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diff --git a/old/68655-0.txt b/old/68655-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 41cdb69..0000000 --- a/old/68655-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5907 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Six modern women, by Laura Marholm -Hansson - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Six modern women - Psychological sketches - -Author: Laura Marholm Hansson - -Translator: Hermione Ramsden - -Release Date: July 30, 2022 [eBook #68655] - -Language: English - -Produced by: David E. Brown and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team - at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images - generously made available by The Internet Archive/American - Libraries.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIX MODERN WOMEN *** - - - - - -SIX MODERN WOMEN - - - - - SIX - MODERN WOMEN - - Psychological Sketches - - BY - LAURA MARHOLM HANSSON - - Translated from the German - - BY - HERMIONE RAMSDEN - - BOSTON - ROBERTS BROTHERS - 1896 - - - - - _Copyright, 1896_, - BY ROBERTS BROTHERS. - - _All rights reserved._ - - University Press: - JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. - - - - -PREFACE - - -It is not my purpose to contribute to the study of woman’s intellectual -life, or to discuss her capacity for artistic production, although -these six women are in a manner representative of woman’s intellect and -woman’s creative faculty. I have little to do with Marie Bashkirtseff’s -pictures in the Luxembourg, Sonia Kovalevsky’s doctor’s degree and -_Prix Bordin_, Anne Charlotte Edgren-Leffler’s stories and social -dramas, Eleonora Duse’s success as a tragedian in both worlds, and -with all that has made their names famous and is publicly known about -them. There is only one point which I should like to emphasize in -these six types of modern womanhood, and that is the manifestation of -their womanly feelings. I want to show how it asserts itself in spite -of everything,--in spite of the theories on which they built up their -lives, in spite of the opinions of which they were the teachers, -and in spite of the success which crowned their efforts, and bound -them by stronger chains than might have been the case had their lives -been passed in obscurity. They were out of harmony with themselves, -suffering from a conflict which made its first appearance in the world -when the “woman question” came to the fore, causing an unnatural breach -between the needs of the intellect and the requirements of their -womanly nature. Most of them succumbed in the struggle. - -A woman who seeks freedom by means of the modern method of independence -is generally one who desires to escape from a woman’s sufferings. She -is anxious to avoid subjection, also motherhood, and the dependence -and impersonality of an ordinary woman’s life; but in doing so -she unconsciously deprives herself of her womanliness. For them -all--for Marie Bashkirtseff as much as Sonia Kovalevsky and A. C. -Edgren-Leffler--the day came when they found themselves standing -at the door of the heart’s innermost sanctuary, and realized that -they were excluded. Some of them burst open the door, entered, and -became man’s once more. Others remained outside and died there. They -were all individualistic, these six women. It was this fact that -moulded their destiny; but Eleonora Duse was the only one of them who -was individualistic enough. None of them were able to stand alone, -as more than one had believed that she could. The women of our day -are difficult in the choice of a husband, and the men are slow and -mistrustful in their search for a wife. - -There are some hidden peculiarities in woman’s soul which I have traced -in the lives of these six representative women, and I have written -them down for the benefit of those who have not had the opportunity of -discovering them for themselves. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - INTRODUCTION xi - - I. THE LEARNED WOMAN: SONIA KOVALEVSKY 3 - - II. NEUROTIC KEYNOTES: GEORGE EGERTON 61 - - III. THE MODERN WOMAN ON THE STAGE: ELEONORA DUSE 97 - - IV. THE WOMAN NATURALIST: AMALIE SKRAM 131 - - V. A YOUNG GIRL’S TRAGEDY: MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF 147 - - VI. THE WOMAN’S RIGHTS WOMAN: A. CH. EDGREN-LEFFLER 185 - - - - -INTRODUCTION - - -The subjects of these six psychological sketches are well known to -English readers, with the exception of Amalie Skram, the Norwegian -novelist, and Fru Leffler, who is known only as the biographer of Sonia -Kovalevsky. - -Laura Marholm, the writer of this book, is a German authoress of -Norwegian extraction, who is celebrated for her literary criticisms and -the beauty of her style. In September, 1889, she married Ola Hansson, -the Swedish author of “Sensitiva Amorosa,” “Young Scandinavia,” and a -novel called “Fru Esther Bruce,” in which the heroine is said to bear -a strong resemblance to Eleonora Duse. He has also published a volume -of prose poems, called “Ofeg’s Ditties,” which has been translated by -George Egerton, whose vivid style and powerful descriptions have gained -a place for her among the foremost women writers of the day. - -Laura Marholm was the first to introduce her husband to the German -public by means of two articles in the _Neue Freie Presse_. The first, -called “A Swedish Love Poet,” appeared May 24th, 1888, before they -had met, and was written in praise of his early work, “Sensitiva -Amorosa.” The second article was a criticism on “Pariahs,” and it is an -interesting fact that in it she compares him to Gottfried Keller. - -In all her writings, Laura Marholm looks at life through the spectacles -of a happy marriage; she believes that matured thought and widened -views can--in a woman’s case--be only the direct result of marriage; -and consequently she considers marriage to be absolutely indispensable -to every woman, and that without it she is both mentally and morally -undeveloped. She has little sympathy with the Woman’s Rights movement, -judged either from the social, political, or educational point -of view; with regard to the latter, she has not had a university -education herself, and she is not at all impressed by those who have. -She considers that a woman’s individuality is of greater importance -than her actions; she upholds woman’s influence _as woman_, and has -no sympathy with the advanced thinkers, who, with Stuart Mill at -their head, would fain have women exert their influence as thinking, -reasoning human beings, believing all other influence to be unworthy -the dignity of the modern woman. Laura Marholm has the intuitive -faculty, and this enables her to gauge the feelings of those women who -spend a long youth in waiting--who are taught to believe, and who do -believe, that their youth is nothing more than a transition period -between childhood and marriage,--women who grow old in waiting, and -awake to reality to find behind them nothing but a wasted youth, and -in the future--an empty old age. But these are not modern women, they -are the women of the _ancien régime_, who have missed their vocation, -and failed to attain their sole object in life,--viz., marriage. On -the one hand we are confronted with the old-fashioned girl, on the -other by the new woman. Of the two, we prefer the new woman; and while -recognizing her mistakes, and lamenting her exaggerated views, Laura -Marholm acknowledges that she is formed of the best material of the -age, and prophesies for her a brighter future. But her views differ -greatly from those of Ibsen and Björnson. According to Ibsen, a woman -is first of all a human being, and then a woman; she places the woman -first, the human being last. Björnson believes that an intellectually -developed woman with a life-work can get on very well by herself; Laura -Marholm maintains that, apart from man, a woman is nothing. According -to her, woman is a creature of instinct, and this instinct is her most -precious possession, and of far greater value than the intellect. Of -all the studies in this book, Fru Leffler is probably the one with whom -she is least in sympathy. Fru Leffler was essentially intellectual, -possessed of a somewhat cold and critical temperament, and in writing -the biography of Sonia Kovalevsky she was often unable to appreciate -the latter’s very complicated character. Sonia was a rare combination -of the mystic and the scientist; she was not only a mathematician, but -also, in every important crisis of her life, a dreamer of prophetic -dreams. The biography was intended to be the continuation of Sonia’s -own story of her childhood, and the two should be read together. As -a child, Sonia suffered from a painful conviction that in her family -she was not the favorite, and it is probable that her unaccountable -shyness, her want of self-confidence, and her inability to attract love -in after life, were due to the fact of her having passed an unhappy and -unloved childhood. - -Fru Leffler’s writings are remarkable for the simplicity and directness -of her style, her keen observation, and love of truth. Her talents were -by no means confined to her pen; she held a salon,--the resort of the -intellectual world of Stockholm,--and attained great popularity by her -tactfulness and social gifts. She did not, however, shine in society -to the same extent as Sonia Kovalevsky. Her conversation was not as -brilliant and witty as the latter’s, but it was always interesting, and -it was of the kind that is remembered long afterwards. “When she told -a story, analyzed a psychological problem, or recounted the contents -of a book, she always succeeded in setting forth its real character -in a clear and decided manner.” Sonia, on the other hand, was ever -ready with an original remark. Ellen Key tells how one day, when the -conversation turned upon love, Sonia exclaimed: “These amiable young -men are always writing books about love, and they do not even know that -some people have a genius for loving, just as others have a genius -for music and mechanics, and that for these erotic geniuses love is a -matter of life and death, whereas for others it is only an episode.” - -Fru Leffler travelled a great deal, and made many friends in the -countries that she visited. She took great interest in socialism, -anarchism, and all religious and educational movements. In London she -attended lectures given by Mrs. Marx-Aveling, Bradlaugh, and Mrs. -Besant. Theosophy, positivism, spiritualism, and atheism,--there was -nothing which did not interest her. The more she saw the more she -doubted the possibility of attaining to absolute truth in matters -either social or religious, and the more attracted she became by the -doctrine of evolution. - -From this authoress, who was the chief exponent of woman’s rights in -Sweden, we turn to a very different but no less interesting type. -Eleonora Duse, the great Italian actress, has visited London during -the past few years, acting in such a natural, and at the same time in -such a simple and life-like manner, that a knowledge of the language -was not absolutely indispensable to the enjoyment of the piece. Besides -most of the pieces mentioned here, she acted in _La Femme de Claude_, -_Cleopatra_, and _Martha_; but she attained her greatest triumph in -Goldoni’s comedy, _La Locandiera_. - -In all these typical women, Fru L. Marholm Hansson traces a likeness -which proves that they have something in common. Numerous and -conflicting as are the various opinions on the so-called “woman -question,” the best, and perhaps the only, way of elucidating it is -by doing as she has done in giving us these sketches. We have here -six modern women belonging to five nationalities, three of whom are -authoresses, and the other three--mathematician, actress, and artist, -portrayed and criticised by one who is herself a modern woman and an -authoress. - - H. R. - - - - -I - -_The Learned Woman_ - - -I - -It sometimes happens that a hidden characteristic of the age is -disclosed, not through any acuteness on the part of the spectator, -nor as the result of critical research, but of itself, as it were, -and spontaneously. A worn face rises before us, bearing the marks of -death, and never again may we gaze into the eyes which reveal the deep -psychological life of the soul. It is the dead who greet us, the dead -who survive us, and who will come to life again and again in future -generations, long after we have ceased to be; those dead who will -become the living, only to suffer and to die again. - -These self-revelations have always existed amongst men, but among women -they were unknown until now, when this tired century is drawing to its -close. It is one of the strangest signs of the coming age that woman -has attained to the intellectual consciousness of herself as woman, and -can say what she is, what she wishes, and what she longs for. But she -pays for this knowledge with her death. - -Marie Bashkirtseff’s Journal was just such a self-revelation as this; -the moment it appeared it was carried throughout the whole of Europe, -and further than Europe, on far-reaching waves of human sympathy. -Wherever it went it threw a firebrand into the women’s hearts, which -set them burning without most of them knowing what this burning -betokened. They read the book with a strange and painful emotion, -for as they turned over these pages so full of ardent energy, tears, -and yearning, they beheld their own selves, strange, beautiful, and -exalted, but still themselves, though few of them could have explained -why or wherefore. - -It was no bitter struggle with the outer world to which Marie -Bashkirtseff succumbed at the age of four-and-twenty; it was not the -struggle of a girl of the middle classes for her daily bread, for which -she sacrifices her youth and spirits; she met with no obstacles beyond -the traditional customs which had become to her a second nature, no -obstruction greater than the atmosphere of the age in which she lived, -which bounded her own horizon, although in her inmost soul she rebelled -against it. She had everything that the world can give to assist the -unhindered development of the inner life,--mental, spiritual, and -physical; everything that hundreds of thousands of women, whose narrow -lives need expanding, have not got,--and yet she did not live her life. -On every one of the six hundred pages of her journal (written, as it -is, in her penetrating Russian-French style) we meet the despairing -cry that she had nothing, that she was ever alone in the midst of an -everlasting void, hungering at the table of life, spread for every one -except herself, standing with hands outstretched as the days passed by -and gave her nothing; youth and health were fading fast, the grave was -yawning, just a little chink, then wider and wider, and she must go -down without having had anything but work,--constant work,--trouble and -striving, and the empty fame which gives a stone in the place of bread. - - * * * * * - -The tired and discontented women of the time recognized themselves on -every page, and for many of them Marie Bashkirtseff’s Journal became a -kind of secret Bible in which they read a few sentences every morning, -or at night before going to sleep. - -A few years later there appeared another confession by a woman; this -time it was not an autobiography, like the last one, but it was -written by a friend, who was a European celebrity, with a name as -lasting as her own. This book was called “Sonia Kovalevsky: Our Mutual -Experiences, and the things she told me about herself.” The writer was -Anne Charlotte Edgren-Leffler, Duchess of Cajanello, who had been her -daily companion during years of friendship. - -There was a curious likeness between