a Femininine Author Fair to Masculine Characters?
Some recent criticism has beer directed against the types.of me portrayed by women writers in novels and plays. The indictment is that, generally speaking, only the worst and weaker side of masculinity is presented, and that It the odds are against then. It is possible that unmarried writers fare more prone to fall into this error, because they have hae. lees opportunity of studying masculine human nature in the closest of all relationships. It is a very intering theme this, opening the door wide to all sorts of speculatic It may be contended against this Jargument that unmarried writers Jare not debarred from the opportunities of family life. They have fall had fathers, most of them also [possess brothers, and none so surely as not to have some men friends.
I read a very exhaustive article the other day on this very subject written by one of our ablest joi its. While blaming the worner for their one-sided and, a2 he contended, unfair presentment of his sex, he asserted that the fault was in themselves, that they had be-7 \come too self-central, too aggressively feminist in their views, and \|correspondingly unfitted to portray ife as a whole.
The Self-Centred. long experience of the Niterary: life, its pitfalls and itz difficulties, I have observed a tendency to becoming self-centred, in some cases a regrettable withdraw-from what I may call the ordinary commerce of life, which is s0 very educative, wholesome, and enlightening.
Devotion to one's work may very easily be translated into' boredom with one's fellow-beings. All people nat interesting: some of them dent of human nature' and life You inexpressibly, but the stu
consistently may very easily. fall into another fexror which will' militate against good work.
"IE you surround yoursel? only with those like-minded with yourself, supposing you have the power land' the opportunity, you at. once limit the horizon and close a godd many avenues of approach.
'A Wide Outlook.
A catholic outlook coa only be obtained by a somewhat generous experience, which will embrace even the bores' whom the self-centred seek to eliminate. Generally speaking matrimony and family life provide a most excellent discipline for the student of human nature. There the gospel of give and take has to bbe translated into practice. All sorts and conditions of people have to be received at the house, unless tone - individuality grossly predominates dictatorship in matters of ind. T have known several eases of shipwreck on this" very I also think that sound family life disposes of a great deal of the morbid dwelling on sex matters which has often been hurled at the heads of women writers... There it is relegated to its proper place the scheme of things instead of being magnified into the whole orb lof existence.
On the whole T think it ust be That is the conelusion to which I have come after considerable study of contempor~ Jary fiction. I have no doubt that this will be denied in some quarters. It is a very interesting psychological problem to which we have not yet found the key.
I think it is also the principal reason why as yet we have produc-fed no really great woman play. weight.—Annie 8, Swal
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.