THE INTELLIGENT WOMEN'S GUIDE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23595, 3 September 1938, Page 4

THE INTELLIGENT WOMEN'S GUIDE

The latest book of Virginia Woolf bears out what has been suggested by all her previous books—that she is acutely conscious of the times in which she lives. She beholds the world as it is at the very moment in which she writes and so analyses it as to let it be best appreciated in its relation to an ideal world. Especially is this so in regard to the world of women. Mrs Woolf is, however, no feminist. What she asks for women is only that which, by benefiting them, will be of benefit to the- rest of humanity also, and though, when comparing the economic and social status of the two sexes, she

seems to devote much time to exposing the selfishness of men, the real object of her censure is actually women. Her method is the age-old one of criticism by which, subtly refusing to consider that women could ever be other than what she describes them as being, she presents them as embodying all the virtues of feminity. No woman, reading this exalted description of her supposed powers of endurance, aspirations. vision, forethought and longing for culture as embodied in such pioneers in the women’s movement as Josephine Butler, Sophia Jex-Blake, Emily Daires and others of their ilk. could fail to be aware of her own lack in these qualities, and one supposes that it is from the very shame thus engendered that Virginia Woolf hopes that women will be stimulated into being in actuality what she paints them as being in theory.

VIRGINIA WOOLF DISCUSSES FEMINISM

Pres's Th 7s e 6d UineaS "" By Virginia Woolf - Lon don: the Hogarth

Mrs Woolf received three separate requests for a guinea—one from the treasurer of a society who asked her opinion as to how to prevent war and for a subscription to his society for the preservation of peace and of civil and intellectual liberty; one from the treasurer of a women's college; and one from the treasurer of a society for obtaining employment for professional women. The book is an attempt to trace the connection between the three reauests as considered from the point of view of an educated man's daughter, and to discover upon what terms the three guineas should be given to the three treasurers. But actually it is an intelligent woman's opinion upon a great many vital and topical subjects, including not only war. women's education and women's place in the professions, but also all the ramifications that can spring from so sturdy a growth as these three tonics twined together.

The epistolatorv style which charmed readers in Mrs Woolf's previous works of criticism—" The Common Reader." "Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown." "A Room of One's Own." "A Letter to a Young Poet," and "Walter Siebert"— is again employed to lead from one line of argument to another and from one suggestion to the next, and, as before, one arrives at a conclusion only to be taken on again to some objection arising out of it. The evidence of a brilliant mind guided to make its observations by reason of the far-seeing and humanitarian outlook of the spirit behind it is again there as in the previous books, and again, also, its ideas are expressed with that sensitive and exquisite choice of the right word that has characterised Virginia Woolf from the time when she first began to write. "Three Guineas," despite the leisurely way with which it proceeds, is seriously concerned with the present state of the world's affairs and deliberately challenges educated women to play their part in putting things to rights, especially in regard to the prevention of war. What that part may be is explained so forcibly despite its apparent breeziness, that no woman with any real feeling in her composition but will sec at once where her duty lies in regard, not only to herself, her family and her environment, but also to the world in general. E. L. S

Messrs Gollancz, Ltd., announce that they will publish “The Truth About the Peace Treaties," by Mr Lloyd George. The work will be in two volumes; the first to be issued early in October, and the second during November. This is the “ inside story ” of the treaties, told with a mass of documentary evidence.