Marie Bashkirtseff’s Journal and -Sonia Kovalevsky’s confessions, something in their innermost, personal -experiences which proves an identity of temperament as well as of -fortune, something which was not only due to the unconscious manner in -which they criticised life, but to life itself, life as they moulded -it, and as each was destined to live it. Marie Bashkirtseff and Sonia -Kovalevsky were both Russians,[1] both descended from rich and noble -families, both women of genius, and from their earliest childhood -they were both in a position to obtain all the advantages of a good -education. They were both born rulers, true children of nature, full -of originality, proud and independent. In all respects they were the -favorites of fortune, and yet--and yet neither of these extraordinary -women was satisfied, and they died because they could not be satisfied. -Is not this a sign of the times? - - -II - -The story of Sonia Kovalevsky’s life reads like an exciting novel, -which is, if anything, too richly furnished with strange events. Such -is life. It comes with hands full to its chosen ones, but it also takes -away gifts more priceless than it gave. - -At the age of eighteen Sonia Kovalevsky was already the mistress of -her own fate. She had married the husband of her choice, and he had -accompanied her to Heidelberg, where they both matriculated at the -university. From thence he took her to Berlin, where she lived with a -girl friend, who was a student like herself, and studied mathematics -at Weierstrass’s for the space of four years, only meeting her husband -occasionally in the course of her walks. Her marriage with Valdemar -Kovalevsky, afterwards Professor of Paleontology at the university -of Moscow, was a mere formality, and this extraordinary circumstance -brings us face to face with one of the chief characteristics of her -nature. - -Sonia Kovalevsky did not love her husband; there was, in fact, nothing -in her early youth to which she was less disposed than love. She was -possessed of an immense undefined thirst, which was something more -than a thirst for study, albeit that was the form which it took. Her -inexperienced, child-like nature was weighed down beneath the burden of -an exceptional talent. - -Sonia Krukovsky was the daughter of General Krukovsky of Palibino, -a French Grand-seigneur of old family; and when she was no more -than sixteen, she had in her the making of a great mathematician -and a great authoress. She was fully aware of the first, but of the -latter she knew nothing, for a woman’s literary talent nearly always -dates its origin from her experience of life. She was high-spirited -and enterprising,--qualities which are more often found among the -Sclavonic women than any other race of Europeans; she had that peculiar -consciousness of the shortness of life, the same which drove Marie -Bashkirtseff to accomplish more in the course of a few years than most -people would have achieved during the course of their whole existence. - -Sonia Kovalevsky’s girlhood was spent in Russia, during those years -of feverish excitement when the outbreaks of the Nihilists bore -witness to the working of a subterranean volcano, and the hearts and -intellects of the young glowed with an enthusiasm which led to the -self-annihilating deeds of fanaticism. A few winter months spent at -St. Petersburg decided the fate of Sonia and her elder sister, Anjuta. -The strict, old-fashioned notions of their family allowed them very -little liberty, and they longed for independence. In order to escape -from parental authority, a formal marriage was at this time a very -favorite expedient among young girls in Russia. A silent but widespread -antagonism reigned in all circles between the old and young; the latter -treated one another as secret allies, who by a look or pressure of the -hand could make themselves understood. It was not at all uncommon for -a girl to propose a formal marriage to a young man, generally with the -purpose of studying abroad, as this was the only means by which they -could obtain the consent of their unsuspecting parents to undertake the -journey. When they were abroad, they generally released each other from -all claims and separated, in order to study apart. Sonia’s sister was -anxious to escape in this way, as she possessed a remarkable literary -talent which her father had forbidden her to exercise. She accordingly -made the proposal in question to a young student of good family, named -Valdemar Kovalevsky; he, however, preferred Sonia, and this gave rise -to further complications, as their father refused to allow the younger -sister to marry before the elder. - -Sonia resorted to a stratagem, and one evening, when her parents were -giving a reception, she went secretly to Valdemar, and as soon as her -absence was discovered she sent a note to her father, with these words: -“I am with Valdemar; do not oppose our marriage any longer.” There -remained no alternative for General Krukovsky but to fetch his daughter -home as speedily as possible, and to announce her engagement. - -They were accompanied on their honeymoon by a girl friend, who was -equally imbued with the desire to study, and soon afterwards Anjuta -joined them. The first thing that Sonia and Valdemar did was to visit -George Eliot in London; after which Valdemar went to Jena and Munich, -while Sonia, with her sister and friend, studied at Heidelberg, where -they remained during two terms before going to Berlin. The sister went -secretly to Paris by herself. - -Arrived at Berlin, Sonia buried herself in her work. She saw no one -except Professor Weierstrass, who expressed the greatest admiration for -her quickness at mathematics, and did all in his power to assist her -by means of private lessons. If we are honest enough to call it by -its true name, we must confess that the life led by these two girls, -during eight terms, was the life of a dog. Sonia scarcely ever went out -of doors unless Valdemar fetched her for a walk, which was not often, -as he lived in another part of the town, and was constantly away. She -was tormented with a vague fear of exposing herself. Inexperienced as -both these friends were, they lived poorly, and ate little, allowing -themselves no pleasure of any sort, added to which they were tyrannized -over and cheated by their maid-servant. Sonia sat all day long at her -writing-table, hard at work with her mathematical exercises; and when -she took a short rest, it was only to run up and down the room, talking -aloud to herself, with her brains as busy as ever. She had never been -accustomed to do anything for herself; she had always been waited -upon, and it was impossible to persuade her even to buy a dress when -necessary, unless Valdemar accompanied her. But Valdemar soon tired of -rendering these unrequited services, and he often absented himself in -other towns for the completion of his own studies; and as they both -received an abundant supply of money from their respective homes, they -were in no way dependent upon each other. - -The year 1870 came and went; for Sonia it had been a year of study, and -nothing more. Her sleep had become shorter and more broken, and she -neither knew nor cared what she ate, when suddenly, in the spring of -the following year, she was sent for by her sister in Paris. Anjuta had -fallen passionately in love with a young Parisian, who was a member of -the Commune; he had just been arrested, and was in danger of losing his -life. Sonia and Valdemar succeeded in penetrating through the line of -troops, found Anjuta, and wrote to their father. General Krukovsky came -at once, and it was only then that he discovered what his daughters -were doing abroad, and learned for the first time that his eldest -daughter had been living alone in Paris, for Anjuta had always been -careful to send her letters through Sonia, with the Berlin postmark. - -Anjuta showed great spirit, and after an interview with Thiers they -succeeded in helping this very undesirable son-in-law to escape. -Throughout the whole affair their father’s behavior is a rare proof of -the nobility of the race from which Sonia sprang. This stern man not -only forgave--he also admired his daughters for what they had done. -The cold manner and grandfatherly authority with which he had hitherto -treated them was superseded by a cordial sympathy such as would have -been impossible before. He was much impressed by Anjuta’s passion, but -Sonia’s platonic marriage distressed him greatly. - -In the year 1874 Sonia took the degree of doctor at Göttingen, as the -result of three mathematical treatises, of which one especially, her -thesis “On the Theory of Partial Differential Equations,” is reckoned -one of her most prominent works. Immediately after this, the whole -family assembled on the old estate of Palibino. Sonia was completely -worn out, and it was a long time before she was able to resume any -severe brain work. Her holiday was cut short by her father’s death a -few months later, and the following winter was spent with her family -at St. Petersburg. Until now Sonia’s brain was the only part of her -which was thoroughly awakened. She had been entirely absorbed in her -studies, and had worked with the obstinate tenacity of auto-suggestion, -more commonly found in women, especially girls, than in men. Marie -Bashkirtseff had done the same, year in, year out; she had worked -breathlessly, feverishly, with an incomprehensible, unwearied power of -production,--while failing health was announcing the approach of death -in her frail young body. Suddenly the end came. - -Thousands of girls in middle-class families work themselves to death -in the same way. Badly paid to begin with, they lower the prices -still more by competing with one another. Others, placed in better -circumstances, work with the same insistency at useless handicrafts, -while a large number of women of the poorer classes work because they -are driven to it by dire necessity. The result is the same in all -cases; they lose the power of enjoyment, and forget what happiness -means. - -Sonia’s stay in St. Petersburg was the occasion of the first great -change which took place in her, to be followed later on by many like -changes. Mathematics were thrust aside; she did not want to hear any -more about them, she wanted to forget them. - -Mind and body were undergoing a healing process, struggling to attain -an even balance in her fresh young nature. She felt the need of change, -she required companionship, and she threw herself into the midst of all -social and intellectual pursuits. It was then that the woman awoke in -her. - -During the period of nervous excitement and sorrow which followed -after the death of her beloved father, she had become the wife of -her husband, after having been nominally married for nearly seven -years. Since then they had drawn closer to one another; and now that -her fortune, as long as her mother lived, was not sufficient for her -support, she and Valdemar invested their money in various speculations. -With true Russian enthusiasm they set to work building houses, -establishing watering-places, and starting newspapers, besides lending -their aid to every imaginable kind of new invention. The first year all -went well, and in 1878 a daughter was born. After that came the crash. -Kovalevsky was bitten with the rage for speculation, and although he -was nominated Professor of Paleontology at Moscow in 1880, and in spite -of all that his wife could do to dissuade him, he took shares in a -company connected with petroleum springs in the south of Russia. The -company was a swindle, the undertaking proved a failure, and he shot -himself. - -Sonia had left him some time before. She knew what was coming, having -been warned by bad dreams and presentiments, and as she had lost -her influence over him, and was anxious to provide for her own and -her child’s future, she left him and went to Paris. Just as she was -recovering from the nervous fever to which she succumbed on hearing the -news of her husband’s sudden death, she received the summons to go to -Stockholm. - -The invitation had been sent by the representatives of a Woman’s -Rights movement which was then in full swing. It was an exceedingly -narrow society of the genuine _bourgeois_ kind, and as it was to them -that she owed her appointment, they were anxious to bind her firmly -to their cause. Sonia soon won their hearts by the sociability of her -Russian nature, but as one term after the other passed by, she grew -more and more weary of it, and whenever her course of lectures was -over she hurried away as quickly as possible to Russia, Italy, France, -England,--no matter where, if only she could escape out of Sweden into -a freer atmosphere. She never looked upon her stay there as anything -more than an episode in her life, and she longed to be back in Paris; -but the years passed by, and she received no other appointment. - -Her lectures at the university began to pall upon her; it gave her no -pleasure to be forever teaching the students the same thing in a dreary -routine. She needed an incentive in the shape of some highly gifted -individual whom she could respect, and whose presence would call forth -her highest faculties; but even the esteem in which she held some few -people was not of long duration. - -Her friendship with Fru Edgren-Leffler dates from this period. It -was this lady’s renown as an authoress which roused Sonia’s talent -for writing, for her life had been rich in experiences, and never -wanting in variety until now, when, in a period of comparative -leisure, she allowed her thoughts to dwell upon the past. She began -by persuading Fru Edgren-Leffler to dramatize the sketches which she -gave her, and “The Struggle for Happiness” was the first result of this -collaboration. But Sonia soon realized that the honest, simple-minded -Swede was not in sympathy with this department of literature; so she -wrote a story on her own account, entitled “The Sisters Rajevsky,” -which was a sketch of her own youth, followed by an excellent novel -called “Vera Barantzova;” after which she began another novel called -“Vae Victis,” which was never finished. - - -III - -Up till now we have followed this remarkable woman’s life along a -clear, though somewhat agitated course; but from henceforward there -is something uncomfortable, something strange and distorted about it. -It is very difficult for us to ascertain the cause of her increasing -distraction of mind, and early death, and the difficulty is intensified -by the fact that the material contributed by Fru Leffler is poor and -contradictory, and also because her work is disfigured by the peculiar -inferences which she draws. - -I have seen four portraits of Sonia Kovalevsky, and they are all so -entirely different that no one would imagine that they were intended -to represent the same person. She had none of the fascinating, though -irregular beauty of Marie Bashkirtseff, who carried on an artistic -cult with her own person. Sonia’s powerful head, with the short hair, -massive forehead, and short-sighted eyes of the color of “green -gooseberries in syrup,” was placed on a delicate child-like body. -Her chief charm lay in her extraordinary liveliness and habit of -giving herself up entirely to the interest of the moment; but she was -completely unversed in the art of dress, and did not know how to appear -at her best; she never gave any thought to the subject at all until -she was thirty; and although she paid more attention to it then, she -never learned the secret. She aged early, and a celebrated poet has -described her to me as being a withered little old woman at the age of -thirty. These external circumstances stood more in her way in Sweden, -among a