GRABBING LIFE FOR THE YOUNG.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3130, 14 August 1922, Page 2

GRABBING LIFE FOR THE YOUNG.

ii: is the young ivlio suffer most at the hands of the modern novelist and pkiywright. If one hae lived long enough to form one's own opinion of the world, one may yet be able to read modern novelis without racing the world through t!i: novelist's eyes, or aceepting his a«- ■ ■iiiiijit'ijii that all men r.nd most women arc vile. I.?ut if one is standing, somewha.l nervously, on the brink of life, it is another matter. I write from the girl's point of view, but 1 do not imagine that the young men of to-day are any more grateful to the yif ted people who are breaking the;-.' idols. "1 used tn adore Gakswor'thy," a girl i•-i.'fl to me the day. "when 1 read 'Villa Tf.ubein,' and 1 someone took me to 'The Skin Game.' 1 haven't touched a book of his since." What a tragedy that ii'h an art shook! be used in this way! Have, writers any idea of the effect they are iiroducing on young people when they pa.-'nt human nature in such sombre colors? "What a dark and minister world thev' nre revealing to those on its threshold'! It is realism, they may say. but is it? Are those depraved) and cynical people w.: arc invited to read about in books ill any way typical of the people most of its sire accustomed 1 to meet every day of out lives? Manv girk go to books for a knowledge of life, and if the men and women '.bey read about resemble those they may cvpeet to meet in their journey tluo'.u:!] the world, then, indeed, their ])' p. will be a sad one. Our "■■..alistic" writers can't hurt ib" o'der people, but they are crabbing life for every girl who believes in a knieht. cone the less n knight because he may work in a city office and rid'e a bicvok? instead of a. horse. The world was full of knights in 1914. Is there any proof that the young men who came back were -o inferior to their comrades win, d'"cd? And it is not the men only. Does Mr Galsworthy really believe bis heroine in "Saint's Progress" to be typical of her age and class? Does he really believe that s;icli things happened and wee permissible because it was war time, and the lovers wvrc to be parted, perhaps for ever? As if it were not a thousand limes more rea v on for keeping their love the purest thing on carl!'. "F have known there was wickoiuioss in the world since J was 17." the airl who bad once read Galsworthy said to me. "Hut F thought u was the exception, so it didn't really affect my happiness. Then I started reading novels, and overv one iv:« worse than Ibe last. In the end I didn't think there were unv decent men in the world." ! have mentioned Mr Galsworthy in particular because J. too, loved "Villa Hubein" and "A Knight.'' but lie would have no power to' hurt us if there were not all tic others, ~S] r Wells, Mr Arnold Bennett. Mr Compton Mackenzie—worst of alb-the women writers, who arc destroying the House of Life for the girls. Have Miss May Sinclair

and Storm Jameson and the rest forgotten the days when they could have been hurt as they are hurting girls now ? Presumably there is a public for these books and plays since they continue to be written, but they are crabbing life for the young, and the young of this generation have suffered enough at the hands of the old. Ladies and gentlemen of the Pen, if you must write such books as these, write them about wicked people, and leave the young and innocent alone. If you have outlived your illusions, for the sake of things you once believed in leave a i'ew shreds to 'the young. It is so much to ask that you should leave the girls their Prince Charming, the young men their innocent Princess! 1