Birmingham age-herald., 1895-07-14
A MODERN NOVEL AND ITS LESSON

"A MODERN NOVEL AND ITS LESSON When MT Grant Allen wrote a book he called "The Woman Who Did" it is quite possible he had some idea that it would stir up hornets nest, but it is an interesting speculation whether or not he realized just how many of the hornets would come buzking about his ears.
 The book has been read and discussed from Dan to Beersheba, and it has been condemned and praised, criticised ad- versely and with favor, blacklisted in some libraries and accepted in others in fact, it has been talked of and written of until the thinking mind is brought face to face with a question-What is the ef- feet of book like "The Woman Who Did?" Unhesitatingly the thinking mind answers its own query. It is an unpleas- ant book and an unnecessary one. The author has said that it is to him a very refutation of the beliefs and principles advanced by the heroine. It is more than possible that he is correct in his state ment. The trend of modern literature is to take up vital questions and handle them fearlessly, just as the trend of mod ern surgery is to do daring things with scalpel-things at which the doctors of the old school stand aghast. But there is this difference: The surgeon in oper- ating is careful to encase his hands in gloves so that the possible poison of the wound before him may not be communi- cated into his own system, while the writer of today who takes upthe moral scalpel goes at his question with un- gloved hands and is inclined to slash" little.
 ,"The Woman Who Did" proposes to make her life direct antthesis to the career marked out for the average wo- man. For the sake of honest prejudice against marriage she prefers to cut her self off from the rest of the world, mak- ing her whole life a martyrdom to the principles she proposes to ground in the very foundation of the mind of her child. This is her idea of freedom, and the fal- .lacy of it all is fully proven when the child--a daughter-reproache her with the fact that on account of those prin- ciples she is mot like other girls in the school.' So far. it may be said the book
 is a direct argument in favor of estab- lished things, but is it necessary?
 Human nature is practically the iden- t1cal tn1nS II was when AQaHl ana EVe began to follow out the unwrtten law God gave them in the garden. There are new creeds and new ideas. but there is no such thing as new nature.
 Right and wrong are unchangeable principles developed strongly in some, weakly in others but alive in some de- gree in all sentient beings. Such books bring unpleasant thoughts to the reader, but have little influence when it comes to the great moral question. These things. in each life, are individual and the bal ance falls to the right or to the left, ac- cording to strengthening of the princi- pie, not according to chance teaching. Nor is the world of woman inclined to look at things in the light Herminia Bar ton saw them. To the credit of the hu- man race. be it said, that the tone of moral thought and living is decidedly healthy, and for Grant Aliens one woman who did there are in real life a thousand who will not, and they be the safeguard of the nations