would know ever have s conventions or Jacob St apter to char what he did known what: d not even har mself an evil ne of these r elf an evil moti be right; and: act opposite, th e bewildered w rge, they are s rupting than e nineties. an Gray, or in and ladies: imagining the like an Au have like Dent harm in their day. But they did not deluding the public into thinking t were virtuous: they did it by being the expense of virtue. Our novelists witty at the expense of virtue (or at th of anything else, be it said in passing perform all their antics in the very virtue. They are right, and everyon wrong. Now the révolté with a programm endure, for we have often, during dled history of civilization, had to end Sometimes he does a lot of damag times he does a lot of good. The poin in either case, his emotional force ha the service of his programme. The with these people is that they have gramme. They are révoltés because dissatisfied or in hard luck, and wildly. They have not the brains anything out. Our friends of the thought that nothing was sacred-ex haps, beauty. These folk know nothi beauty-even Mr. Galsworthy, who actory to deal with as the wild gun in re-Vingt-Treize. Since their own impulses and change-and are always sacredcan do nothing except express perfect conce in their temperaments. You are not to them by their fruits; you are to judge by their good intentions—for which you take their own word. or are they "ineffectual angels." If they were! They are guilty of a lot of very le impulses, and proceed often to gratify - So did the romantic hero-villains, you say. Ah, but here is the difference. The ntic hero-villains were proud, sometimes, eir sin; but they called it sin, even while boasted of it. So did the æsthetes of the ies. If it had not been sin, there would been no fun in it. A very lamentable of view, doubtless; but less dangerous to y than the contemporary mode. For you still call it sin, you are accepting the ories, if not the judgments, of society. will not hurt society much while you t its categories. What these young men this is As with more unlov like Well treac dentl she Old re 22 5: you are al angels." lis y of a lot cir eed often to g c hero-vis the difference. T proud, sometime dit sin, even wh the asthetes of n sin, there m A very lament 1 t less dangerous orary mode. Fr u are accepting ments, of socie much while m these young m only, is virtuous; marriage becomes the moment marriage becomes conver you never know when obstacles are appear or disappear-as convenience in the hands of mere fortuitous fat is no test left. You must, I repeat, ha faith in their temperaments. I do n this is too hard a saying. As for the women who match a with the men: they do not give more hope. They are, to speak pla unlovely lot. You may be as sorry like for them, but pity is not pra Wells's women are too apt to be se treacherous; Mr. Bennett's opinion dently that no woman can be decer she is a fool-like Constance, say, Old Wives' Tale. (I know there Challis; but I fancy Alice is only a sy what every man wants and never get look, for a moment, at the women by the syndicate. They are cheap: ha out being strong; cold without bein sentimental without being kind. The [245] ine of Gray Icain, or even Rachel Beater, whose mental energy all goes into t. If Mr. Walpole had made the Duchess Trexe a human being, in whose reality we I believe, we might have more sympathy Rachel's spiteful traffickings with the ly ne'er-do-well. But we should have to be unk in fetishism to believe in the Duchshe is a mere Mumbo-Jumbo; and her ly seems about as intelligent as the first s of Dahomey. Compare her, for an nt, with Lady Kew. No, a tyranny like is an invented tyranny; it has nothing to ith life. The Duchess of Wrexe (to bora term from the anthropologists) has no a at all. Rachel's revolt is absurd; and y shows up Rachel as a very disagreeand headstrong person. True, there is ys something to make their revolts abThey seem not to be dealing with facts 1, these young people; probably because are all sentimentalists, and for a sentialist a delusion is as good as a fact, any A wicked giant is, by definition, anything [246] the roo as it s ing. N ever a edy o far be the so ing. Ir anythi let the let us pover these Mr. never not d else. a sta the root of all evil, logically exposed as it so often is in the work of Geor ing. Not one of this group of auth ever achieved the cumulative, inevital edy of New Grub Street, for exa far better indictment of some of the the social order than all this modern ing. Indeed, not one of them is able anything seem inevitable. If they wo let the indictment be pitiless and let i let us draw our own conclusions! An poverty, have you noticed that eve these young men are as poor as the Mr. Onions's trilogy, they get over i never end in poverty. Yet their grieva not disposed of when they become that time, they are worried about s else. They have the complaining hal or poor, married or unmarried, they ways, one foresees, going to complai authors convince one that their Utop be a hell on earth. They cannot reas cannot even dream convincingly. The a state of pitiful intellectual poverty |