justice or liberty. Let us take what the prese offers-airplanes and all. But let us not thro away what other men, in other ages, have di for the sake of discovering. If the lore of t past is useless, there is every chance-one mu be very overweening indeed not to admit itthat the lore of our generation will be useles too. Culture-whether you use the word itse or find another term-means only a dece economy of human experience. You cann improve on things without keeping those thin pretty steadily in mind. Otherwise you run t risk of wasting a lot of time doing somethin that has already been done. Any one, I thin will admit that. And it is not a far step to t realization that on the whole it is wise not lose the past out of our minds. There is glory in being wiser than the original savag there is glory in being wiser than the origin sage. But in order to be wiser than he, we mu have a shrewd suspicion of how wise he wa By and large, without culture, that shrev suspicion will never be ours. peat it was always given us a ecipitate of human nature-Don Tom Jones are equally "true," a sense, for all time; but our Es give us every quirk and turn of deal, and fifty years hence, if read be too "quaint" for words. And to o has been reading fiction for the years, it is cryingly obvious that human nature have changed. novel was Jane Eyre; and at the , I fell desperately in love with chester. No instance could serve int the distance we have come. I extraordinary little girl (except s, I was extraordinarily fortunate mitted to encounter the classics in I dare say that if I had not met ter, I should have succumbed to ary gentleman of a quite different y be that I should have fallen in ime and chance permitted-with The Beloved Vagabond. But I the first place, novels no longer [ 941 People are al in women have almost more inte (the stable sex) new woman (by est) would not ter. It is therei create heroes w fall in love with faction, they hav have the men c of to-day are qu my friends marr It is immense One by one, the masculine (as w Gone are Mr. R with the vicomt gerald (the on woman, Lady G fasted on curaç longer does Blan lish hero of the thing to an Itali in women have changed: what seems to almost more interesting is that fashions in n (the stable sex) have changed to match. T new woman (by which I mean the very n est) would not fall in love with Mr. Roch ter. It is therefore "up to" the novelists create heroes whom the modern heroine fall in love with. This, to the popular sa faction, they have done. And not only in fict have the men changed; in life, too, the n of to-day are quite different. I know, beca my friends marry them. It is immensely interesting, this differer One by one, the man has sloughed off his m masculine (as we knew them) characterist Gone are Mr. Rochester, who fought the d with the vicomte at dawn, and Burgo F gerald (the only love of that incompara woman, Lady Glencora Palliser), who bre fasted on curaçao and pâté de foie gras. longer does Blanche Ingram declare, "An E lish hero of the road would be the next b thing to an Italian bandit, and that could o f he has, concerning them, socialons. He must be too altruistic to and if he is to be wholly up-toust refuse to eat them. He must "pistols and coffee": his only peron is benevolent legislation. mean that he is to be a milk-sopChristianity" has at least taught us Il for the hero to be in the pink of s he may any day have a street hands. And he should have the men and of angels. Gone is the Guardsman-gone forever. The o has read books that Burgo FitzGuy Livingstone and Mr. Rochesard of. He is ready to address any nd to argue with any antagonist, He is, preferably, personally unsex until the heroine arrives; but means effeminate. He is a very and interesting creature. Some aits are discernible in him; but the entury would not have known him [96] peacock's tail. V misled by it, an the peacock's so has there been a scientific talk al feminine young Before a young to marry a you cussed with him white slavery, miracle-the ev is that she shou to marry him peacock s tall. vve are mortaшy arraia or D misled by it, and of discovering, too late, the peacock's soul is not quite the thing. N has there been among the feminine young n scientific talk about sex, and never among feminine young such a scientific distrust o Before a young woman suspects that she w to marry a young man, she has probably cussed with him, exhaustively, the penal c white slavery, eugenics, and race-suicide. miracle-the everlasting miracle of Natur is that she should want, in these circumsta to marry him at all. She probably does unless his views have been wholly to her s faction. And with those views, what has perpetual glory of the peacock's tail to do So much for life. In our English fictio am inclined to believe that George Eliot b it with Daniel Deronda. But, in our own Meredith did more. Up to the time of M dith, the dominant male was the fashion hero. Tom Jones, and Sir Charles Grandi and Fairfax Rochester, and "Stunning" V rington are as different as possible; but al [97] |