PAMELA PERSISTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18293, 9 July 1921, Page 2

PAMELA PERSISTS.

THE INTERNATIONALITY OF WOMEN.

By Constant Reader,

Is the future in the hands of the women of the world? Will the problem of the reconstruction of civilisation be finally left in their hands ? Benjamin Kidd prophesied that it would, and there are numerous portents pointing to the correctness of the forecast. It may reasonably be argued that the essential woman is international in that she exhibits the same tendencies knd 'possesses the same traits in whatever country she be found, and this to a degree not to be found in the more man. A reflection of this internationally is to be found the pages of fiction. “The student of literature,” writes Mrs George M'Cracken, “would find it a fascinating pursuit to trace the gradual development of the New Heroine In fiction.’ The passage leading up to the declaration may fitly be quoted; Fiction on the whole may bo accepted as a fair reflection of social customs and manners, and in modern novels we have had many references, both implied and expressed, to the new, altered, and altering views and position of women. In regard to the heroins herself, there has been a very radical change of treatment and conception as compared with the women who ficuro, let us say, in the pages of Richardson, Fielding, Fanny Burney, and Jane Austen. From a passive creature with whom fortune played, willy-nilly, subordinate to the conventions of sex, a spectator at the game of life, the heroine has become a capable being, with power to shape her own lot, and with an individuality and a purpose in life which insist upon the respect of her chronicler, and in many cases supply the main motive of the story. The atmosphere she moves in is charged with a thousand electric currents, a thousand

palpitating hopes and aims and aspirations, totally unknown to the Elizabeth Bennetts and Camillas of a hundred years ago. To marry the heroine was then the chief business of the novelist; with the modern heroine marriage is an incident, an epoch it may be, but not the sole important event nor the climax of her history. For nowadays the career of the heroine often begins where once, by nu the ’aws of romance and orthodoxy, it was supoosed to end —at the altar.

All this being granted, the fact, remains that Pamela persists, since the heroine of Richardson’s story still remains as the pattern and exemplar of the heroine of all time, the virtual master of man. A perusal of a number of new novels only goes to strengthen the argument for the per sistcnco of Pamela, extending it beyond the confines of the British Empire into Europe, America, and the East. In short, woman, who by hook or by crook eventually succeeds in having her own way, is an international typo, and the sooner man recognises the,situation and succumbs the better for the ultimate peace of the world. I.—THE ENGLISH WOMAN. Miss Rose Macaulay is a poet of promise and a novelist of no small reputation. Her first novel, “Abbot’s Verney,” was published in 1906, and her first book of verse, “The Two Blind Countries,” in 1914. As a poet she is a mystic, and as a storyteller she shows herself alive to the most practical Issues. Miss Macaulay made a name with “The Lee 1 Shore,” published m 1912; and with “Potterism,” published last year, slip definitely boca-nio famous. Her latest story, “Dangerous Ages,” should go fur to add to her fame. It is a brilliant hook dealing with the people of to-day, elevorlv conceived and instinct with the idea that ‘all ages are dangerous to all people in this dangerous life wo live The period of the story is England in the summer of 1920, and it opens on the early morning of Neville Bendish « forty-third birthday. Neville was mother to Gerda and daughter to Mrs Hilary, aged 63, with whom lived a grandmother, aged 83; and the interest in the book centres around the differing ideas and “dangerous ages ’ of the four generations of women. Neville had a sister. Nan Hilary, who represented yet another age;—

