His