ARNOLD BENNETT.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1382, 7 March 1912, Page 9

ARNOLD BENNETT.

WHAT HE THINKS OF WOMEN. In an interesting interview which apE eared in the February number of "Good lousekeepiug," between. Arnold Bennett, tho novelist, and Charles Henry Mettster, the novelist's opinion or women novelists nml writers was incidentally... expressed.' Ignoring Georges Sand and' George Eliot, he hinted that ho had not a good opinion of them. "Elinor Glyn? She doesn't exist. She has no stylo and no ideas. Marie Corelli ? She is stronger. But she doesn't count." Arnold Bennett has positive opinions concerning womankind. In the old days, when ho sub-edited a magazine for women, he suffered from the ways and whims of the sex. His opinion of women as writers is tho reverse of flattering; although one woman whom he know long years ago was for a time a model secretary. In journalism ho met just one woman who wroto decent English. And that, he told me, was her only merit. "The women whom I had to deal with in my editorial character," he added, "were always weeping. I am sure I don't know why on earth they- wept. I treated them quite kindly. Of style they as a rule knew nothing. Tho very meaning of tho word was sealed to some of them. A lady—of high standing, by the way—onco asked me for a lesson in style. I agreed. First I conducted her to a plain, simple schoolteacher, to bo grounded in .grammar, of which she was quite innocent. Then I took hold of her myself, lint it was waste of time. Sho never learned what style meant. Most women writers I have known were involved and unclear . Nor can I now recall a single ono who had anything really original or illuminating to say in her articles. They were apt in many cases to become nuisances. Not' that [ minded much. Up to a certain point I rather liked it. "Do I think women have no place in journalism ? I believe in letting (hem do anything they think they can do. But, with the exception of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, none of them have been in tho front rank of literature. No. Not. Georges Sand. She is losing her old grip on the French public. "Yes. As you say. Women take little or no interest as a rule in what the world is doing. Many will go quite contentedly from year to year without reading a newspaper. It gives one a queer feeling now and then to be living in the companionship of beings whoso mode of thought is so aloof from men's. "Men aro romantic. Women are not. They may, of course, at moments grow romantic—about men or somo one man. Yet at the bottom of their hearts you find them hard. This may seem daring, but I think it's true."