Nan herself was not so incredibly old as Neville. Nan was thirty-three and a-half She represented the thirties; she was a hedge, in Neville’s mind, between tho remote twenties and the fantastic forties through which men and women, it is said, move with blank misgivings, as in worlds not. realised tho fifties are still more fantastic a dream By the sixties one should have settled down a lilt e, caught, oneself up. brought to terms tho enemies life and tiine.^Mt_it_ sccnis. + m "Dangerous Arcs.” By Eosc Macaulay. London and ' Auckland : W. Coffins. Sous, and Co. Dunedin: Wlutcnmßc nmt Pombs. (2) “Whispering Windows: I al<-s of the \\ atcrsidf” Bv Thomas Burke. London : brant Kichnrds. ’Dunedin: Wliitmmbc and Tombs. (31 “Adam ami Caroline." By Conal u liicmlnn. London and Auckland: W. Collins, Cons, and Go. Dunedin: WMtfoinl'O and Tombs "Woman.” Bv Mapdclemc Want. IntrodueHon by Henri Bnrhune.' Translated by A. S. Scltver I-ondon: ireorpe Allen and Dnwm. (5) “Main Street : The Story of Carol Konmeott. By Sinclair Lewis. Few York; Hnrrnurt, Brace and Howe. Dunedin: Whitcombc and Tombs, vouth. contrived a short cut bv assenting theoretically to the doctrine of free love. But Gerda was a modern girl who smoked cigarettes and discussed Freud:—

and surely is, normal to be in the thirties; the right ordinary age, that most people are.

The girl Gerda, her mother, her grandmother, and her great-grandmother, each from her differing age standpoint, are all engaged in wrestling with the problem how to retain interest in life, how to avoid settling down into that animal apathy which afflicts so many of their sex. They are all vital, intellectual women, the product of tlieir time and the outcome of their environment. Tho most pressing problem presented itself in these words, “How to be useful though married.” Gerda and her brother Kay, with the impetuosity of

About Kay and Gerda there was a certain splendid earnestness with regard to life. Admirable creatures, thought Neville, watching them with whimsical tenderness. They had nothing to do with the pre-war dilettante past, with the sophisticated gaiety of the young century. Their childhood had been lived during the Great War, and they had emerged from it hot with elemental things, discussing life, lust, love, politics, and social reform with cool candour, intelligent thoroughness, and Elizabethan directness. They wouldn’t mind having passions and giving them rein; they wouldn’t think it vulgar, or even tedious, to Iqad loose lives. Probably, in fact, it wasn’t; probably it was Neville and the people who had grown up with her who were over-civilised, too far from the crude stuff of life, the monotonies and emotionalisms of Nature. And now Nature was taking her rather startling 1 revenge on the next generation. The Freudian theory and its exponents occupy attention as a remedy for “the dangerous ages,” and the theme gives Miss Macaulay opportunity for sonic sly satire. At the opposite pole, since religion as well aa sex is a prolific subject for discussion,' stands the Salvation Army. At the seaside, where Mrs Hilary’s sixty-third birthday, following Neville’s forty-third, is being celebrated, the Salvation Army Band struck Up a tune, whereupon “Rosalind, who had a fine rolling voice, began reciting ‘General Booth enters into Heaven.’ by Mr Vachell Lindsay, which Mrs Hilary found disgusting”:— “A wonderful man,” said Grandmamma. who had been reading the General’s life in two large volume?, “though mistaken about many things. And Ins Life would have been more interesting if it -had been written by Mr Lytton Straehev instead of Mr Begbie; ho has ?i better touch on our great religions leaders. Youv grandfather,'* added Grandmamma, “always got on well with the Army people. He encouraged them. The present vicar does not. He says their methods are deplorable and their £oal a delusion. **

All through the story the characters read the London Mercury, and when Cerda was laid up in bed owing to a bicvcle accident, her grandmother sent her “The Diary Opal_ Whitcloy,” but “so terrible did' she find it that it caused a relapse, and Neville had to remove it.” The climax of the storv comes when Cerda falls in love with Barrv • her ‘ anrf Barry asks the question, When shall we get married?” “Mnrnage,” pild Cerda, “is eo Victorian. It’s like antimacassars.” Thus the two young peop.e, whenever they met. discussed this question of marriage, up-hill . and down Hae, until both were thoroughly sick of the. subject. At length, acting on Kav’s ndvire. Cerda said to Barrv, “I’ve been 1 hulking it over again, Barrv, and T’.ve decided that perhaps it will he all ri-ht for ns to got married after all.” As in the eighteenth century, so in the twentieth 1 amela persisted, and ’.the end was identh cal. As_ regards the dangerous ages a conversation between Grandmamma and lamela at the close of the storv sums up the situation. Pamela being another of Mrs Hilary s daughters;

