[Geismar was one of America's most prominent historical and social critics and the author of a multi-volume history of the American novel from 1860 to 1940. Though he often openly confessed that literature is more than historical documentation, Geismar's own critical method suggests that social patterns and the weight of history, more than any other phenomenon, affect the shape and content of all art. In the following review of Powers of Attorney, Geismar describes Auchincloss as a technician in the style of J. D. Marquand and John O'Hara. The critic also finds that the stories are a "very literate and polished kind of entertainment. "]

Louis Auchincloss has a neat talent for light fiction. A disciple of Edith Wharton and of Henry James, he deals with the remnants—saving or otherwise—of that "Old New York society" which has had to face the debased standards of the modern age. Mr. Auchincloss frankly admires wealth, social position, good breeding. In [Powers of Attorney, a] collection of a dozen tales about the law firm of Tower, Tilney & Webb, the minority groups—the Irish, the Jews, and the rest—still have a hard time of it. But they are given a fair chance, and sometimes one of them makes it.

Makes what? Mr. Auchincloss is also a firm believer in success. To become a partner of this law firm, a disciple of Clitus Tilney himself, is still the fervent desire of all these ambitious young lawyers; even though Mr. Auchincloss, rather like J. P. Marquand and John O'Hara, shows the penalties and perils of success, the moral burdens of the upper classes, the slightly sour taste of social and financial leadership. The remarkable thing is, of course, that within this rather narrow intellectual framework, these stories are still so entertaining and readable. Mr. Auchincloss is a good technician; he believes in the literary world he is creating; and he succeeds, at least momentarily, in casting his spell over us.

Thus Clitus Tilney himself, though he runs a modern and efficient "law factory" at 65 Wall Street, still retains the old-fashioned virtues of the legal profession. When one of his more cynical partners, Francis Hyde, takes on a dubious case of what amounts to financial blackmail, Hyde must go. (Though I must admit I had a certain sympathy for this erring partner, drunken realist that he is.) In the same law firm, the Midwestern Jake Platt, on the verge of becoming a partner, has a nightmare vision that Barry Schlide—the brilliant but obsequious, cheap and uncultivated tax expert—will cut him out. Jake resorts to some very dubious tactics himself before he realizes that Clitus Tilney would never really permit this, and that Barry Schlide is too smart to expect a partnership. Yet Clitus is just as fair to Barry as he is to Jake; he emerges as the stern and righteous, but just and merciful father-image whose legal "sons" can never quite match his own moral fiber.

In a curious way, too, Mr. Auchincloss makes Clitus Tilney an appealing hero who is quite human; that is the real achievement of Powers of Attorney. There is the rather touching tale of Rutherford Tower, the ineffectual and terrified nephew of "the great chancellor." There is the entertaining story of another tax expert in this modern law firm which is so closely involved with big business—Morris Madison, whose secret diary has become more important to him than his work, acquaintances or the woman he loves. The best chronicle here is that of the tough cynical Harry Reilley, who has a dreadful little affair with the pathetic and opportunist Doris Marsh, and then falls in love with Clitus Tilney's own daughter.

Well, that has a happy ending too; things always manage to work out not too unpleasantly in this upper-class orbit of fictional fantasy. But in this story Mr. Auchincloss is moving very close to the "real world" of the law, of business, of the Social Register, of love, of human character and relations which the purpose of his writing is usually to transform. Nevertheless, as a very literate and polished kind of entertainment, I can't quarrel with Powers of Attorney. In fact, I enjoyed it.