tall, fair people, than would have been possible either in -Russia or in Paris. Between herself and the Swedish type there was a -wide gulf fixed, which allowed no encouragement to the finer erotic -emotions to which she was very strongly disposed; she felt crushed, and -her impressionable, unattractive nature suffered acutely from being so -unlike the ordinary victorious type of beauty. The picture of her when -she was eighteen bears a strong resemblance to the late King Louis II. -of Bavaria; not only are her features like his, but also the expression -in the eyes and the curve of the lips. The second picture dates from -the year 1887. It has something wearied and disillusioned about it, and -she seems to be making an effort to appear amiable. It was taken at the -time when she was struggling to accustom herself to the stiff, prudish, -and somewhat pretentious ways of Stockholm society. The third portrait -was taken at the time when she won the _Prix Bordin_ in Paris, and it -is a regular Russian face, with a much more cheerful expression than -the former ones. But in the last picture, taken in the year 1890, which -was, to a certain extent, official and very much touched up, how ill -she looks; how disappointed and how weary! These four portraits are, -to my mind, four different women; they show us what Sonia was once, -and what she became after living for several years in an uncongenial -atmosphere. - -Sonia Kovalevsky was a true Russian genius, with an elastic nature. -She was lavish and careless in her ways, and she thrived best upon -a torn sofa in an atmosphere of tea, cigarettes, and profusion of -all kinds,--intellectual, spiritual, and pecuniary; she needed to be -surrounded by people like herself, who were in sympathy with her, -and the inhabitants of Stockholm were never that. She had been torn -away from the Russian surroundings in which she had lived in Berlin. -She, who never could endure solitude, found herself alone among -strangers, who forced themselves upon her,--hard, angular, women’s -rights women, who expected her to be their leader, and to fulfil a -mission. She seldom rebelled against the duties which were constantly -held before her eyes, partly because her vanity was flattered by the -public position which she occupied, and also because her livelihood -depended upon it, now that her private means were not sufficient for -her support, and for the numerous journeys which she undertook. - -A great deal of her time was spent in travelling to and fro between -Stockholm and St. Petersburg, where she went to visit Anjuta, whose -marriage had turned out most unhappily, and who was suffering from a -severe illness, of which she afterwards died. After her sister’s death -Sonia took a great interest in the study of Northern literature, which -was then just beginning to attract attention. She also wrote books, -and solved some mathematical problems. Every time that she returned -to Stockholm, after spending her holidays in Russia or the South, she -had almost entirely forgotten her Swedish, and every year that passed -by called forth fresh lamentations over her exile. The tone of society -in Stockholm was unendurable to her; but she was of too disciplined -a character, and too gentle, too submissive in her loneliness, to -rebel against it. Her life became monotonous, which it had never been -before, and her courage began to give way. She yearned for sympathy, -for excitement, for her native land,--for everything, in fact, which -was denied her. - -She also longed for something else, which was the very thing that she -could not have. She was seized with an eager, nervous longing to be -loved. She wanted to be a woman, to possess a woman’s charm. She had -lived like a widow for years during her husband’s lifetime, and for -years after his death as well. As long as her mathematical studies -produced a tension in her mind, she asked for nothing better, but -buried herself in her work, and was perfectly contented. When she -started being an authoress, a change came over her character. The -development of the imagination created a need for love, and because -this devouring need could not be satisfied, she became exacting, -discontented, and mistrustful of the amount of affection which was -accorded her. In her younger days she had asked for nothing more than -that curious kind of mystic love, known only to Russians, which had run -its course in mutual enthusiasm of a purely intellectual and spiritual -character. It was otherwise now. She lamented her lost youth, and the -time wasted in study; she regretted the unfortunate talent which had -deprived her womanhood of its attractiveness. She wanted to be a woman, -and to enjoy life as a woman. - -She had also another wish, just as passionate in its way and as -difficult of fulfilment as the former one, and this was her wish to -receive an appointment in Paris. It was to a certain extent fulfilled -when she was awarded the _Prix Bordin_ on Christmas Eve, 1888, on the -occasion of a solemn session of the French Academy of Science, in an -assembly which was largely composed of learned men. It was the highest -scientific distinction which had ever been accorded to a woman, and -from henceforth she was an European celebrity, with a place in history. -But it gave her no pleasure. She was as completely knocked up as she -had been after receiving her doctor’s degree. She had worked day and -night for days beforehand, and during the weeks that followed she took -part in the social functions which were given in her honor. She left no -pleasure untasted, and yet she was not satisfied, for by this time her -yearning for love had reached its highest pitch. - -A short time before, Sonia had made the acquaintance of a cousin of -her late husband’s, “fat M.,” as she called him. The companionship of -a sympathetic fellow-countryman put her in the height of good humor, -and she soon found it so indispensable that she wanted to have him -always at her side, and was never happy except when he was there. M. K. -did not return this strong affection; he was, however, quite willing -to marry her, and the result was that a most unfortunate relationship -sprang up between them. Sonia could not exist without him, so they -travelled from Stockholm to Russia, and from Russia to Paris or Italy, -in order to spend a few weeks together, and then separated, because -by that time they were mutually tired of each other. It was on one -of these journeys, when Sonia had come out of the sunshine of Italy -into the winter of Sweden, that she caught cold, and no sooner had she -arrived at Stockholm than she did everything to make her condition -worse. In a desperate mood of indifference she immediately commenced -her lectures, and went to all the social entertainments that were -given. Dark presentiments and dreams, in which she always believed, had -foretold that this year would be fatal to her. Longing for death, yet -fearing it, she died suddenly in the beginning of the year 1891. - - -IV - -Those who know something about Russian women, without having any very -detailed knowledge, divide them into two types, and a superficial -observer would class Sonia Kovalevsky as belonging to one or the other -of these. The first type consists of luxurious, languishing, idle, -fascinating women, with passionate black eyes, or playful gray ones, -a soft skin, and a delicate mouth, which is admirably adapted for -laughing and eating. These women have a most seductive charm; their -movements suggest that they are wont to recline on soft pillows, -dressed _en négligé_, and their power of chattering is unlimited, and -varies in tone from the most enchanting flattery to the worst temper -imaginable. They are, in fact, the most womanly of women, as little to -be depended upon in their amiability as in their anger; they are quick -to fall in love, and men are as quickly enthralled by them. But Sonia -Kovalevsky was not one of these. - -The women of the second type present the greatest contrast that it -is possible to imagine. They are honest and straightforward, and -essentially what is called “a good fellow,” plain, sensible, brave, -energetic, as strong in soul as in body,--thinking heads, flat -figures; they have none of that grace of form which is peculiar to a -large number of Russian women. Their faces are generally sallow, and -their skin is clammy, but thoroughly Russian in spite of it. There is -something lacking in them, which for want of a better expression I -shall call a want of sweetness. There is a curious neutrality about -them; it takes one some time to realize that they are women. And -they themselves are but dimly conscious of it, and then only on rare -occasions. They are generally people with a mission,--working people, -people with ideas. - -It is these women who have furnished the largest contingent to the -ranks of the Nihilists. It is they who chose to lead the lives of -hunted wild beasts, and who found ample compensation in mental -excitement for all that they had renounced as women and as persons -of refinement. But although this last is a genuine Russian type, it -is by no means confined to Russia. It is a type peculiar to the age. -The class of women who become Nihilists in Russia are the champions -for women’s rights in Sweden, and it is they who agitate for women’s -franchise in England, who start women’s clubs in America, and become -governesses in Germany. - -The type is universal, but it is left to circumstances to decide which -special form of mania it is to take,--a form of mania which calls -itself “a vocation in life.” In Russia the woman, in whom sex lay -dormant, felt it her calling to become a murderess, and that merely -from a general desire to promote the popular welfare; in Germany this -philanthropic spirit took the form of wishing to prune little human -plants in the Kindergarten. But this is a long chapter, which I cannot -pursue any further at present, and which, like many others on the -characteristics of the woman of to-day, I shall keep for a separate -book. We must include Sonia Kovalevsky in this latter type: she -considered herself as belonging to it, and the whole course of her life -is in itself sufficient to prove that she was one of them. The nature -of her friendships with men furnishes us with yet another proof. She -had a large circle of acquaintances, amongst whom were some of the best -known and most talented men of Russia, Scandinavia, England, Germany, -France, and Italy,--all of whom enjoyed her society, although not one -of them fell in love with her, and not one among those thousands said -to her, “I cannot exist without you.” - -She belonged to the class of women with brains, and she was numbered -amongst them. She was their triumphant banner, the emblem of their -greatest victory, and their appointed Professor. “She did not need the -lower pleasures; her science was her chief delight.” She stood on the -platform and taught men, and believed it to be her vocation. Was it not -for this that she had toiled during long years of overwork and study, -whilst concealing her real purpose under the threadbare cloak of a -feigned marriage? - -She was a woman of genius with a man’s brain, who had come into the -world as an example and a leader of all sister brains. - -She was, and she was not! Sometimes she felt that she was, and then -again she did not. In her latter years she disclaimed the whole of -her former life, and silence reigned among the aggrieved sisterhood -whenever her name was mentioned; if these latter years had never been, -they would have sent the hat round in order to erect a monument in her -memory. But that became impossible; silence was best. - -She was a woman. She was a woman in spite of all--in spite of a feigned -marriage which lasted nearly ten years, in spite of a widowhood -which lasted just as long, in spite of her Doctor’s degree and the -Professorship of Mathematics and the _Prix Bordin_--she was a woman -still; not merely a lady, but an unhappy, injured little woman, running -through the woods with a wailing cry for her husband. - -She was far more of a woman than those luxurious, prattling, -sweatmeat-eating young ladies whose languid movements lead us to -suppose that they have only just got out of bed; she was more of a -woman than the great majority of wives, whose sole occupation it is to -increase the world, and to obliterate themselves in so doing. - -She, who never charmed any man, was more of a woman than the charmers -who turn love into a vocation. She was a new kind of woman, understood -by no one, because she was new; she did not even understand herself, -and made mistakes for which she was less to blame than the spirit of -the age, by whose lash she was driven. And when she became free at -last, it was too late to map out a future of her own. - -Who knows whether it would have been better for her had she been free -from the first? A woman has no destiny of her own; she cannot have -one, because she cannot exist alone. Neither can she become a destiny, -except indirectly, and through the man. The more womanly she is, and -the more richly endowed, all the more surely will her destiny be shaped -by the man who takes her to be his wife. If then, even in the case of -the average woman, everything depends upon the man whom she marries, -how much more true must this be in the case of the woman of genius, in -whom not only her womanhood, but also her genius, needs calling to life -by the embrace of a man. And if even the average woman cannot attain -to the full consciousness of her womanhood without man, how much less -can the woman of genius, in whom sex is the actual root of her being, -and the source from whence she derives her talent and her _ego_. If -her womanhood remains unawakened, then however promising the beginning -may be, her life will be nothing more than a gradual decay, and the -stronger her vitality, the more terrible will the death-struggle be. - -That was Sonia’s life. No man took her in his arms and awoke the whole -harmony of her being. She became a mother and also a wife, but she -never learned what it is to love and be loved again. - - -V - -As I write, the air is filled with a sweet penetrating fragrance, which -comes from a tuberose, placed near me on the window-sill. The narrow -stalk seems scarcely strong enough to support its thick, knob-like head -with the withered buds and sickly, onion-shaped leaves. A tuberose is a -poor unshapely thing at the best of times, but this plant is unhealthy -because it has lived too long as an ornament in a dark corner of the -room under the chandeliers, among albums and photographs. It was dying -visibly, decaying at the roots, and there was no help for it. Of course -it was a rare flower, but it grew uglier from day to day. - -They put it on the window-sill, where there was just room for one plant -more, and a pot of mignonette was fetched out of the kitchen garden, -attired in an artistic ruffle of green silk paper, and placed under -the chandelier in its stead. It fulfilled its duty well, and seemed to -thrive admirably among the albums, visiting-cards, and photographs. -Nobody looked after the tuberose on the window-sill until it suddenly -reminded them of its existence by a strong smell, and even then they -only cast a hasty glance and noticed how sickly it looked. When I -examined it more closely, I discovered three blossoms in full flower, -and quite healthy; the stem was bent forward, and the blossoms were -pressing against the window-pane, doing their best to catch the rays -of the sun as long as the short autumn day lasted. It thrust forth its -dying blossoms and renewed itself now that the great warmer of life was -shining on, and embracing it. - -To me this flower is an emblem of Sonia