Pamela said blandly to Grandmamma, when the old lady commented one dav on her admirable composure, “Life’s so ehort, you see. Can anything which lasts such a little while be worth making such a fuss about?’’

“Oh,” said Grandmamma, “that’s been my philosophy for ten years only ten years. You’ve no business with it at your age, child !” returned Pamela, negligent 'mid cool, ‘has extremely little to do with anything that matters. The' difference between one age and another is. as a rule, enormously exaggerated. How many years we’ve lived on this ridiculous planet —how many more we’re going to live on it—what a trifle! Age is a matter of exceedingly little importance.” “And so, you would imply, is everything else on the ridiculous planet,” said Grandmamma shrewdly. Pamela smiled, neither affirming nor denying. Lightly the key seemed to swing from her open hand. “I certainly don’t see quite what nil the fuss is about. . . .” lI.—THE CHINATOWN WOMAN.

It is ft sudden chancre from the comparative comfort and brilliant persiflage and philosophy of “Dangerous Ages’’ to the grim realism and sordid circumstance of “Whispering Windows.” Miss Macaulay knows well the atmosphere of the wcll-to-dc bourgeoisie of whom she writes, but not one whit better than does Mr Thomas Bourko ihc intimacies of the Chinatown, down by the wharves, in the East End of London. In “Limohouse Nights” and again in “ Twinkleloes ” Mr Burke has given samples of (ho pitiless fashion in which he faithfully reflects the life of that region. In his latest bonk. “Whisnering Windows; Tales of the Waterside,” lie provides a fresh proof of his power to make his readers shrink and shudder. Yet even among (he horror, (he cruelty, and the savagery • displayed in these stories Pamela persists, even when the motive !>••> revenge and the stimulus hard, unceasing pain. Pamela persists when Hetty takes (lie yellow scarf from Tom the Toff, though it leads to his dreadful death at the hands of her husband. Pamela persists when in her tragic suicide Daisy secured the arrest and execution of the tyrant Barney. Pamela persists in the self-sacrifice of Bluebell to Plinery Sam in a futi'e attempt to save her father from the hand of justice. And Pamela persisted in the person of

San Lee in the matter of Boy Blue and the double murder contrived by the far seeing Ah Fat. “Whispering Windows’’ ii a haunting book to be avoided by readers who like comfortable, nice things. But in almost every story the moral holds good, that, in the slums as in high life, when Pamela persists she gets her own way. lII.—THE IRISH WOMAN.

Any book that seems to shed light on the Irish problem is welcome to-day, and Mr Norreys Connell —who writes under the pseudonym of “ Conal O’Riordan” —makes an important contribution to the subject in “Adam and Caroline.” When John Millington Synge died in March, 1909, Mr Connell succeeded him as co-direotor with Mr W. B. Yeats in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, and at that theatre he produced his one-act play “The Piper” and the “imaginary conversation ” entitled “Time” some years ago. His first experience in fiction was “Adam of Dublin,” to which “Adam and Caroline ” forms a sequel, leaving “Adam and Barbara” yet to he told._ The merit of “Adam of Dublin” lay in its faithful transcript of Dublin slum life, with all the actions and reactions of the re strictions of religions and abandonment to pleasure. In his second book Mr Connell takes Adam past the stage of adolescence, and, retaining in every particular the faithfulness of the Dublin atmosphere, intro duces the episode of Caroline. The interest in the story may be said to centre around Caroline Brady, who, it may he remem bored, was Adam’s first love, “who had kissed him on the lips in Dalkey Tunnell.’* Their amorous adventure on the wet bank holiday, which caused the death of Caroline, is well and pathetically told. In a sense Caroline may be said to embody tha spirit of the South of Ireland, a heart set upon a certain accomplishment and a determination to achieve at all costs—another instance of the persistence of Pamela. Apart from its central interest “Adam and Caroline” is worth reading for the sympathetic side-lights it throws unon the life of the Irish people of the humbler sort, and especially for its character sketches of the Irish women.

