The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1882-12-18
Typical American Heroines.
Unhappy Marriages as Depicted in Cur
rent Novels.
saturday Review.l

rent Novels.
saturday ReView1
Mr.. Howellss novel, just finished, has at
tracted unusual inter est. because he has chosen
to write of people whom every American
claims as old acquaintapces. We each know
somewhere a Marcia in rags or velvet, and
Barley Hubbard turns up in newspaper
doctors or lawyers offices in San Francisco
and Denver as well as in Maine. The story is
modern instance of the blind worship which
the Titanias of to-day lavish on the Bottoms,
and 1t is an aggravated and pitiable case. But
that SORT of mental paralysis with which Marcia
IS afficted is more common than even Mr..
Howells, perhaps, would have us think. 1t
not only makes sensitive, clear Drained women
every day set up some gross, fiabby-mipded
animal as a god and grovel their lives long be
fore h m, to the disgust of other men who
know the creature as he is but it forces men
ike Keats to wreck their souls before some
pert, worldly little Miss Brown.
Look in many households and you will find
men-keen-witted and of pure taste in all
other matteTs-not merely making the best
of the fatal mistake they made in marriage
but believing with all their souls that in their
coarse-grained, frivolous, selfish wives, adoring
them, gratefully accepting pretty trick ofEex-
preston, a kind word now and then, in place
OF the noble, womanly heart the self-sacrifice,
LILO uSVOIlOn WHICH never were ana never Will
be theirs This peculiar sort of blindness. too,
does not belong alone tn love or married life.
In every family it is the law, selfish, cynical
member who calls it forth. He is most tender
~ cared for; his rare words of affection are re-
membered and cherished; young women make
hero of him wherever he goes at home the
calf is kept ready to kill and the gold chain
FURNISHED in hope that this unrepenting prodi-
gal NAV take it into his head to come back,
while the plodding, unsefish elder brother is
foro ,,v,lan fall nd
| scsnt thanks for spending his life for others.
There is no need of being provoked at this
blindness of love. 1t has its use like every
other within or abnormal freak in nature. Sup
pose, for moment, that no such cataract could
form over the mind, and that wife, mother
and friends saw the vulgar selfish, unable
wretch with clear, merciess eyes as do the
rest of the world? What earthly chance
would there be for him afterward? The only
chance for any such man is in trying to live up
to the height where somebody has placed him.
If these gross selfish souls that have gone into
the world beyond are TO make any progress
there. one would almost be persuaded that
there too they will ind some fond fool to be-
leve in them; and that there is mecriful de-
gree of short-sightedDess, even among the
angels.
The mainfobject however, of the book in
question, and of two or three others now run
ming through American magazines is to set
forth the mlseries of an unhappy marriage, and
to suggest either the righteousness or crime of
its remedy by divorce. An Englishman, to
read American povels of the last year, would
imagine all American wives bound by the
chains OF an unfortunate marriage, each, as
rule, struggling madly to escape to the out
stretched arms of some responsive being
awaiting outside. What do these hints mean?
Are American homes less sacred to virtue and
pure love than those of England? What
change has taken place in their women that
makes them, in the first place, too dull in per-
ception to choose the right man for husband,
and then too lax of principle to keep from run
ming abroad to look for more congenial mate
ever after. If there be any such impending
revolutions in their domestic relations as these
prophecies Indicate there is no visible sign of
1t now to the ordinary observer Wives to-day
jog on their accustomed round between nursery
and church, household and social cares, as
faithfully as their grandmothers, and, as far as
we can see, are as little troubled as they with
consciousness of antipathy to their husbands
or wild longings for the fright man else
where" There seems to be, from the cottage
to the palace, the old sweet drama going on of
innocent love between young happy girls and
boys, some day 10 end in pure marriage. We
would fain hope that the prospect is not so
dark as represented, and that the question of
divorce, its crime or propriety, is of no more
importance there than in any other Christian
country.
If, however. the majority of American
wives are in such case and find relief from the
marriage bond, If distasteful, necessity, we
do not see how they can be required to dis
charge the other duty which devolves upon
them-that of the care of their children If
one obligation can be thrown aside as soon as
it becomes heavy and repugnant to the taste
and sensibilties,swh not all? Why should the
mother lose her beauty ard health in the care
of a child, or the father sacrifice his ambition,
youth and pleasure to "make man of the
boy, when very likely the boy may turn out a
meaner man than himself? Why should the
en-. ineer not desert his post as soon as ne grows
tired, or the soldier leave the ranks when the
battle is near? Why, in short should we not
write down all duty. sham and honor an old
fashioned prejudice?