THIS FINER SHADOW
This
Finer Shadow
by
Harlan Cozad McIntosh
Introduction by
John Cowper Powys
THE DIAL PRESS
NEW YORK · 1941
COPYRIGHT, 1941 BY
JANE McINTOSH
Designed by Peter Döblin
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY THE HADDON CRAFTSMEN, INC.,
CAMDEN, N. J.
For Jane
It is not always an unmixed advantage to an elderlycritic of literature to be recognized as one of the OldSchool who is interested in extremely modern and daringyoung writers. But in the case of Harlan CozadMcIntosh this reputation of mine has won me the greatestand proudest pleasure a critic can have—the thrill ofbeing among the first to announce: “Here, anyway, isgenius!”
For from start to finish this extraordinary story holdsyou under a spell—that is to say, if you are, as I am,an obsessed devotee of the dangerous mole-runs ofbeautiful and desperate human aberration. I have nohesitation in saying that the character “Mr. Roberts” ofthis book is a masterpiece of portraiture, and an almostflawless presentation of one of those abnormal types ofmen whose subterranean and half-suppressed feelingslead to more tragedies than the ordinary reader of pathologicalfiction would believe possible.
But daring and terrifying as Mr. McIntosh’s psychologicalflashes of insight are, they by no means coverthe whole field of interest in this strange, and indeed I[8]may boldly say, this unique book. There are passages ofthe most exquisite beauty, beauty of that rare, intense,evasive sort which, as the poet says, is like the lightning—vanishedere you can say “It lightens!” There is, indeed,in these poetic passages, so swift, so sudden, sostartling a beauty that it sweeps the reader away, causinghim to feel for a quick beat of time, as if he were theauthor!
Nothing could be further from a doctrinaire treatiseon “the psychology of the abnormal” than this book. Itis an exciting love story of the most healthy, natural andchild-like simplicity; and that it is shot through andthrough by the purple threads of abnormal pity andterror enhances rather than lessens the tender freshnessof this ancient theme.
The book is a terrible tragedy, and one that certainlyin the fullest classical sense purges our passions; buttragic though it is, it is the extreme opposite of anythingdispirited, dejected, disheartened or disillusioned.A fine, pure, fierce detachment from anything cloying,from anything voluptuously soft and sentimental, characterizesthis “ill-starred” and yet so proudly “well-starred”young writer. The soul of the hero, obviouslya reflection of the author himself, moves through theseweird circl