The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1904-10-11

|WiIfred scawen Blunt Waiiingiy La
ments That She e. Lost to Is.

One would infer from what Wflfred
IScawan Blunt says in the current
lspeaker that the ideal woman" be-
longs to pagan not to Christian times.
He declares that with the exception
lof Malory's fair heroines. whose char
I~acters were additionally Celtic, and OF
Those sweet, pathetic figures which
lcome down 10 US in our ancient ballad
.poetry from half-pagan times the ideal
woman Is almost absent from earlier
literature: that women are everywhere
roughly handled, even by Chaucer,
while -Shakespeare's stage ladies have
nothing at all in them OF the ideal
Coming down TO later times, UT.
Blunt finds lower d~egeneracy still IN
the women OF Smollet and Richardson,
while even those OF Walter Scott are
iby no means ideal. for Scott invariably
lost his presence Of mind when con-
lwoman's heart Recent writer's. IN his
iopinion. have done no better. and with
la wall. Mr.. Blunt laments that b no
Iole fair women Of traditional romance
lis today an ideal lost TO Us.
| Is the case so bad as all this? Where
lis heavenly Una? Her career was ideal
lily romantic enough to redeem from
lprosaic reality the entire age II which
lshe came to light. What Celtic pagan.
lsurpasses in romantic idealism "ths
lovely lady welded TO the Moor?" o..
liz. as Mr.. Blunt asserts. Desdemona
land Juliet were borrowed from Ban
ldello's italian originals. what ideal
lgrace, what romantic charm has been
added to these two that they have be.
Icome immortal, while the originals ara
known only to the dry-as-dusts OF liz
lerature?
Who, before Mr.. Blunt, ever ques-
ltioned Sir Walters marvellous power
Iof TRANSPORTATION? What IL he did
Hose his head when confronted with Tho
problem OF a pretty woman's heart-lhe
VERY fact Is evidence Of the romantic
situation, a woman idealized and as
such weaving a mgic spell that even
her creator could not resist
Mr.. Blunt Toes not make quite clear
what he means by the phrase ideal
woman" If he means to imply that
Ito pagan chivalry, as originating
amOng the early Teutons, is due the
sublimated ideas that tended to en-
Throne a woman and make her "a thing
lenskied," his outlook is narrow. Chris
tianity as we'll as chivalry exated wo-
man, finding in her the benign quail
ties which p~re-eminently characterize
the virgin. And the ideal woman ere
lated both by chivalry and by Chris
~ltianity still lives, especially in British
Song. poetry. n fiction. She has not
died out, o is she dying.
The ideal woman, however, may and
docs take on new forms from age &c
lage. Shakespeare's romantic ideals
Iare not those Of today, but ours are To
less romantic and no less ideal. Ir
IAmerica the real woman may be nc
lbetter, no fairer than women OF earlier
times or other countries, but in The
hearts and minds Of practical Ameri.
lean men she is idealized and seer
lchiefly through the bright colors of 70
Imanticism.
If Mr.. Blunt will rea his Browning
or turn the pages of George Meredith
The will find Ideal women of the NOR;
modern type, or if he believes she n,
llonger exists let him mark the attitud,
iof American men toward America
women, and he will find hat the idea
woman still exists somewhere, Il onL
lin the imagination Of the American
lman.-Chicago Chronicle.