Kovalevsky. - -She was a rare, strange being in this world of mignonette pots and -trivialities. Everything about her was out of proportion, from her -thin little body, with its large head, to the sweet fragrance of her -genius. She, too, stood in the place of honor under the chandelier, -among fashionable poets and thinkers who wrote and thought in -accordance with the spirit of the age; and she, too, sickened, as -though she desired something better, and the nervous blossoms which her -mind thrust forth grew more and more withered, and the thin stem which -carried her stretched more and more towards the greater warmer of life, -which shines upon and embraces the just and the unjust,--only not her, -only not her! - -What was the reason? Why did she get none of that love which is rained -down upon the most insignificant women in so lavish a manner by -impetuous mankind? - -“She was not in the least pretty, that is it,” reply her several women -admirers. - -But we women know well that it is not the prettiest women who are the -most loved, and that, on the contrary, the most ardent love always -falls to the share of those in whom men have something to excuse. -Barbey d’Aurevilly, the greatest women’s poet, has told us so in his -immortal lines. - -“She was too old,--that is to say, she aged too early,”--say her women -admirers, still anxious to find an explanation. - -But that is ridiculous. Sonia Kovalevsky died at the age of forty, and -that is the age when a Parisian _grande mondaine_ is at the height of -her popularity; and as for aging early--! A woman of genius does not -grow old as quickly as a teacher in a girl’s school, and the fading -tuberose which thrusts forth fresh blossoms has a far sweeter and more -penetrating fragrance than her white knob-headed sisters. - -“She asked too much,” asserts Fru Anne Charlotte Edgren-Leffler, -Duchess of Cajanello, who was of the same age as Sonia, and married at -the time when she died; and her entire book on Sonia is founded on the -one argument, that she asked too much of love. - -But how is it possible? Does not experience teach us that it is -just the women who ask most who receive most? Always make fresh -claims,--that is the motto of the majority of ladies in society, and -with this solid principle to start from they have none of them failed. - -“She had everything that a human being can desire,” said that worthy -writer, Jonas Lie, in an after-dinner speech. “She had genius, fame, -position, liberty, and she took the lead in the education of humanity. -But when she had all this it seemed to her as nothing; she stretched -out her hand like a little girl, and said, ‘Oh, do but give me also -this orange.’” - -It was kindly said, and also very true. Father Lie was the only person -who understood Sonia, and saw that she remained a little girl all her -life,--a woman who never reached her maturity. But, tell me, dear -Father Lie, do you consider love to be worth no more than an orange? - -No, these explanations will never satisfy us; they are far too shallow -and simple. The true reason lies deeper; it is more a symptom of the -time in which she lived than those who knew her will allow. Even -so friendly and intelligent an exponent as Ellen Key, her second -biographer, does not seem to be aware of the fact that, although Sonia -is a typical woman of her time,--typical of the more earnest upholders -of women’s rights, and the representative of the highest intellectual -accomplishments to which women have attained,--she is also typical of -that which the woman of this century loses in the struggle, and of that -in which the woman of the future will be the gainer. - -If Sonia failed to please,--she whose personal charm was so great, -whose vivacity was so prepossessing, as all who knew her declared that -it was; if she failed where so many lesser women have succeeded, her -failure was entirely due to her ignorance of the art of flirtation,--an -art which is as old as sex, and to which men have been accustomed since -the world began. Even the most refined, the most highly-developed men, -are not geniuses in this matter, where everything has always been most -carefully arranged for them. And if they did not fall in love with -Sonia, it was due to a kind of purity with which she unconsciously -regarded the preliminaries of love,--a kind of nobility which existed -in her more modern nature, and a lack of the ancient instinct which had -been a lost heritage to her. - -Sonia belonged to a class of women who have only been produced in -the latter half of our century, but in such large numbers that it -is they who have determined the modern type. We cannot help hoping -that they are but transitory, so greatly do their assumptions seem -opposed to their sex, and yet they are formed of the best material -that the age supplies. They are the women who object to begin life by -fulfilling their destinies as women, and who consider that they have -duties of greater importance than that of becoming wives and mothers; -they are the “clever” daughters of the middle-class families, who, -as governesses and teachers, swarm in every country in Europe. The -popular opinion about them is that they do not want to marry; and as -that, by the majority of men, is interpreted to mean that they are no -good as wives, they turn to the herd of geese who are driven yearly -to the market, and who go cackling to meet their fate. And although -the descendants of such fathers and such mothers present a very small -amount of intelligence capable of development, yet it is they who -form the majority, and the majority is always right. Formerly, it -was people’s sole object to get their daughters married, clever and -stupid alike; it was an understood thing. But nowadays, the ones with -“good heads” are set apart to lead celibate lives, while those who are -“hard of understanding” are brought into the marriage market. This -method of distribution has already become one of the first principles -of middle-class economy. The daughters who are considered capable of -providing for themselves are given a good education, accompanied by -numerous hints as to the large sums which their parents have spent -on them; while, together with the inevitable marriage portion, every -effort is made to find husbands for the others with as little delay as -possible. The first named are “the clever women,” but the latter make -“the best wives;” and man’s sense of justice in the distribution of the -good things of this life has fixed a stern practical barrier between -these two classes. - -The intellectual women themselves were originally to blame for -raising a distinction which is so essentially characteristic of our -time. They were the first to separate themselves, and to force the -narrow-minded _bourgeois_ to entertain other than the ordinary ideas -concerning women. They thrust aside the dishes which were spread for -them on life’s table, and grasped at others which had hitherto been -considered the sole property of men, such as smoking and drinking. And -when it appeared that they were really able to pass examinations and -smoke cigarettes, without suffering any apparent harm from either, -the spirit of equality, so popular at the present time, was quick to -recognize a proof of the equality between man and wife, and to proclaim -the equal rights of both, as well as the equality of the brain. They -did not mention the other human ingredient, which could never be either -equal or identical, because it is always inconvenient to go to the root -of a thing, and the arguments of this materialistic century are too -superficial ever to go below the surface. - -Can it be true that the talented woman has actually forgotten that -destiny intended her to be a woman, and bound her by eternal laws? Can -it be true that the best women have an unnatural desire to be half men, -and that they would prefer to shirk the duties of motherhood? A woman’s -stupidity would not suffice to account for such an interpretation; it -needs all a man’s thick-headedness; and yet there is no doubt that that -is, to a great extent, the popular view of the case. The women whose -intellectual abilities are above the average are often those who lay -themselves open to the reproach that they have abandoned their sex; and -yet, strange to say, some of them have attained to mature womanhood at -an exceedingly early age. Sonia, who was _par préférence_ the woman -of genius of this century, was only nine years old when she flew into -a passion of jealousy, caused by a little girl who was sitting on the -knees of her handsome young uncle. She bit him in the arm till it -bled, merely because she believed that he liked the child better than -herself; that this was something more than mere childish naughtiness, -is shown by the fact that her feelings towards her uncle were so -changed that from that moment she felt disillusioned, and treated him -with coldness. - -Disillusioned! Even in their childhood these women have a strong, -though indistinct, consciousness of their own worth as compared to -ordinary women. They are always on the watch, and they have a good -memory. Unlike ordinary young girls, they do not fall in love with mere -outward qualities, nor with the first man who happens to cross their -path. They wish to marry some one superior to themselves, and they do -not mistake a passing passion for love. Then when the first years of -adolescence with their hot impulses are past, and a temporary calm sets -in, they experience a new desire, which is that they may enter into -the full possession of their own being before beginning to raise a -new generation. Physical maturity, which has hitherto been considered -sufficient, has placed the need for intellectual and psychical maturity -in the shade. They want to be grown-up in mind and soul before entering -on life; they do not wish to remain children always; they want to -develop all their capabilities,--and this longing for individuality, -for which the road has not yet been made clear, nearly always leads -them astray into the wilderness of study. - -This is certainly the case when they are urged on, as Sonia Kovalevsky -was, by a remarkable talent. She was not even obliged to follow the -usual weary path of study; richly endowed and favorably situated as she -was, she discovered a more direct way than is possible to the majority -of girl students. Few have been able to begin as she did at the age of -seventeen, under the protection of a devoted husband, and under the -guidance of learned men, who took a personal interest in her welfare. -Few have finished at the age of twenty-four, and have been loaded with -distinctions while in the full bloom of their youth, able to stand on -the threshold of a rich, full life, while fortune bid them take and -choose whatever they might wish. - -Yet these were but hollow joys that were offered to her. Those six -years of protracted study left her weak in body and soul, and so -weary that she needed a long period of idle vegetation, and she felt -an aversion from the very studies in which she had accomplished so -much. Sonia had overworked herself in the way that most girls overwork -themselves in their examinations, whether it be for the university or -as teachers; they work on with persistent diligence, looking neither to -the right nor to the left, but going straight ahead as though they were -the victims of hypnotic suggestion, with all their energies paralyzed -except one solitary organ,--the memory. A man never does this; he -interrupts his studies with social recreations and by means of a -system of hygiene, applied alike to body and soul, from which a woman -is excluded, no less on account of her womanly susceptibility than -owing to conventional views. During this period of nervous tension, her -sex is silent; or if it shows itself at all, it does so only in general -irritability. - -This was the case with Sonia; but until she became thoroughly engrossed -in her work at Weierstrass’s, Valdemar Kovalevsky had a great deal to -endure. It was not enough for her that she made him run all kinds of -messages, which a servant could have done as well, but she was always -going to see him in his bachelor apartments, and planning little -excursions, and she was never satisfied unless she could have him to -herself. Valdemar did not understand her. He had willingly consented to -become the husband, in name only, of an undeveloped little girl, and be -respected the distorted ideas of the time, which had got firmly fixed -into this same little girl’s head. It is very natural that Sonia should -not have understood the situation; it was not her business to do so, it -was his. But she was always irritable and vexed after a _tête-à-tête_ -of any length with him, and long after his death she used scornfully to -say: “He could get on capitally without me. If he had his cigarettes, -his cup of tea, and a book, it was all that he required.” - -Valdemar Kovalevsky, the translator of Brehm’s Birds and other -popular scientific works into Russian, appears to have belonged to -that portion of the male sex who are called “paragons.” He drudged -diligently, had few wants, always did what was right, and never gave -in. But he was in no way suited to Sonia, and the fact of his having -agreed to her proposal proves it. After he had gone to Jena to escape -from her wilful squandering of his time, an estrangement took place -between them, and at Berlin she seems to have behaved as though she -were ashamed of him. She was living then, as we have seen, with a girl -friend who was a fellow-student of hers; and although she let Valdemar -fetch her from Weierstrass’s, she introduced him to no one, and did -not let it appear that he was her husband. Afterwards, when she had -finished her studies and undergone a long period of enforced idleness -at the time when her nerves were shaken by her father’s death, she -clung so closely to him that a little warmth came into his stolid -nature. But, naturally enough, neither her affection nor the birth of a -daughter could change his nature, and even during the short time when -they were together at St. Petersburg he allowed an intriguing swindler -to come between them. Repulsed, dissatisfied, and saddened, Sonia went -to Paris. - -She wished to stand alone, and the only way in which this was possible -was to turn her studies to account and to work for her own bread. -She had given up the wish to be a learned woman; she wanted to be a -wife, to be loved and made happy; she had done her best, but it had -turned out a failure. It was just about this time that she received an -invitation through Professor Mittag-Leffler to be teacher under him in -the new high school at Stockholm. He was Fru Leffler’s brother, and -a pupil of Weierstrass’s. Sonia gratefully consented, but a fine ear -detects a peculiar undertone in the letters with which she responded. - -In Stockholm she did not show the womanly side of her character to -any one, least of all to Professor Mittag-Leffler, with whom she was -on terms of the most cordial friendship. She found herself in very -uncongenial surroundings, in a society where life was conducted on the -strictest utilitarian principles. It was the worst time of her life, -and one from which her impressionable nature never entirely recovered. - -Before this, however, while she was in Paris, she had an experience -which was truly characteristic of her. - -In the interval which elapsed between her separation from her husband -and his death, she made the acquaintance of a young Pole, who was, as -Fru Leffler tells us, “a revolutionary, a mathematician, a poet, with -a soul aglow with enthusiasm like her own. It was the first time that -she had met any one who really understood her, who shared her