The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1884-06-26
WOMEN AS NOVELISTS.
What q Scotch Reviewer Has to Say
About Them.

The number of women who take to
novel-writing is noteworthy, though it
is not very difficult to understand it,
says the Edinburgh ReuieU. Many wo-
men are naturally bright and clever;
they have great deal Of spare time
upon their hands, they want occ1pa-
ton and possibly an income. The pro-
fessioIs are closed to them, for as yet
female medical practitioners are the
exception; sanctuary is denied them in
the churches, and, in spite of an illcs-
trious Venetian precedent, there are no
Portias at the English bar. But there
have been Miss Austens and George
Eliots, and there is still Mrs. OlipLant;
and there seems to be no absolute rea-
son why other ladies should not have
similar success. Should they have read
the books of generation or two back,
which is doubtful. they will remember
how the '1ittle Burney" wrote a novel
which Burke sat up all night to devour
and on which johnson bestowed an
exaggerated laudation. Possibly they
may reproduce an experience of the
sort in their own lives; st all events
they may do well even if they fall con-
siderably short of it. With the small
est amount of intelligence they must
know that the public to-day is far from
fastidious. Now, we admit that an
experienced female novelist has certain
advantages over the rougher sex. Wo-
men have finer fancies than men, and
are unconsciously interested in some
vague analysis of the emotions. Love
and marriage is what they look for
ward to, and bright and warm-heart-
ed girl from her nursery and school
room days has been building herself
castles in the air. and peopling them
with possible tenants. She has made
herself the heroine of hundreds of tales
of the heart, and she has figured in in
Vulnerable imaginable roles. So far
she starts with certain stock in trade,
but her ideas are limited in the first
place and theoretical in the second.
What she writes may be clever, and
even curious, as an unconscious revela-
ton, but it is almost certain to be un-
real. For, on the other hand, and it is
happy for her, the girl ought to know
little of the world beyond her home.
She has not even had the rough and
communicating experience of the school
boy; she has not been sent to the uni
versity, nor has she served an appren-
ticeship in the mess-room; she has
never taveled except under matron' 8
wing, nor does she even know as much
of business or practical life as the
youngest clerk in an attorneys Office.
What subjects, then, can she possibly
choose when she decides to present her
seniors With a series of imaginative or
idealizet pictures? Only two courses
are open to her. Either she launches
out in world of which she knows as
little as the early explorers knew Of
central Africa before Europeans had
struck into the dark continent, or she
writes On the subject to which she has
given thought though the thinking has
Necessarily been purely speculative.
ANY attempt she may make in the
former line may be summarily dis
missed as absurd and extravagant, un-
less, Indeed, she has the Trollope-like
instind of the Imagination which turns
much that is fanciful into the SEM
blance of truth, while in the other and
the more profitable case, we come on
one of the springs of that perennial
flow OF the stories which seem harder
reading than dictionaries or blue
books.