Evening star., 1938-02-13

refuses, saying that At present she Is
happier with her family but that in
time she will come, because, as she
knows. she will have everything"
Sure enough, in time her husband
gets typhoid fever and dies, but not
before she had discovered that her
abounding love for him had not made
!. him happy; he had realized. 1t seems,
that she was an artist, and Is art
was beyond him he felt bit out Of
it with her. Death however, conven-
iently prevents the discovery from de-
veloping into situation. The young
man is simply eliminated. Then
Susan gathers up her brood and does
60 to Paris. There she Is once more
recognized as genius. She studies
and works. Her art Is acclaimed.
And. more than that, love comes into
her life again. She meets another ar
tist and marries him. Once more she
loves terrifically.
But once more love fails Of being
enough. Once more the young woman
realizes that her own greatness has
prevented her husband from captur-
ing happiness in her equal to her
own in him. So she and her young
man separate. She goes back to her
marbles, realizing that while she has
everything to give no one has the
capacity to receive in the measure
of her giving. Or in other words, that
love is fundamentally selfish thing
with men, and that by inference the
negative woman. even though she be
stupid, is the answer to mems desire.
1t is rather made to -order thing.
Mrs. Buck has a thesis and, like all
novelists with such an impediment, she
regiments her material to its end But
something still should be said for the
thesis itself; 1t is departure from the
shop-worn and beloved theme that the
problem which faces woman Of
genius is whether she will have her
self-expression or her love. For, with
almost no exception, it has been
deemed that the two are mutually
exclusive. Actually they are not so.
A woman of genius has q more COM
plicated existence than a gifted man,
to be sure, but the problem which
confronts her Is not the cliche men,
toned above and adored by sentiment
alists. 1t is instead the problem Of
being loved at all. of finding a man
great enough to appreciate her and at
the same time to win her affection.
She will meet both reactions in men.
to be sure. but they are apt to be in
different men. Those who understand
and truly value her genius will be too
self-effacing to attract her: those to
whom she Is attracted, on the other
hand, by reason of forcefulness in
them equal to her own. will be afraid
of mate so brilliant. Either they will
want the satisfaction of having in
duced her to give up her art" or they
will attempt to make light of it. Both
courses are equally repellent to a
woman who has intellectual honesty
and is sufliciently gifted not to feel
dependent on her emotions as her only
capacity.
Mrs. Buck makes the dilemma clear,
and her answer to the young womans 8
statement that she will "have every
thing" seems to be that she can have,
but that she cannot give, and that for
the reason that she will find nobody
able to accept in such abundance.
And since happiness in love is halt In
giving, this answer is q pretty plain
one.
1t is to be hoped that the book,
though otherwise unremarkable, does
something to destroy the old maudlin
senttmentality toward the female
artists supposed plight. That Is to be
hoped-yes. But 1t Is hardly to be
expected.