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236 Githa Sowerby
to the fore who possesses such dramatic power,
realistic grasp and artistic penetration as evi
denced by Githa Sowerby.
The circumstance is the more remarkable be
cause Githa Sowerby is, according to her pub
lishers, barely out of her teens; and though she be
a genius, her exceptional maturity is a phenomenon
rarely observed. Generally maturity comes only
with experience and suffering. No one who has
not felt the crushing weight of the Rutherford
atmosphere could have painted such a vivid and
life-like picture.
The basic theme in
"
Rutherford and Son
"
is
not novel. Turgenev, Ibsen and such lesser art
ists as Sudermann and Stanley Houghton have
dealt with it: the chasm between the old and the
young, the tragic struggle of parents against
their children, the one frantically holding on, the
other recklessly letting go. But
"
Rutherford
and Son
"
is more than that. It is a picture of the
paralyzing effect of tradition and institutionalism
on all human life, growth, and change.
John Rutherford, the owner of the firm
"
Rutherford and Son," is possessed by the phan
tom of the past the thing handed down to him
by his father and which he must pass on to his son
with undiminished luster; the thing that has turned
his soul to iron and his heart to stone; the thing
for the sake of which he has never known joy and
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