Knickerbocker Modernism in “Crapy Cornelia”

Just as The American Scene was keyed to the pace and use of space initiated by turn-of-the-century modernity, “Crapy Cornelia” foregrounds the dislocation of the story’s protagonist, who has returned to America after an absence of twenty years. White-Mason is an urban flaneur, who experiences the frisson and none of the pleasure of the urban hubbub. While the protagonist insists that he is out of step with the competitive tenor of American life, the text renders the virtues of the obsolete Knickerbockers as pretenses concealing the no less invidious patterns of social exclusivity practiced at an earlier stage of capitalism. White-Mason’s plan to secure a fortune and foothold in modernity through marriage to a woman who grasps “the modern note” belies his genteel scruples regarding the monied metropolis.