The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1914-04-25

practical surface. Among the great mass.
sentimentality Is ono OF our oiind spots'
and the mass'' here does not imply pow
erty or ignorance. THE Rosary, winch
might justly be described as the most
syrupy connection Of current years, FOUND
It's immense market among American
women but we are no longer as serti-
mental as the novelists think us to be: at
least, our more intelligent readers are
fast losing the vice. But with
all the evidence of "A growing appetite FOR
healthy fact, sentimentalism persists In
our novels We scntimentalize In them
success and business warfare: above all
we sentimentalze our women-both the
enormous relation of the sexes and the
home. One of the benefits We may ex-
pect from the present woman movement
IS that American women Will rise In re-
sentiment and kick over the false pedestal
OF chivalrous sentlmentality on which Tin
our novels) American men have posed
them namely for so long.
But sentimentalism dies hard. II 10 an
insidious disease inherited through ro-
nance from the miasmatic mysticism Of
the Middle Ages. 1t has proved peculiarly
corrupting to art in all forms, because
II IL the easy means OF gaining an i'm
mediate popular appeal Therefore SEN
tlmentalism should be fought hard wher-
ever II makes an appearance. Until We
as people are able and willing to look
all the facts of our civilization in the
face and recognize the unpleasant as well
az the pleasant" until We demand in our
literature the same strong tonic of clear
sighted truth that We get from science,
we shall remain morally shabby-soft-
The fact that our novels are written
largely by women and for the entertain
ment of women Is in itself a weakening
element in our literature. 1t would be
idle to champion male literature as op-
| posed to feminine one. but our literature
should represent both sexes. The mans
conception OF life ought TO interest women,
and what the woman feels about 1t ought
to interest men-if true and not merely
sentimental.
This leads me to another class Of great
| themes that awaits the modern writer
| women, the emergence and the transfer
nation OF women. We sentmentalize a
! good deal as Il people over the position
of American women. but In our literature,
at any rate. we treat them conventionally,
Yet every one knows that the status of
women in the world has changed, and
what is even more significant to my think
ing. the self of women is
changing rapidly. They are thinking
| differently about themselves from what
| their mothers ever thought.
| The suffrage agitation Is compare lively
uniinportant. or rather merely one promi-
nent straw on the stream that marks the
current. OF much more immediate sig
| niicance Is the way In which women are
| being absorbed in the economic machine
OF our industrialism as breadwinners AS
competitors Of men, and in the freer strata
of society as Independent creators. All
this must change profoundly the inner
| life of the sex and the attitude Of men
and women toward each other. The enan-
| cipation of women that the suffrage agl-
tators harp upon is coming all the time,
not so much through obtaining the vote
as through their growing ability to com
pete with men in the conditions of modern
| civilization, and to make "A strong, inde-
pendent life in cooperation with men. apart
from merely sex or sentimental rcla-
tionship.
Nothing is more thrilling In our life
to-day than the struggles of women to
win this superior sort OF freedom. to
become the real equals OF men. Why,
them do not our novelists. especially our
women noyelists, celebrate this epic OF
their sex? They should give us these
newer women, with their changing attitude
toward life and especially toward the sex
relation and the family. They should not