varying -moods, and sympathized with all her thoughts and dreams as he did. -They were nearly always together, and the short hours when they were -apart were spent in writing long effusions to each other. They were -wild about the idea that human beings were created in couples, and that -men and women are only half beings until they have found their other -half....” He was with her by night and day, for he could seldom make up -his mind to go before two o’clock in the morning, when he would climb -over the garden wall, quite regardless of what people would think. Fru -Leffler, who had passed the twenty years of her first marriage in the -outer courts of the temple of Hymen, and only learned to know love and -the joys of motherhood at the age of forty, alludes to this incident as -being “very curious.” Because the two did nothing but talk, talk, talk, -revelling in each other’s conversation, and assuring one another that -they “could never be united,” because “he was going to keep himself -pure” for the girl who was wandering about on this or another planet, -and keeping herself for him. - -One would imagine that this was childish nonsense, and that a woman of -Sonia’s intelligence, with her position in the world, must surely have -sent the silly boy about his business as soon as he began to talk in -this strain. But no! her soul melted into his “like two flames which -unite in one common glow.” And there they sat, nervous and excited, -unable to tear themselves away from each other, flinging endless chains -of words backwards and forwards across the table, and pouring streams -of witticism into Danaïde’s barrel, talking as though life depended -upon it, for there must not be any pauses,--anything was better than -those dreadful pauses, when one seems to hear nothing but the beating -of one’s own pulse, when shy eyes meet another’s, and cold damp hands -seek for a corner in which to hide themselves. - -We do not know what pleasure the “pure” young mathematician, poet, -and Pole could find in this, nor do we care; we leave that to those -who take an interest in the ebullitions of model young men of his -class. The only part of the situation with which we are concerned is -Sonia herself, and she is extremely interesting. In the first place, -such a situation as this is never brought about by the man, or, at -any rate, not more than once; and a woman cannot be entrapped into -it against her will. The silliest schoolgirl knows how to get rid of -a troublesome man when she wishes; they all do it brilliantly. It -is quite a different matter when she wants him to stay, when she is -trembling with excitement, and dreads the moment when he will rise to -go. Who is not well acquainted with the situation, especially when the -parties concerned are an intelligent girl and a dilettante man? In this -case Sonia was the intelligent girl. Her behavior was that of a young -lady who is painfully conscious of her own inexperience. A married -woman who knows what love is can be calm in the presence of the warmest -passion. She knows so well the path which leads astray that she no -longer fears the unknown, and uncertainty has no attraction for her. - -I shall probably be told that it is the married women who enjoy these -situations most. That is quite true. There are many married women -for whom marriage is neither _l’amour goût_, nor _l’amour passion_, -nor _l’amour savant_, nor yet any other love, but a mere mechanical -transaction. If the husband is indifferent he cannot rouse his wife’s -love. Not motherhood, but the lover’s kiss, awakes the Sleeping -Beauty. And in the Madonna’s immaculate conception the Church has -incarnated the virgin mother in a profound symbol, which only needs -a psychological interpretation to make it applicable to thousands of -every-day cases. - -Extraordinary though it may seem, Sonia was on this occasion, as on -many other occasions in later life, a woman who experienced desire -without being in the least aware of it. She was like a virgin mother -who had borne a child without knowing man’s love. Valdemar Kovalevsky, -who seems to me to have been incapable of filling any position in life, -was certainly not the husband for Sonia, who, as a woman of genius, -cannot be judged by the same standard as ordinary women. The average -man is certainly not suited to be the husband of an exceptional woman -with an original mind and sensitive temperament. But they do not know -themselves; for it is in the nature of great talents to remain hidden -from their owners, who have a long way to go before they attain to the -full realization of their own powers. Only those geniuses whose talents -have little or no connection with their individuality are sufficiently -alive to their own claims not to fall short in life, and not to allow -themselves to be hindered by any natural modesty. - -Modesty comes only too naturally to great geniuses. They are conscious -of being different from other people, yet when they are compelled to -come forward they only do so under protest, and then beg every one’s -pardon. The richest natures are the least conscious of their own -powers; they are ashamed because they think that they are offering a -copper, when in reality they are giving away kingdoms. This is doubly -true of the woman who knows nothing of her own powers until the man -comes to reveal them to her. - -It was the same with Sonia. She was always giving away handfuls,--her -mind, her learning, her social gifts; she placed them all at the -disposal of others; yet when she, who felt the eternal loneliness which -accompanies genius, asked for the entire affection of another, she was -told that she asked too much. There can be no agreement between that -which genius has the right to ask, and mediocrity the power to give. It -was not a very strong affection that she had for the young Pole, and, -such as it was, it did but intensify her sense of loneliness. It was at -Paris that she received the news of her husband’s suicide; and she, who -suffered so acutely from every successive death in her family, seemed -doomed to receive one blow after another at the hand of fate. She had -scarcely recovered from a nervous fever, resulting from the shock, when -she was called to Stockholm by the supporters of women’s rights,--to -Stockholm, where her soul congealed, her mind was unsatisfied, and -where her body was to die. - - -VI - -I shall only give a hasty sketch of the years that followed. Fru -Leffler has given us a detailed account of them in her book on Sonia, -and Ellen Key, in her life of Fru Leffler, has made the crooked -straight, and has filled in some of the gaps. I shall merely touch upon -this period for the sake of those of my readers who are not acquainted -with either of the above-mentioned works. These years were about the -most lifeless, and, psychologically speaking, the most empty in Sonia’s -life. She was called upon to take part in a movement which from its -commencement was doomed to fail on account of its narrow principles. -The social circle was divided into two separate groups, one of which -consisted of ladies and dilettante youths, very excitable and full of -zeal for reform, but without a single really superior man among them; -the other was of an essentially Swedish character, consisting chiefly -of men; the “better class” of women were excluded, and drinking bouts, -night revelling, club life, song-singing, and easy-going friendship -was the rule. These included a few talented people among their number, -and expressed the utmost contempt for the other group. For the first -time in her life Sonia was made to do ordinary every-day work, and to -exert herself after the manner of a mere drudge, or a cart-horse, for -payment. Her position rendered her dependent on the moral standard of -a _clique_. With the flexibility of her Russian nature, she renounced -the freedom to which she had been accustomed, and devoted herself to -her duties as lecturer under a professor. This work soon began to -weary her to death. Mathematics lost their charm now that the genius -of old Weierstrass was no longer there to elucidate the problems, and -to encourage her to do that which women had hitherto been unable to -accomplish. - -For some time she struggled on through thick and thin, without however -sinking low enough to give her superiors no longer any cause to shake -their heads or to admonish her. Lively, witty, and unassuming, the -task of entertaining people at their social gatherings fell to her -share, and she bore the weight of it without a murmur, until her -wasted amiability resulted in an undue familiarity in the circle of -her admirers, of both sexes, causing her much vexation. When the -first excitement of novelty was passed, she devoted herself chiefly -to her true but stolid friend, Anne Charlotte Leffler. It was one of -those friendships which are getting to be very common now that women -are becoming intellectual; it was not the result of any deep mutual -sympathy, nor was it formed out of the fulness of their lives, but -rather from the consciousness that there was something lacking, as -when two _minus_ combine in the attempt to form one _plus_. Then as -soon as the _plus_ is there, all interest in one another, and all -mutual sympathy is a thing of the past, as it proved in this case, -when the Duke of Cajanello appeared on Fru Leffler’s horizon, and -she afterwards, in the honeymoon of her happiness, possibly with the -best of intentions, but with very little tact or sympathy, wrote her -obituary book on Sonia. - -One of the results of this friendship was a series of unsuccessful -literary attempts, for which the material was provided by Sonia, -and dramatized by Fru Leffler. The latter tried to put Sonia’s -psychological, intuitive experiences into a realistic shape, and the -result was, as might be expected, a failure. Sonia was a mystic, whose -whole being was one indistinct longing, without beginning and without -end; Fru Leffler was an enlightened woman, daughter of a college -rector, “who worked incessantly at her own development.” Even while -the work of collaboration was in progress, a slight friction began to -make itself felt between the two friends. Fru Leffler was vexed at -having, as she expressed it, “repudiated her own child” in the story -called “Round about Marriage,” in which she attempted to describe the -lives of women who remain unmarried. The storms raised by Sonia’s vivid -imagination oppressed her, and imported a foreign element into her -sober style, resulting in long padded novels, which were too ambitious, -and had a false ring about them. Her influence on Sonia produced the -opposite result. Sonia saw that Fru Leffler was less talented than -she had supposed, and this made her place greater confidence in her -own merits as an author. She began to write a story of her own youth, -called “The Sisters Rajevsky,” which we have already mentioned, -followed by a story about the so-called Nihilists, “Vera Barantzova;” -both these books displayed a wider experience, and contained the -promise of greater things than any of the contemporaneous literature by -women, but they did not receive the recognition which they deserved, -because nobody understood the characters which she depicted. - -Up till now there has been a fundamental error in all the attempts made -to understand Sonia Kovalevsky, and the fault is chiefly due to Fru -Leffler, who wrote of her from the following standpoint:-- - - “I am great and you are great, - We are both equally great.” - -Sonia and her biographer are by no means “equally great.” To compare -Fru Leffler to Sonia is like comparing a nine days’ wonder to an -eternal phenomenon. One is an ordinary woman with a carefully -cultivated talent, while the other is one of those mysteries who, from -time to time, make their appearance in the world, in whom nature seems -to have overstepped her boundaries, and who are created to live lonely -lives, to suffer and to die without having ever attained the full -possession of their own being. - -In the year 1888, at the age of thirty-eight, Sonia learned for the -first time to know the love which is a woman’s destiny. M. K. was a -great, heavy Russian boyar, who had been a professor, but was dismissed -on account of his free-thinking views. He was a dissipated man and -rich, and had spent his time in travelling since he left Russia. He -was no longer young, like the Duke of Cajanello. A few years older -than Sonia, he was one of those complacent, self-centred characters -who have never known what it is to long for sympathy, who are totally -devoid of ideals, and are not given to vain illusions. Comparatively -speaking, an older woman always has a better chance with a man younger -than herself, and there was nothing very surprising in the love which -the young and insignificant Duke bestowed on Fru Leffler. With Sonia -it was quite different. The boyar had already enjoyed as many of the -good things of this world as he desired; he was both practical and -sceptical, the kind of man whom women think attractive, and who boast -that they understand women. I am not at liberty to mention his name, as -he is still alive and enjoys good health. He was interested in Sonia, -as much as he was capable of being interested in any one, because she -was a compatriot to be proud of, and he also liked her because she was -good company, but Sonia never acquired all the power over him which -she should have had. He was not like a susceptible young man who is -influenced by the first woman who has really given him the full passion -of her love. The long-repressed love which was now lavished upon him -by the woman who was no longer young had none of the surprise of -novelty in it, not even the unexpected treasure of flattered vanity. He -accepted it calmly, and never for a moment did he allow it to interfere -with his mode of life. Even though he had no wife, his bachelor’s -existence had never lacked the companionship of women. Sonia should -occupy the position of wife, but an ardent lover it was no longer in -his power to be. - -The conflict points plainly to a double rupture between them,--the one -internal and the other external,--both brought about by the spirit of -the age. - -Sonia’s womanhood had awakened in her the first time they met, and he -became her first love. She loved him as a young girl loves, with a -trembling and ungovernable joy at finding all that had hitherto been -hidden in herself; she rejoiced in the knowledge that he was there, -that she would see him again to-morrow as she had seen him to-day, that -she could touch him, hold him with her hands. She lived only when she -saw him; her senses were dulled when he was no longer there. It was -then that Stockholm became thoroughly hateful to her; it seemed to hold -her fast in its clutches, to crush the woman in her, and to deprive -her of her nationality. He represented the South,--the great world of -intellect and freedom; but above all else, he was home, he was Russia! -He was the emblem of her native land; he had come speaking the language -in which her nurse had sung to her, in which her father and sister and -all the loved and lost had spoken to her; he was her hearth and home in -the dreary world. But more than all this, he was the only man capable -of arousing her love. - -But if she took a short holiday and followed him to Paris and Italy, -his cold greeting was sure to chill her inmost being, and instead of -the comfort which she had hoped to find in his love and sympathy, she -was thrown back upon herself, more miserable and disappointed than -before. - -Her spirits were beginning to give way. It seemed as though the world -were growing empty around her and the darkness deepening, while she -stood in the midst of it