LADY HENRY SOMERSET ON THE "SEX NOVEL."

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9177, 7 August 1895, Page 4

LADY HENRY SOMERSET ON THE "SEX NOVEL."

On June 17th Lady Henry Somerset nre sided over the nineteenth annual con i of the National British Women's Temue auce Association at the City Temtil" Nearly 800 deiegUea trom all parts of Great I Britain, together with many foreign renr! I sentative3 sent-to the International Conve ' I tion, were present. In her address Litf 1 Henry reviewed the great progress made bi 1 the temperance cause. Sho tueu went on t speak on various other topics of special inierest to women. On the subject oitha " sex novel " Lady Somerset said: ■* What is the meaning of the sex novel by women or by men ? Tor they are Jj 3l l writing it, and bad as are tha womsn'« tha men's are worse. Of what ia it indicative and wherewithal are we to bo rid of this la3t curae or craza ? Why cannot a creat and helpful sox uovel be written, if we»i_3t have any at all ? Perhaps it is because ' fools rush in where angels fear to tread' These novels are mostly put forth by newcomers in the field of literature; they are bewildered by the advent, of women like the locusts of Egypt, as some say (but we think like the beneficent breeze of heaven) upon the wide fiolds ol human activity. The thought of sex is doubtless more present / in the average mind when the relations I of sex are rapidly and univereiliy I changing. The peut up thoughts and feelings 9 of imaginative and high-strung women 1 writers lind vent along the lines of the new § liberty, instead of engaging actively iuaotne i bencGceat work with womeu who are doinsj 1 what they can so to guide the movement 1 that it shall not overflow its banks, &ad I these neurotic and keyed-up temperaments § fly to pen and ink, aud wreak themselves I upon expression. lb is but a sign of the i times, the excrescence of a growth, the shadow cast from a great light in the heavens. We must bear with our brother* aud sisters of the quill, who aro bewilderedby the bursting of what wo believe to bo a purify, ing whirlwind of the Lord, and we must hope that it will not be long uutil the sturdier pen of men and women who bear about iv their natures the best qualities, masculine aud feminiuo—those 'creatures not tqo bright or good for human nature's daily food' —shall give us harmonious panoramas of the new social life wherein sex is not the l central thought, bub which have for their motif those qualities that we ail share in common ; the intellect, radiant and serene, the resistless will, the mellow heart, and firm, untiring hand. Shall not those be the central lights and plowinsj colours in the picture of the golden nge ? "