IV.—THE FRENCH WOMAN. M. Henri. Barbusst, author of “Lo Feu,” hails ‘‘Woman,” by Madame Magdeleine Marx, as ‘‘a powerful, a rebel, a virgin, work,” placing the author ‘‘among the loftiest poets of the age.” When M. Barbusse’s own books were rendered into English they had the advantage of a translator like Mr Fitzwater Wray, with the result that the translation was equally powerful as the original. Madame Marx has not been so fortunate. Presumably the English edition of “Woman” has come via America., and American translations of European works invariably suffer from the same defect —while literally correct as regards the actual meaning of the words and sentences, they suffer from "lack of style. Thus “Woman” in its present form has lost, in translation, whatever poetry the original possessed, and this, while in no wise detracting from the subject matter, renders the presentation less pleasing. Madame Marx has ambitiously attempted to set down the life of a woman, her birth, her becoming, her being. A comparison may readily be instituted between the personnel of Marie Bashkirstoff and this book of Madame Marx, but with this difference that the little Russian girl never married and died, the Woman of Madame Marx’s book had children and remained alive. This essential difference apart, there are the same age-long questionings, the same perplexing problems, the same yearnings after the unattainab’e. Running through the story, the texture of which is delicate and slight, is the picture of a union so perfect that it surmounts difficulty and overcomes obstacles. Blotting out that perfect picture comes the death of the beloved at the war, and Woman is left to carry on alone. And even then, her life darkened by this tragedy, Pamela persists.

V.—THE AMERICAN 'WOMAN. “Main Street,” by Mr Sinclair Lewis, is a big book of more than 450 pages, yet one which should find favour with readers in the dominion. This ‘ Story of Carol Kennicott” is a talc of “Gopher Prairie, Minnesota,” a town of a few thousand people, “in a region of wheat and corn and dairies and little groves.” Before Carol Kennicott married the rising young medico of Copher Prairie she was Carol Milford, educated at Blodgett College, “a rebellious girl” of the spirit of that bewildered empire called the American Middle West. There are “Gopher Prairies” in New Zealand, and also Carol Milfords who become Carol Konnicotts. and who rebel against both husbands and environment. Dr Kennicott was a good man. a skilful surgeon, and a conscientious physician, who devoted himself to his town and his patients, but in consequence assimilated the spirit of Gopher Prairie, with its one main street, its stores, its movies, its small talk, and its scandal. To Gopher Prair-e came Carol as a bride with “high-brow” ideas of making a beautiful home and forming a circle in which literature, the drama art, and music, and beautiful things should have a proper place. She set out. as the doctor’s wife, to reform Gppher Prairie, only to court ridicule, nr at least good-humoured tolerance. Baulked in this direction and striving after an outlet for her natural desires. Carol conceives herself ill-mated, and indulges in flirtations with well nigh disastrous results. Pamela persists, however. and the storv end* with Card saving to Kennicott. after admitting how thoroughly she has been beaten: “But I havo won in this: I’ve never excused my failures by sneering at my aspirations, by pretend'nc to have "one bevond them. I do not admit that Main Street is ?.s beautiful as it should be! I do not admit that Gopher Prairie i* greater or more generous than Europe! Ido not admit that dishwashing is enough to satisfy all women! I may not have fouebt. the good fight, hut I have kept the faith.”