A WORD ABOUT “OUIDA.”

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6451, 24 February 1908, Page 10

A WORD ABOUT “OUIDA.”

When news coraee of the death of a notable woman, euch as Miss do la llarnee undoubtedly 'van, an opportunity arisen for “improving the occasion,” art tho oldfariuoned preachers um*l to call it, which ought not to bo let blip. Without in any way criticising “Ouida” a,s a writer, or “rising her up” from a literary point of view, “Qaida” was one of those women who write to gain without apparently much effort a world-wide popularity, a notoriety, much greater than that achieved by other writers with a much greater gilt. “Ouida” was—and is still —enormously popular, just ms Marie Corelli Is. Why are these women writers so widely read aud so much talked about? Hundred!* and thousands of other women ask this question, wondering wherein licts the secret, for it would be such a gold mino if one could, only diocovor it. Out of tho tens of thousands of novels poured out from the prose since “Ouida” began writing over--40 years ago, how many are alive? "OuidaV own. literary children arc nearly all defunct. Yot some lxx»ks of hers live lx>th as novels and plays; “Moths” Is tho betft luiown; “Under Xwo Flags” is popular. Hut in hor day her novels wore widely advertised by tho best and most spontaneous form of advertising. “One woman tells another,” as the patent mc<iicim> advertifeoment puts it. bir Francis Burnand was qmto a benefactor in his way and day to those who train tiio young person, bocausc ho wroto a skit on Strathmore,” called “Strapmore,” in which ho made mien unsparing fun of tho stately six-foot-high life guardsmen and tho haughty and expensive duchesses, their bwoot,hearts, of whom “Ouida” used to write in such glowing terms that no young person pOfssesi>e<l of a sense of humour could loH>oar to laugh at them also. Consequently riuicule killed ad-mira-tion, an<i —exeunt from that young person's gallery of heroes, Bertie Cecil, itaphuel Corre/.0, Strathmore, and all tho m-agnilicent swaggerers who strut through “Uuida’G” pages. But when 1 rernomoer some of th© novels written in riu.s century by women, and road by women, too, the marvel, as I feel it, is that “Ouida” was ever thought improper at all. Nobody could deny that we are getting xw better very fast in this direction. After all, in whatever that authoress wrote, she kept an ideal; it may have been a false and tawdry ideal if you will, hut still the mere fact that she was, in her way, an

idealist, kept her out of the deadly kind of grim, bald, dreary ugliness that we are sometimes called upon to admiro ae the truly real in literary art to-day. Tho “naughty” society novel means always the wicked duchess. 'Tier frolic Grace 'Pit* Fulke” is tho mainstay of the smart lady novelist. How the escapades of her frolic Grace are treated depends upon the fashion of the day. Surely it cannot be any worse taste to approach her. since it seems inevitable ■that wo novel reader.- must always have “tho smart set” with us (in print), in tho spirit, displayed by Captain Uoldwig, whoso wife’s sister was married, you remember, to a marquis, and “his house was a villa, and his land, grounds; and it was all very high and mighty and groat.” Tcs, decidedly, “Ouida” was tho Captain Boldwig among lady novelists.

Then we must never forget that “Ouida” loved Italy and children and dogs. Xobody could love Italy as she did (and it was not a pose, for it breathes in some of her stories) without being at least something of a poet, a dreamer. It is this kind of being who is refraining writing novels to-day. That hard, unrelenting realism dealing with the dull humdrum life of the middle class, which may be, of course, quite happy and comfortable, but is eminently not exciting.

has driven out the romantic hero. One couldn’t imagine Edgar of Ravenswood, | io take a great example, as a hero of a novel of this year. Kn passant, what cad.s most of the modern novel heroe« are made out to be! “Paul,” for instance —a recent one, by E. F. Benson — : Paul i« one of those young men who ■abound in recent fiction, who can do everything but earn their own tucker; well, brieily hi© career runs thu£: —He falls in love with a rich young married woman, runs the husband down in the husband’s own motor-car, subsequently marries the widow and all the money. How is that for delicacy of feeling? Mould “Ouida” be worse? No, not so bad, for sho would have thrown an air I of cynical wickednetss over Paul and th© ’ widow; whereas E. F. Benson writes of them as if they wore an eminently resj>ecta.ble, if slightly unfortunate pairA nything but work, that is what the modern hero will do.