MAURICE HEWLETT'S WOMEN.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 948, 15 October 1910, Page 9

MAURICE HEWLETT'S WOMEN.

' "Kipling gives snapshot photographs of. women. He. shows them in certain brief, moments of their existence, in vivid blacks and whites, caught on tho instant .whether tho subjects were laughing or crying. Stevenson's few women are presented in silhouette. Barrio and Hardy/givo etchings in which ■line by-line, and with the; most painstaking art,'the features arc drawn. But Meredith and Mr. Hewlett give paintings in which brush stroke after brush, stroke has. been used. The- reader beholds the finished work true not only in features, .but in colouring: : / ."In his.great, novels, Hardy has been obsessed with the half pagaji idca'.of tho inexorableness of things.. His women are ■ almost always the of. ; inscrutable, blind fate, caught up and often whirled 1 to their doom. They,do hot dominate. .'They, are stray angels in bonds, who stand forever in mortal fear of losing-their reputations. Social law is. everywhere in conspiracy against their. souls.'' Ho. scarcely believes in good women and bad women. , Ho sees ■ only "women affected ,by ' good, or' evil circumstances. ' ■ . , " "For/Meredith', women, aro still creatures of -the'chase.; but he pleads-for ,a nobler sphere of action for-them; he inocks modern marital conditions; he . would-see woman uplifted, the. comrade, not the' plaything of 'man. He lias no- , thing' but contempt for women who arc ignorant, of or content with 'their.subjection. ' ■ ■ ■'.* ; ' "Now 'Mr. Hewlett ;is 'purely, medietval./;'The; Hewlett, woman .is'forevpr. 'tho '.plaything of . love. -She'-is always 111 the attitude of the pursuing who' is pursued. • She is forever the; subject of ■ passion, holy or unholy.'. Men will fight ' for; her,. plunge Kingdoms and cities in war •or ruin' for her; die. for her. Sometimes; as in. 'The' Stooping Lady,' she. is ' the willing object of this love and stoops to enjoy its divine benison; sometimes sho flees from it when it displays . a satyr faco as' in 'Tho Duchess jof v'Nona'.; sometimes -she is < caught up in; its; tragic coil: as in • 'Tho ' .Queen's ; Quair,' and .destroyed by it. Hewlett's women; like -. Hardy's,, 'are stray; angels, but like' Meredith!s they are creatures of the chase. ; . . Tliey • arq ' girls whei, are stricken down . Avith. love's dart and who make no effort to rembye'/.tbe jdear ;; missiles. ' They -.-aro ,true; dwellers ~ in.; romance-laiid, beautiful'creatures'who, give, .themselves, to their chosen lords without thought- of sin' or of the-future."—From '"Maurice Hewlett," by Milton Bronner.