SOURCE: "Slaying the Slain," in The Nation, New York, Vol. CXV, No. 2998, December 20, 1922, pp. 694-95.

Krutch was one of America's most respected literary and drama critics. Noteworthy among his works are The American Drama since 1918 (1939), in which he analysed the most important dramas of the 1920s and 1930s, and "Modernism" in Modern Drama (1953), in which he stressed the need for twentieth-century playwrights to infuse their works with traditional humanistic values. In the following review, Krutch compares The Optimist to Hamilton Fyfe's The Fruit of the Tree.

Neither [Hamilton Fyfe's The Fruit of the Tree or E. M. Delafield's The Optimist] is initially promising, for both threaten to do what novel after novel does—fight brilliantly a battle which has already been won. The Fruit of the Tree tells humorously but with a good deal of stress upon argument the story of two young women who kicked over the...