The Changed Fashion of the Proposal in Fiction.

Otago Witness, Volume 25, Issue 2321, 25 August 1898, Page 60

The Changed Fashion of the Proposal in Fiction.

Novelists and Love-making.

Until a few years ago we were able to revel in the proposal and acceptance, and in the love scenes which gradually led up to them. There were the happy accidental meetings, the occult way one knew when the other was in the room, and the electro-mag-netio hand-clasp— all fortunate precursors to a certain moonlight night, with the soft splashing of tho fountain, and softer music in the distance (a conservatory has long been the favoured spot). The mise-en-scene was perfect; so seemed the proposal and acceptance.

But the woman with a mission is now upon us, the head of a large and rapidlyincreasing army. With their nursing and college settlement work, the Avises and Marcellas of fiction have almost thrown the proposal out of date. Nor is it to be wondeied at when The Favoured Replies

aro something like this: "I do not know whether you will believe me or not, but, unlike other women, I have never thought of ■• ->nvriage." Sometimes ii is: "I do noi care ior yoii, but life means more to me than individual happiness. Marriage is for some women, but not for me." And it is the harclheartedness of tluese modern heroines which has caused tho decline of the lover en bended knee, since it is difficult for even a novelhero to get up gracefully, after a refusal, without an awkward pause. Ho must be able at once to " turn en his heel and stride towards the door."

Richardson and the Earlier Novelists had no refractory heroines like ours of today. They were often coy and seemingly indifferent, but always to be won at the end of the fifth or seventh volume.

The priggish Sir Charles Grandison makes his offer first to Harriet's grandmother, and then humbly acks for an interview in the presence of both grandmother and aunt ; " for neither Miss Byron nor i can wish the absence of two such parental relations." Through seven volumes he is beset with all the becoming doubts and fears of a modern lover, until hi.3 "Can you, inadame?" and her "I can, I do,"' close the scene.

Miss Burney's " Evelina " ushers in an army of tearful and moist heroines', especially at proposal time. _ "The pearly fugitives are constantly chasing one another down the cheeks of Queechy, and of £}ertrudo in "The Lamplighter." These heroines do not sob, as many children do, but utter "a succession of piercing shrieks." When tha proposal corner, and the original "'brother and sister" joke i-3 born — Willie having exclaimed, " But even then I did not dream that, you would refuse me at least a brother's claim to your affection," and Gertrude having cried eagerly, " Oh, Willie, you must not be angry with me. Let me be your sister" — we are not surprised that "a tear started to her eye " !

Miss Edgeworth has a faint foreshadowing of modern heroines. She is able to &how with true feminine delicacy their unwillingness to have lo\e thrust upon them. When Falconer has tit last proposed, Caroline, who is only 18, listens calmly, and then delivers herself of the following: — "I am at present happily occupied in various ways, endeavouring to improve myself, and I should bo sorry to have my mind turned from these pursuits." With Miss Bronto came the modern treatment of the proposal, one in which there was no tame surrender, but a fight and struggle. This " duel of hearts " has been followed by most of our women novelists of to-day. No other woman novelist has devoted so much thought to woman, and so little to love-making, as

George Eliot. Gwendoline, of "the dynamic glance," makes a close approach to the modern woman who never hesitates — if popular report can_ be trusted — to take a hand in her own wooing. " But can you marry?" " Yes " ; and wo are thankful to know that Daniel Deronda has the good grace to say it in a low voice, and then goes off to the colourless Mirah, leaving Gwendoline to suffer the fate of the innovator, and become the victim of his happiness. More fortunate is Dorothea after the declaration of Will Laidislaw: "We can never be married." " Some time— we might." Tito humbly asks Romola, "May I love you?" but Adam Bede cries, Dinah, I love you with my whole heart and poul !"

One of the Most Puzzling and Original Proposals

in modern fiction is that of Levin to Kitty, in " Anna Karenina," when he traces on the table with chalk, ' w. y. s. i. i. i. w. i. t. o. a.," which Kitty reads without hesitation, as "When you said, 'It is impossible' was it then or always?" and she answers with "t. I. c. n. a. d.," which he reads with equal facility, " Then I could not answer differently." Certainly tho traditional keen vision of the lovers was not wanting. — Atlantic Monthly.