The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1914-05-02

accepted Inc situation ana. being women.
they tried to sustain the illusion.
And the women OF fiction. the "ad-
mirable" women. from tho first days OF
the novel down to recent days. have re-
Elected this situation In life Both men
and women writers wanted women char.
| acters portrayed as "womanly." The SIT
uation. however. Is now improving and
already fiction Ia rejecting the change.
Already the younger writers of the Eng
lish school by their true portrayals have
lifted tho standard. The reading public.
too. has changed. developed and is de-
| handing truth in the pictures of life Of.
| fered by novellsts. The Sad and re.
signed" heroine Is doomed.
| But she endured for long time. In a
lecture recently I traced her through
various vIcissitudes. When the mos; pop
blighted by love. went to the undertaker's
to select her comm, ordered that q broken
lily should be engraved on the lid and
| had II sent home to use As a writing table
during her decline. an admiring eigh-
tenth century public exclaimed that this
touching episode had immortali1ed the
| "womanly woman" No other heroine in
fiction has been SO passionately eulosized
or 80 widely mourned and even to-day she
I remains the most convincing Of the femi-
nine prigs with which the ina gination OF
man has enriched the pages OF literature.
For Clarissa belongs not only to the
evolving novel but also to the evolving
masculine Ideal OF woman.
And since the hardest traditions to
shake are those relating TO women, since
even a reallst Is apt to romance about
women In fiction. and SO great a writer as
Thackeray went to life for his heroes and
to the Victorian pattern Of femininity for
his heroines. 1t 10, perhaps, asking too
much from an avowed sentmentalist TO
-
herself has shown such eagerness to con-
form to mans ideal of her that she has
cheerfully defied both her soul and her
body after the model he put before her,
! one can hardly demand of a man novelist
that he should write OF her as she In and
not as he desires her to be. Ages Of false
thinking about her on the part Of others
, have bred In woman the dangerous habit
OF false thinking about herself. and she
has denied her own humanity 50 long and
} 20 earnestly that she has come at last
almost to believe In the truth Of her de-
NAL.
} Because 1t has pleased man to imagine
! that woman Is passive and hates change
no English writer OF fiction before George
Meredith--or ! may say. Instead. before
Mr.. Hardy--ever dared to recognise tina,
she Is and always has been. In her hear,
at least, the adventurous sex. Even
Fielding. who feared nothing else on earth
lived in terror OF offending against tn,
popular legend OF the "wOmanly woman,
and was oppressed by the curious delusior
, shat woman IL made Of different ella,
. from man; that while he progresses she
corresponding to some fixed ideal OF her
!, remains static.
But with Meredith and Hardy woman
l for the first time In mems novels. drop!
v her cloak Of sentimentality and appear
not less human and vital than does tn
u. Il "A - L.
. the ancient tradition Is not completed,
n discarded. and these two great writer's
e unlike in so much else. are alike at leas
a in this, that they both appear to re
q gard caprice az the ruling principle o
= woman's nature. That real Diam
s would have sold her lovers secret is ex
Il ceedingly doubtful; that a real Sue woul'
d have deserted a suffering Jude Is almos
4 unbelievable. But caprice Is probably tn
e last quality that the masculine imagina
% ton will relinquish in It's conception o
d woman; and certainly to make tn
d "womanly woman capricious IL a pleas
=, ant change from the earlier fashion Q
n making her insipld.
y And with the sacred Inconsistency pos
g. sble only to tradition she was repre-
" scented as passive even in the single nc
n tvlty to which her energies were al
rected for In love, az in all else. sh
a was supposed to sit in smiling patienc
W and wait on Tie convenience Oh maj
1t When she grew restless it proved merel
* that she was not the "womanly woman.
since to grow restless In the opinion q
10 most novellsts IN tho exclusive peroga
Il tive of man. And no deeply rooted
ID the masculine mind Is this inherited bs
Is lief in tho right Of the male to wal
to rove, II not actually to pack up an
30 70. that we find so essentially modern
nt writer az Mr. GalswOrthy speaking {
". "the aching for the wild. the passionate
n the new. that never quite dies in man
al heart"--implying, one gathers from III
Ia. context. that this aching has eth,
ar never been born In the heart of y woma
I'd or has died there In It's infancy.
Yet Mr.. Galsworthy possesses an vi
" derstandlng OF woman's nature of HI
rs strength. her weakness. her blindness
" tho virtue OF expediency. her trag
~ wastefulness in love. that is not equalle
u that IL not even approached by any
ne our younger novelsts. The four wome
c. In his 1.-THE Dark Flower" are but e,
~ quisite variations from the indestructib
IN tyne OF mans ''womanly woman" Il
r. woman who lives by love alone. But
e. In Mr., Galsworthy's peculiar distinctio
IT, that In his masculine insistence upon Il
an beauty OF self sa crifice in women
ad should understand the full cost OF II
women themselves. the tragic waste
he useless renunciation. the bitter loss
We tho world OF that Joy which 10 tho CROW