The Washington herald., 1908-05-17
Commenter Discusses Meth
Ods of Noted Authors.
LOSING FAITH IN WOMEN FOLK
High Tension of Heroism Not Life
Iike-No One Cares 10 Read of I'm
possible ChaFacfers-BOOks should
BE True to Eature-Ghosts should
Come Back to Torment SOyeIists.

1 W lSQom DiBh mounted on Pegasus anu
Is perfectly content to watch his flights
and his vagaries wherever II pleases him
to spur, there comes a moment when the
blindest follower calls a halt, tears the
bandage from his eyes. and demands 10
know why he Is being hoodwinked and
put upon.
you led me on to the deepest admira-
ton for this book man and that book
woman. You made me admire 20 the point
Of fancying them an ideal toward which
I myself might strive, and then you made
this man do dastardly and eowardly
thing. you made this woman responsible
| for the total wreckage OF another's life,
and you did It merely because the power
was yours and because they we're your
creatures. your puppets. to move at your
whim and pleasure. For that you have
deprived me of my faith in book women
and book men forever"
/ 1t is a nice question. this OF the rights
/ and the responsibilities Of the novelist.
/ Whether he may assume the power OF
creator and deal as he pleases with the
/ fate of those he has created, or whether,
]
| literature, he should not rather leave
them to work out their own salvation ac-
/ co~dlng to the virtues and vices with
which he has endowed them, says the
/ New York Times.
Mrs Wharton should Repent.
Surely, Mrs. Wharton must have felt
some eompunction. some twinge Of con-
science. when she tempted Lily Bart be-
yond her strength OF resistance just as
the Three Tricky Sisters were begin
/ ming 10 weave a golden thread into the
web Of her life. or, II not then, most GER
{ tainiy Pegasus should have baked when
I she led the finely tempered Justine TO
murder her friend ana over her dead
/ body to marry the husband.
AS Robert IngeFsOl used 10 say. THAT
/ is the weak spot in the Macbeth case.
/ What actual right had Mrs Wharton 10
/ create for rs a woman who possessed ev-
cry quality of the highest type OF sur
gical nurse, q woman who by her severe
1 training was accustomed 90 the sufferings
/ OF a surgical ward whose instinct was 10
/ battle 20 the very last breath for the life
/ OF her patient, and VINO. when that pa
I tient was her friend whom she could
/ her out of her misery by administering an
/ overdose Of morphia. acknowledging In
4 her act no sense Of shame or OF injustice
or wrongdong, yet keeping the fearful
secret from the man she married? II al
most seems as IL the author OK the hid
eous crime shuddered to think what she
/ had done, for she no sooner married jus
/ tine 70 her unheroic John than her inter-
/ est In the tale flags and the book is fin
ished half-heartedly as though repentiug
/ IN gray ashes for her sinister climax.
High Tension Not Lffelike.
OF course. a high tension OF herolsm is
not lfeliSe, and no one cares to read Of
/ the impossible character, but certainly
/ one has every right 10 expect and demand
/ that the characters OF a book should be
/ true to themselves as their authors have
made us see and love them. Was George
/ Meredith ever quite satisfied with himself
or comfortable in his own mind after he
had betrayed his spirited, splendid Diana
!nto selling state secret for a paltry sum
Of money? And DO not the ghosts Of
/ these wronged bookfolk come back to
+ haunt and torment their creators? Surely
/ II there is justice in the patron saint Of
/ literature some such arrangement should
/ be made by which the sufferers might
retaliate and their perjurers be made to
expiate their sins.
/ Benson. a favorite OF the hour lowers
/ the vitality of his readers by treating con-
stantly of sickness and disease His in
valid books have made him famous, vet
! each is composed in a minor key on a dull
/ gray background. Depression is their
/ theme, the half sick fancies Of the in
/ valid or conyalescent their only variation
/ Few readers fancy such literature, though
/ for the exquisitely simple language In
which the books are written and their in
/ timate, almost autobiographicai nature
/ there is some fascination about them
/ Yet here, too, comes the question Of the
4 authors right to create an invalid and
| keep him on the tenter hooks Of suffering
| through all his life OF several hundred
pages Mrs. Humphry Wards Eleanor"
/ is Of the same type, an exquisite woman
/ who is. however. so long time a-dying
/ that the reader instinctively guards
/ against tuberculosis germs that gather
thick and fast as book and invalid near
/ their end
Shaw Is a Sinner.
] Bernard Shaw is an abominable sinner
in his sinister creations Of book women.
Not one of the lot is lovabie, not one is
womanly. Each represents a type, a
phase Of womanhood; whereas, in actual
/ life. one woman-any woman-combines
in her personality all of its phases. Even
history and historians are at fault. That
/ demon in a. toga, Nero. whom we have
been taught TO regard in the light of
livid and magnificent devil, is now ac-
/ knowledged TO be merely an up-to-date
health officer who gathered his people Of
the slums into a huge pavilion. furnished
them with all the necessities Of life, and
/ then set fire to their squalid and miser-
able quarters only that he might rebuild
them on the most practical and health
promoting plan.
| What right-to go a little deeper still
/ into the subject-has an author to compel
his heroine TO fall in love with a lantern
| iawed, beetle-b browed, taciturn hero
whom. IN real life. she would never look
at a second time, and certainly not con-
slider marrying? Was Rochester the type
OF man to appeal to a real Jane Eyre in
actual life, or Romeo the complement of
Juliet's sentiment and bubbling fresh
ness, or the athletic and absurd Orlando
| the proper match for witty. enchanting.
sprightly Rosalind? Propinquity seems
to work with book creatures as II does
with human beings, but must the author
be allowed quarter on such a score?
And yet, fret and fune as we may and
90 az the irresponsible attitude Of authors
TO their brain children, we go on piling
up royalties for them quite as If we were
on the best of terms. Only now and then
we have a chance to have the last laugh,
when some aspiring playwright In mis-
dramatization of a best seller" plays the
part Of the kind fairy and naarries the
right man to the right woman and sees
to it that they live happily ever after
ward.
Freaks of the Male Animal.