all, alone and unprotected. But what drove -matters to a climax was that their most intimate daily intercourse took -place just at the time when she was in Paris working hard, and sitting -up at nights. When she was awarded the _Prix Bordin_ on Christmas Eve, -1888, in the presence of the greatest French mathematicians, she forgot -that she was a European celebrity, whose name would endure forever -and be numbered among the women who had outstripped all others; she -was only conscious of being an overworked woman, suffering from one -of those nervous illnesses when white seems turned to black, joy to -sorrow,--enduring the unutterable misery caused by mental and physical -exhaustion, when the night brings no rest to the tortured nerves. As -is always the case with productive natures under like circumstances, -her passions were at their highest pitch, and she needed sympathy from -without to give relief. It was then that she received an offer of -marriage from the man whom she loved; but she was too well aware of -the gulf which lay between his gentlemanly bearing and her devouring -passion to accept it, and determined that since she could not have -all she would have nothing. It may be that she was haunted by the -recollection of her first marriage, or she may have been influenced by -the woman’s rights standpoint which weighs as in a scale: For so and -so many ounces of love, I must have so and so many ounces of love and -fidelity; and for so and so many yards of virtuous behavior, I have a -right to expect exactly the same amount from him. - -It happened, however, that the man in question would not admit of such -calculations, and Sonia went back to Stockholm and her hated university -work with the painful knowledge of “never having been all in all to -anybody.” After a time she began to realize that love is not a thing -which can be weighed and measured. She now concentrated her strength in -an attempt to free herself from her work at Stockholm, which had been -turned into a life-long appointment since she won the _Prix Bordin_; -she longed to get away from Sweden, where she felt very lonely, having -no one to whom she could confide her thoughts. She had some hopes of -being given an honorary appointment as a member of the Imperial Russian -Academy, which would place her in a position of pecuniary independence, -with the liberty to reside where she pleased. But when she returned -to her work at Stockholm in the beginning of the year 1891, after a -trip to Italy in company with the man whom she loved, it was with the -conviction, grown stronger than ever, of not being able to put up with -the loneliness and emptiness of her existence any longer, and with the -determination of throwing everything aside and accepting his proposal. - -She came to this decision while suffering from extreme weariness. Her -Russian temperament was very much opposed to the manner of her life -for the last few years. Her spirits, which wavered between a state of -exaltation and apathy, were depressed by a regular routine of work and -social intercourse, and she was never allowed the thorough rest which -she so greatly needed. In one year she lost all who were dear to her; -and though dissatisfied with her own life, she was able to sympathize -deeply with her beloved sister Anjuta, whose proud dreams of youth were -either doomed to destruction, or else their fulfilment was accompanied -with disappointment, while she herself was dying slowly, body and soul. -Life had dealt hardly with both these sisters. When Sonia travelled -home for the last time, after exchanging the warm, cheerful South for -the cold, dismal North, she broke down altogether. Alone and over-tired -as she always was on these innumerable journeys, which were only -undertaken in order to cure her nervous restlessness, her spirits were -no longer able to encounter the discomforts of travel, and she gave -way. The perpetual changes, whether in rain, wind, or snow, accompanied -by all the small annoyances, such as getting money changed, and -finding no porters, overpowered her, and for a short time life seemed -to have lost all its value. With an utter disregard for consequences, -she exposed herself to all winds and weathers, and arrived ill at -Stockholm, where her course of lectures was to begin immediately. A -heavy cold ensued, accompanied by an attack of fever; and so great was -her longing for fresh air, that she ran out into the street on a raw -February day in a light dress and thin shoes. - -Her illness was short; she died a couple of days after it began. Two -friends watched beside her, and she thanked them warmly for the care -they took of her,--thanked them as only strangers are thanked. They had -gone home to rest before the death-struggle began, and there was no one -with her but a strange nurse, who had just arrived. She died alone, -as she had lived,--died, and was buried in the land where she had not -wished to live, and where her best strength had been spent. - - -VII - -There is yet another picture behind the one depicted in these pages. It -is large, dark, and mysterious, like a reflection in the water; we see -it, but it melts away each time we try to grasp it. - -When we know the story of a person’s life, and are acquainted with -their surroundings and the conditions under which they have been -brought up; when we have been told about their sufferings, and the -illness of which they died, we imagine that we know all about them, -and are able to form a more or less correct portrait of them in our -mind’s eye, and we even think that we are in a position to judge of -their life and character. There is scarcely any one whose life is less -veiled to the public gaze than Sonia Kovalevsky’s. She was very frank -and communicative, and took quite a psychological interest in her own -character; she had nothing to conceal, and was known by a large number -of people throughout Europe. She lived her life before the eyes of the -public, and died of inflammation of the lungs, brought on by an attack -of influenza. - -Such was Sonia Kovalevsky’s life as depicted by Fru Leffler, in a -manner which reveals a very limited comprehension of her subject; the -chief thing missing is the likeness to Sonia. - -This sketch was afterwards corrected and completed with great sympathy -and delicacy by Ellen Key, but she has also failed to catch the -likeness of Sonia Kovalevsky. - -And mine--written as it is with the full consciousness of being better -able to understand her than either of these two, partly on account of -the impressions left by my own half-Russian childhood; partly, too, -because in some ways my temperament resembles hers--my sketch, although -it is an analysis of her life, is not Sonia Kovalevsky. - -She is still standing there, supernaturally great, like a shadow when -the moon rises, which seems to grow larger the longer one looks at -it; and as I write this, I feel as though she were as near to me as -a body that one knocks up against in the dark. She comes and goes. -Sometimes she appears close beside me sitting on the flower-table, a -little bird-like figure, and I seem to see her quite distinctly; then, -as soon as I begin to realize her presence, she has gone. And I ask -myself,--Who is she? I do not know; she did not know it herself. She -lived, it is true, but she never lived her own, real, individual life. - -She remains there still,--a form which came out of the darkness and -went back into the same. She was a thorough child of the age in every -little characteristic of her aimless life; she was a woman of this -century, or rather, she was what this century forces a woman to be,--a -genius for nothing, a woman for nothing, ever struggling along a -road which leads to nowhere, and fainting on the way as she strives -to attain a distant mirage. Tired to death, and yet afraid to die, -she died because the instinct for self-preservation forsook her for -the space of a single instant; died only to be buried under a pile -of obituary notices, and forgotten for the next novelty. But behind -them all she stands, an immortal personality, hot and volcanic as the -world’s centre, a thorough woman, yet more than a woman. Her brain -rose superior to sex, and learned to think independently, only to be -dragged down again and made subservient to sex; her soul was full of -mysticism, conscious of the Infinite existing in her little body, and -out of her little body again soaring up towards the Infinite,--a one -day’s superficial consciousness which allowed itself to be led astray -by public opinion, yet possessing, all the while, a sub-consciousness, -which, poetically viewed, clung fast to the eternal realities in her -womanly frame, and would not let them rise to the brain, which, freed -from the body, floated in empty space. Hers was a queenly mind, feeding -a hundred beggars at her board,--giving to all, but confiding in none. - -Ellen Key once said to me: “When she shook hands, you felt as if a -little bird with a beating heart had fluttered into your hand and out -again.” And another friend, Hilma Strandberg, a young writer of great -promise, whose after career belied its commencement, said, after her -first meeting with Sonia, that she had felt as though the latter’s -glance had pierced her through and through, after which she seemed -to be dissecting her soul, bit by bit, every bit vanishing into thin -air; this psychical experience was followed by such violent bodily -discomfort that she almost fainted, and it was only with the greatest -difficulty that she managed to get home. - -Both these descriptions prove that Sonia’s hands and eyes were the most -striking part of her personality. Many anecdotes are told about her -penetrating glance, but this is the only one which mentions her hands, -although it is true that Fru Leffler remarked that they were very much -disfigured by veins. But this one is sufficient to complete a picture -of her which I remember to have seen: she has a slender little child’s -body, and her hands are the hands of a child, with nervous, crooked -little fingers, anxiously bent inwards; and in one hand she clasps a -book, with such visible effort that it makes one’s heart ache to look -at her. - -The hands often afford better material for psychological study than -the face, and they give a deeper and more truthful insight into the -character because they are less under control. There are people -with fine, clever faces, whose hands are like sausages,--fleshy -and veinless, with thick stumpy fingers which warn us to beware of -the animated mask. And there are round, warm, sensuous faces, with -full, almost thick lips, which are obviously contradicted by pale, -blue-veined, sickly-looking hands. The momentary amount of intellectual -power which a person has at his disposal can change the face, but -the hands are of a more physical nature, and their speech is a more -physical one. Sonia’s face was lit up by the soul in her eyes, which -bore witness to the intense interest which she took in everything that -was going on around her; but the weak, nervous, trembling little hands -told of the unsatisfied, helpless child, who was never to attain the -full development of her womanhood. - - - - -II - -_Neurotic Keynotes_ - - -I - -Last year there was a book published in London with the extraordinary -title of “Keynotes.” Three thousand copies were sold in the course -of a few months, and the unknown author became a celebrity. Soon -afterwards the portrait of a lady appeared in “The Sketch.” She had a -small, delicate face, with a pained and rather tired expression, and -a curious, questioning look in the eyes; it was an attractive face, -very gentle and womanly, and yet there was something disillusioned and -unsatisfied about it. This lady wrote under the pseudonym of George -Egerton, and “Keynotes” was her first book. - -It was a strange book! too good a book to become famous all at once. It -burst upon the world like the opening buds in spring, like the cherry -blossom after the first cold shower of rain. What can have made this -book so popular in the England of to-day, which is as totally devoid of -all true literature as Germany itself? Was it only the writer’s strong -individuality, which each successive page impressed upon the reader’s -nerves more vividly and more painfully than the last? The reader, did -I say? Yes, but not the male reader. There are very few men who have -a sufficiently keen appreciation for a woman’s feelings to be able to -put their own minds and souls into the swing of her confession, and to -accord it their full sympathy. Yet there are such men. We may perhaps -come across two or three of them in a lifetime, but they disappear -from our sight, as we do from theirs. And they are not readers. Their -sympathy is of a deeper, more personal character, and as far as the -success of a book is concerned, it need not be taken into consideration -at all. - -“Keynotes” is not addressed to men, and it will not please them. It is -not written in the style adopted by the other women Georges,--George -Sand and George Eliot,--who wrote from a man’s point of view, with the -solemnity of a clergyman or the libertinism of a drawing-room hero. -There is nothing of the man in this book, and no attempt is made to -imitate him, even in the style, which springs backwards and forwards as -restlessly as a nervous little woman at her toilet, when her hair will -not curl and her stay-lace breaks. Neither is it a book which favors -men; it is a book written against them, a book for our private use. - -There have been such books before; old-maid literature is a lucrative -branch of industry, both in England and Germany (the two most -unliterary countries in Europe), and that is probably the reason why -the majority of authoresses write as though they were old maids. But -there are no signs of girlish prudery in “Keynotes;” it is a liberal -book, indiscreet in respect of the intimacies of married life, and -entirely without respect for the husband; it is a book with claws and -teeth ready to scratch and bite when the occasion offers,--not the -book of a woman who married for the sake of a livelihood, but the book -of a devoted wife, who would be inseparable from her husband if only -he were not so tiresome, and dull, and stupid, such a thorough man, -insufferable at times, and yet indispensable as the husband always is -to the wife. - -And it is the book of a gentlewoman! - -We have had tell-tale women before, but Heaven preserve us! Fru Skram -is a man in petticoats; she speaks her mind plainly enough,--rather -too plainly to suit my taste. “Gyp,” a distinguished Frenchwoman, has -written “Autour du Mariage,” and she cannot be said to mince matters -either. But here we have something quite different; something which -does not in the least resemble Gyp’s frivolous worldliness or Amalie -Skram’s coarseness. Mrs. Egerton would shudder at the thought of -washing dirty linen in public, and she could not, even if she were to -force herself, treat the relationship between husband and wife with -cynical irony, and she does not force herself in the very least. - -She writes as she really is, because she cannot do otherwise. She has -had an excellent education, and is a lady with refined tastes, with -something of that innocence of the grown woman which is almost more -touching than a girl’s innocence, because it proves how little of his -knowledge of life in general, and his sex in particular, the Teutonic -husband confides to his wife. She stands watching him,--an eating, -loving, smoking organism. Heavens! how wearisome! So loved, and yet -so wearisome! It is unbearable! And she retreats into herself, and -realizes that she is a woman. - -It is almost universal amongst women, especially Germans, that they -do not take man as seriously as he likes to imagine. They think him -comical,--not only when they are married to him, but even before -that, when they are in love with him. Men have no idea what a comical -appearance they present, not only as individuals, but as a race. The -comic part about a man is that he is so different from women, and that -is just what he is proudest of. The more refined and fragile a woman -is, the more ridiculous she is likely to find the clumsy great creature -who takes such a roundabout way to gain his comical ends. - -To young girls especially man offers a perpetual excuse for a laugh, -and a secret shudder. When men find a group of women laughing among -themselves, they never suspect that it is they who are the cause of it. -And that again is so comic! The better a man is, the more he is in -earnest when he makes his pathetic appeal for a great love; and woman, -who takes a special delight in playing a little false, even when there -is no necessity, becomes as earnest and solemn as he, when all the time -she is only making fun of him. A woman wants amusement, wants change; -a monotonous existence drives her to despair, whereas a man thrives -on monotony, and the cleverer he is the more he wishes to retire into -himself, that he may draw upon his own resources; a clever woman needs -variety, that she may take her impressions from without. - -... The early blossoms of the cherry-tree shudder beneath the cold -rain which has burst their scales; this shudder is the deepest -vibration in Mrs. Egerton’s book. What is the subject? A little woman -in every imaginable mood, who is placed in all kinds of likely and -unlikely circumstances: in every story it is the same little woman -with a difference, the same little woman, who is always loved by a -big, clumsy, comic man, who is now good and well-behaved, now wild, -drunk, and brutal; who sometimes ill-treats her, sometimes fondles -her, but never understands what it is that he ill-treats and fondles. -And she sits like a true Englishwoman with her fishing-rod, and while -she is waiting for a bite, “her thoughts go to other women she has -known, women good and bad, school friends, casual acquaintances, -women-workers,--joyless machines for grinding daily corn, unwilling -maids grown old in the endeavor to get settled, patient wives who bear -little ones to indifferent husbands until they wear out,--a long array. -She busies herself with questioning. Have they, too, this thirst for -excitement, for change, this restless craving for sun and love and -motion? Stray words, half confidences, glimpses through soul-chinks of -suppressed fires, actual outbreaks, domestic catastrophes,--how the -ghosts dance in the cells of her memory! And she laughs--laughs softly -to herself because the denseness of man, his chivalrous conservative -devotion to the female idea he has created, blinds him, perhaps -happily, to the problems of her complex nature, ... and well it is that -the workings of our hearts are closed to them, that we are cunning -enough or _great_ enough to seem to be what they would have us, rather -than be what we are. But few of them have had the insight to find out -the key to our seeming contradictions,--the why a refined, physically -fragile woman will mate with a brute, a mere male animal with primitive -passions, and love him; the why strength and beauty appeal more often -than the more subtly fine qualities of mind or heart; the why women -(and not the innocent ones) will condone sins that men find hard -to forgive in their fellows. They have all overlooked the eternal -wildness, the untamed primitive savage temperament that lurks in the -mildest, best woman. Deep in through ages of convention this primeval -trait burns, an untamable quantity that may be concealed, but is never -eradicated by culture,--the keynote of woman’s witchcraft and woman’s -strength.” - -They are not stories which Mrs. Egerton tells us. She does not care -for telling stories. They are keynotes which she strikes, and these -keynotes met with an extraordinary and most unexpected response. They -struck a sympathetic chord in women, which found expression in a -multitude of letters, and also in the sale of the book. An author can -hope for no happier fate than to receive letters which re-echo the tune -that he has discovered in his own soul. Those who have received them -know what pleasant feelings they call forth. We often do not know where -they come from, we cannot answer them, nor should we wish to do so if -we could. They give us a sudden insight into the hidden centre of a -living soul, where we can gaze into the secret, yearning life, which is -never lived in the sight of the world, but is generally the best part -of a person’s nature; we feel the sympathetic clasp of a friendly hand, -and our own soul is filled with a thankfulness which will never find -expression in words. The dark world seems filled with unknown friends, -who surround us on every side like bright stars in the night. - -Mrs. Egerton had struck the fundamental chord in woman’s nature, and -her book was received with applause by hundreds of women. The critic -said: “The woman in ‘Keynotes’ is an exceptional type, and we can only -deal with her as such.” “Good heavens! How stupid they are!” laughed -Mrs. Egerton. Numberless women wrote to her, women whom she did not -know, and whose acquaintance she never made. “We are quite ordinary, -every-day sort of people,” they said; “we lead trivial, unimportant -lives; but there is something in us which vibrates to your touch, for -we, too, are such as you describe.” “Keynotes” took like wildfire. - -There is nothing tangible in the book to which it can be said to -owe its significance. Notes are not tangible. The point on which it -differs from all other well-known books by women is the intensity of -its awakened consciousness as woman. It follows no pattern and is -quite independent of any previous work; it is simply full of a woman’s -individuality. It is not written on a large scale, and it does not -reveal a very expansive temperament. But, such as it is, it possesses -an amount of nervous energy which carries us along with it, and we must -read every page carefully until the last one is turned, not peep at the -end to see what is going to happen, as we do when reading a story with -a plot; we must read every page for its own sake, if we would feel the -power of its different moods, varying from feverish haste to wearied -rest. - - -II - -Nearly a year afterwards, a book was published in Paris by Lemerre, -called “Dilettantes.” Instead of the author’s name there were three -stars, but a catalogue issued by a less illustrious publisher is -not so discreet. It mentions the bearer of a well-known pseudonym -as the author of the book; a lady who first gained a reputation by -translating Hungarian folk songs into French, for which she received -an acknowledgment from the _Académie Française_, and who afterwards -introduced Scandinavian authors to Paris, thereby deserving the thanks -of both countries. She has also made herself a name in literary circles -by her original and clever criticisms. Those who are behind the scenes -know that the translator’s pseudonym and the three stars conceal a lady -who belongs to the highest aristocracy of Austria, and who is herself -a “dilettante,” inasmuch as she writes without any pecuniary object, -and that, quite independent of her public, she writes and translates -what she pleases. Her social position has placed her among intellectual -people; on her mother’s side she is descended from one of the foremost -families among the Austrian nobility, and she has lived in Paris from -her childhood, where she has enjoyed the society of the best authors, -and acquired a French style which, for richness, beauty, and grace, -might well cause many an older French author to envy her. It is in -this French, which she finds more pliable than the homely Viennese -German, that this curious book is written. - -I search high and low for words in which to describe the nature of -this book, but in vain. It is womanly to such an extent, and in such a -peculiar way, that we lack the words to express it in a language which -has not yet learned to distinguish between the art of man and the art -of woman in the sphere of production. It has the same effect upon us as -Mrs. Egerton’s “Keynotes.” - -The same reason which makes it difficult to understand this Celtic -woman with the English pseudonym, makes it equally difficult to draw -an intelligible picture of this French-writing Austrian, with the -Polish and Hungarian blood mingled in her veins. But it is not the -cross between the races, nor, we might add, is it any cross between -soul and ideas which makes these two women so incomprehensible and -almost enigmatical; one is twice married, the other a girl, although -she is perhaps the more wearied and disillusioned of the two,--and yet -it is not the outer circumstances of their lives which render both -what they are, it is something in themselves, quite apart from the -experience which beautifies and develops a woman’s character; it is the -keynote of their being which retreats shyly to the background as though -afraid of the public gaze. It is the beginning of a series of personal -confessions at first hand, and forms an entirely new department in -women’s literature. Hitherto, as I have already said, all books, even -the best ones, written by women, are imitations of men’s books, with -the addition of a single high-pitched, feminine note, and are therefore -nothing better than communications received at second hand. But at last -the time has come when woman is so keenly alive to her own nature that -she reveals it when she speaks, even though it be in riddles. - -I have often pointed out that men only know the side of our character -which they wish to see, or which it may please us to show them. If they -are thorough men, they seek the woman in us, because they need it as -the complement to their own nature; but often they seek our “soul,” our -“mind,” our “character,” or whatever else they may happen to look upon -as the beautifying veil of our existence. Something may come of the -first, but of the last nothing. Mrs. Egerton interpreted man from the -first of the above standpoints; she wrote of him, half in hate and half -in admiration; her men are great clowns. The author of “Dilettantes” -wrote from the opposite point of view; her man is the smooth-speaking -_poseur_, of whom she writes with a shrug of the shoulders and an -expression of mild contempt. - -Both feel themselves to be so utterly different from what they -were told they were, and which men believe them to be. They do not -understand it at all; they do not understand themselves in the very -least. They interpret nothing with the understanding, but their -instinct makes them feel quite at home with themselves and leads them -to assert their own natures. They are no longer a reflection which man -moulds into an empty form; they are not like Galatea, who became a -living woman through Pygmalion’s kiss; they were women before they knew -Pygmalion,--such thorough women that Pygmalion is often no Pygmalion to -them at all, but a stupid lout instead. - -It is a fearful disappointment, and causes a woman--and many a womanly -woman too--to shrink from man and scan him critically. “You?” she -cries. “No, it were better not to love at all!” But the day is coming-- - -And when the day has come, then woman will be as bad as Strindberg’s -Megoras, or as humorous as a certain poetess who sent a portrait of her -husband to a friend, with this inscription: “My old Adam;” or else she -may meet with the same fate as Countess Resa in the anonymous book of a -certain well-known authoress. She will commit suicide in one way or the -other. She will not kill herself like Countess Resa, but she will kill -a part of her nature. And these women, who are partly dead, carry about -a corpse in their souls from whence streams forth an odor as of death; -these women, whose dead natures have the power of charming men with a -mystery they would gladly solve,--these women are our mothers, sisters, -friends, teachers, and we scarcely know the meaning of the shiver down -our backs which we feel in their presence. A very keen consciousness is -needed to dive down deep enough in ourselves to discover the reason, -and very subtle, spiritual tools are necessary to grasp the process -and to reproduce it. The Austrian authoress possessed both these -requisites. But there is also a third which is equally indispensable -to any one who would draw such a portrait of themselves, and that is -the distinguished manner of a noble and self-confident nature, in which -everything can be said. - -She has something besides, which gives the book a special attraction -of its own, and that is her extremely modern, artistic feeling, which -teaches how the laws of painting can be brought to bear upon the art -of writing, and gives her a keen appreciation of the value of sound in -relation to language. - -There is a picture by Claude Monet,--pale, golden sunshine upon a -misty sea. There is scarcely anything to be seen beyond this faint -golden haze, resting upon the shimmering, transparent water, painted -in rainbow colors, pale as opal. There is just a faint suggestion of a -promontory, rising up from the warm, southern sea, and something which -looks like a squadron of fishing boats in the far distance. It is not -quite day, but it is already light,--one of those cool mornings which -precede a dazzling day. It is years since last I saw this picture, -but it charmed me so much that I have never forgotten it. It is in -consequence of this same sense for fine shades of color, applied in -this instance to the soul, that “Dilettantes” was written. - -It is a very quiet book, and just as there is not a single strong -color in Monet’s picture, so there is not a single high note in this -book. We feel like gazing down into the water which glides and glides -along, carrying with it seaweed, dead bodies, and men, but always in -silence,--a most uneventful book. But beneath this almost lethargical -stillness is enacted a tragedy in which a life is at stake, and the -stake is lost, and death is the consequence. The deadliest blow -against another’s soul is caused, not by words, but by deafness and -indifference, by neglect at the moment when the heart yearns for love, -and the bud is ready to blossom into flower beneath a single breath -of sympathy. Next morning, when you go to look at it, you find it -withered; it is then too late for your warm breath and willing fingers -to force it open; you only make it worse, and at last the buds fall to -the ground. - -The famous unknown has called her book “Dilettantes,” although there -is but one lady in it to whom the name applies. Can it be that, by her -use of the plural, she meant to include herself with the heroine? The -supposition seems not unlikely. - -She introduces us to a colony of artists in Paris, amongst whom is -Baron Mark Sebenyi, an Hungarian magnate, who is a literary dilettante. -At the house of the old Princess Ebendorf he makes the acquaintance -of her niece, Theresia Thaszary, and feels himself drawn towards her -as his “twin soul.” During the Princess’s long illness, they become -engaged, and when the Princess dies he continues his visits to the -Countess as though her aunt were still alive, and he spends his hours -of literary work in her house, because, as he says, her presence is an -indispensable source of inspiration to him. Countess Resa is one of -those whom a life of constant travel has rendered cosmopolitan. Her -life is passed in a state of mental torpor which is more general, and, -I should like to add, more normal, among young girls than men imagine -or married women remember; she was neither contented nor discontented -while she lived with her aunt, and she continues the same now, with -Mark continually beside her. She is glad to have him with her; she -feels a certain attraction in his manly and sympathetic presence, and -his behavior towards herself is so decorous that it seldom happens that -so much as a pressure of the hand passes between them. She knows that -Mark has relations with other women, but that fact does not enter into -her womanly consciousness at all. - -All goes well until a fashionable friend of hers, a rather vulgar -lady, asks her when she means to marry Mark, and persuades her to go -into society, although she has no desire to do so, and is perfectly -content with the sameness of her life. In society she finds that her -friendship with Mark attracts observation, and this is the first shock -which leads to an awakening. In the long winter hours, while she is -sitting still in the room where he is writing, she suddenly realizes -the situation, and feels that it is like a lover’s _tête-à-tête_. His -behavior in society irritates her in a hundred little ways, because she -knows that he is not true to his real nature, and that he gives way -to his vanity as an author and poses in public. Mark has no intention -of marrying her; he is quite content with matters as they stand. -Cold-hearted, and probably aged before his time, he feels drawn towards -her by a kind of distant, erotic feeling, and he seeks her society for -the sake of the drawing-room where he can make himself thoroughly at -home and bring his artist friends; he likes her because he is not bound -to her, and he has never tired of her because she was never his. - -Spring comes. They make expeditions round about Paris, and are -constantly together; she is in a state of nervous excitement, and the -more she feels drawn towards him the more she tries to avoid him. There -are moments when he too feels his hand tremble, if by chance it comes -into contact with hers. Their friendship with one another has become -a hindrance to any greater friendship between them; and he is too -much taken up with himself, too accustomed to have her always busily -attending to him, to notice the change which is gradually taking place -in her. Her love dwindles beneath the cold influence of doubt, which -increases the more as she feels herself rejected by the man she loves. -Ignorant though she be, she is possessed of an intuitive knowledge -which is the heritage of many generations of culture, which enables -her to read him through and through, until she conceives an antipathy -for him,--the man whose love she desires,--an antipathy which makes -him appear contemptible and almost ridiculous in her sight. Still she -clings to him. She has no one else; she is alone among strangers. He -belongs to her and she to him. This fact of their belonging to each -other makes her tire of his company, and one day, when he and his -literary friends are preparing to hold lectures in her drawing-room, -she flies from the house to escape from their æsthetic chatter. - -At last she can stand it no longer, and whilst her guests are engaged -in discussing a work of Mark’s, she goes downstairs and out into -the night. She scarcely knows what she is doing; her pulse beats -feverishly, her nerves are quite unstrung. She walks down the street -towards the Champs Elysées, and there she meets a man coming towards -her. She perceives that she is alone in the empty street, and she is -overcome with a nameless fear. Seized with a sudden impulse to hide -herself, she jumps into the nearest cab, which is standing at the door -of a café. The driver asks, “Where to?” and when she does not reply, -he gets angry. At this juncture the man appears at the door of the -carriage, and she recognizes Imre Borogh, a friend of Mark’s, who was -on his way to call on her. She still cannot say where she wishes to -go, but feeling herself under the protection of a friend, she allows -him to get in. They drive and drive. She perceives the compromising -nature of the situation, but is too stupefied to put an end to it. He -talks to her after the manner of an emotional young man, whose feelings -have gained the mastery over him. At last he tells the driver to stop -in front of a café. She is half unconscious, but he assists her to get -out. And the nervous strain of these many long months results in a -misunderstanding with this stranger, even greater than would have been -the case with Mark. - -She comes very quietly home. She takes hold of Mark’s portrait, as she -has so often done before, and compares it with her own image in the -looking-glass. She throws it away. She burns his letters and all the -little mementos which she has of him, then--while she is searching in -her drawers--she comes upon a revolver.... - -Mark was very much moved at the funeral, and he cherished her memory -for long afterwards. - -Nowhere in the book is there any attempt made to describe men. The -authoress only shows them to us as they are reflected in her soul. In -this she not only shows an unusual amount of artistic talent, but also -a new method. Woman is the most subjective of all creatures; she can -only write about her own feelings, and her expression of them is her -most valuable contribution to literature. Formerly women’s writings -were, for the most part, either directly or indirectly, the expression -of a great falsehood. They were so overpoweringly impersonal, it was -quite comic to see the way in which they imitated men’s models, both -in form and contents. Now that woman is conscious of her individuality -as a woman, she needs an artistic mode of expression; she flings aside -the old forms, and seeks for new. It is with this feeling, almost -Bacchanalian in its intensity, that Mrs. Egerton hurls forth her -playful stories, which the English critics judged harshly, but the -public bought and called for in fresh editions; and this was how the -Austrian lady wrote her story, which has the effect of a play dreamed -under the influence of the sordine. Both books are honest. The more -conscious a woman is of her individuality, the more honest will her -confession be. Honesty is only another form of pride. - - -III - -Another characteristic is beginning to make itself felt, which was -bound to come at last. And that is an intense and morbid consciousness -of the ego in women. This consciousness was unknown to our mothers and -grandmothers; they may have had stronger characters than ours, as they -undoubtedly had to overcome greater hindrances; but this consciousness -of the ego is quite another thing, and they had not got it. - -Neither of these women, whose books I have been reviewing, are authors -by profession. There is nothing they care for less than to write books, -and nothing that they desire less than to hear their names on every -one’s lips. Both were able to write without having learned. Other -authoresses of whom we hear have either taught themselves to write, or -have been taught by men. They began with an object, but without having -anything to say; they chose their subjects from without. - -Neither of these women have any object. They do not want to describe -what they have seen. They do not want to teach the world, nor do they -try to improve it. They have nothing to fight against. They merely put -themselves into their books. They did not even begin with the intention -of writing; they obeyed an impulse. There was no question of whether -they wished or not; they were obliged. The moment came when they were -forced to write, and they did not concern themselves with reasons or -objects. Their ego burst forth with such power that it ignored all -outer circumstances; it pressed forward and crystallized itself into -an artistic shape. These women have not only a very pronounced style -of their own, but are in fact artists; they became it as soon as they -took up the pen. They had nothing to learn, it was theirs already. - -This is not only a new phase in the work of literary production, it -is also a new phase in woman’s nature. Formerly, not only all great -authoresses, but likewise all prominent women, were--or tried to -be--intellectual. That also was an attempt to accommodate themselves to -men’s wishes. They were always trying to follow in the footsteps of the -man. Man’s ideas, interests, speculations, were to be understood and -sympathized with. When philosophy was the fashion, great authoresses -and intelligent women philosophized. Because Goethe was wise, Rahel -was filled with the wisdom of life. George Eliot preached in all -her books, and philosophized all her life long after the manner of -Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer. George Sand was the receptacle for -ideas--men’s ideas--of the most contradictory character, which she -immediately reproduced in her novels. Good Ebner-Eschenbach writes as -sensibly, and with as much tolerance, as a right worthy old gentleman; -and Fru Leffler chose her subjects from among the problems which were -being discussed by a few well-known men. None of their writings can -be considered as essentially characteristic of women. It was not an -altogether unjust assertion when men declared that the women who wrote -books were only half women. - -Yet these were the best. Others, who wrote as women, had no connection -with literature at all; they merely knitted literary stockings. - -Mrs. Egerton and the author of “Dilettantes” are not intellectual, not -in the very least. The possibility of being it has never entered their -brain. They had no ambition to imitate men. They are not in the least -impressed by the speculations, ideas, theories, and philosophies of -men. They are sceptics in all that concerns the mind; the man himself -they can perceive. - -They perceive his soul, his inner self,--when he has one,--and they -are keenly sensitive when it is not there. The other women with the -great names are quite thick-headed in comparison. They judge everything -with the understanding; these perceive with the nerves, and that is an -entirely different kind of understanding. - -They understand man, but, at the same time, they perceive that he is -quite different from themselves, that he is the contrast to themselves. -The one is too highly cultured; the other has too sensitive a nervous -system to permit the thought of any equality between man and woman. The -idea makes them laugh. They are far too conscious of being refined, -sensitive women. They do not concern themselves with the modern -democratic tendencies regarding women, with its levelling of contrasts, -its desire for equality. They live their own life, and if they find it -unsatisfying, empty, disappointing, they cannot change it. But they do -not make any compromise to do things by halves; their highly-developed -nerves are too sure a standard to allow of that. They are a new race of -women, more resigned, more hopeless, and more sensitive than the former -ones. They are women such as the new men require; they have risen up on -the intellectual horizon as the forerunners of a generation who will be -more sensitive, and who will have a keener power of enjoyment than the -former ones. Among themselves these women exchange sympathetic glances, -and are able to understand one another without need of confession. -They, with their highly-developed nerves, can feel for each other with -a sympathy such as formerly a woman only felt for man. In this way they -go through life, without building castles in the air, or making any -plans for the future; they live on day by day, and never look beyond. -It might be said that they are waiting; but as each new day arrives, -and the sand of time falls drop by drop upon their delicate nerves, -even this imperceptible burden is more than they can bear; the strain -of it is too much for them. - - -IV - -I have before me a new book by Mrs. Egerton, and two new photographs. -In the one she is sitting curled up in a chair, reading peacefully. She -has a delicate, rather sharp-featured profile, with a long, somewhat -prominent chin, that gives one an idea of yearning. The other is a -full-length portrait. A slender, girlish figure, with narrow shoulders, -and a waist, if anything, rather too small; a tired, worn face, without -youth and full of disillusion; the hair looks as though restless -fingers had been passed through it, and there is a bitter, hopeless -expression about the lines of the mouth. In her letters--in which we -never wholly possess her, but merely her _mood_--she comes to us in -various guises,--now as a playful kitten, that is curled up cosily, and -sometimes stretches out a soft little paw in playful, tender need of a -caress; or else she is a worried, disappointed woman, with overwrought -and excitable nerves, sceptical in the possibility of content, a -seeker, for whom the charm lies in the seeking, not in the finding. She -is a type of the modern woman, whose inmost being is the essence of -disillusion. - -When we examine the portraits of the four principal characters in this -book--Sonia Kovalevsky, Eleonora Duse, Marie Bashkirtseff, and George -Egerton--we find that they all have one feature in common. It was not -I who first noticed this, it was a man. Ola Hansson, seeing them lying -together one day, pointed it out to me, and he said: “The lips of all -four speak the same language,--the young girl, the great tragedian, the -woman of intellect, and the neurotic writer; each one has a something -about the corners of the mouth that expresses a wearied satiety, -mingled with an unsatisfied longing, as though she had as yet enjoyed -nothing.” - -Why this wearied satiety mingled with an unsatisfied longing? Why -should these four women, who are four opposites, as it were, have -the same expression? The virgin in body and soul, the great creator -of the rôles of the degenerates, the mathematical professor, and the -neurotic writer? Is it something in themselves, something peculiar in -the organic nature of their womanhood, or is it some influence from -without? Is it because they have chosen a profession which excites, -while it leaves them dissatisfied, for the simple reason that a -profession can never wholly satisfy a woman? Yet these four have -excelled in their profession. But can a woman ever obtain satisfaction -by means of her achievements? Is not her life as a woman--as a wife and -as a mother--the true source of all her happiness? And this touch of -disillusion in all of them--is it the disillusion they have experienced -as _woman_; is it the expression of their bitter experiences in the -gravest moment in a woman’s life? Disappointment in man? _The_ man that -fate thrust across their path, who was their experience? And their -yearning is now fruitless, for the flower of expectant realization -withered before they plucked it. - -Two of these women have carried the secret of their faces with them -to the grave, but the others live and are not willing to reveal it. -George Egerton would like to be as silent about it as they are; but -her nerves speak, and her nerves have betrayed her secret in the book -called “Discords.” - -When we read “Discords” we ask ourselves how is it possible that -this frail little woman could write such a strong, brutal book? In -“Keynotes” Mrs. Egerton was still a little coquette, with 5¾ gloves -and 18-inch waist, who herself played a fascinating part. She had -something of a midge’s nature, dancing up and down, and turning nervous -somersaults in the sunshine. “Discords” is certainly a continuation of -“Keynotes,” but it is quite another kind of woman who meets us here. -The thrilling, nervous note of the former book has changed into a -clashing, piercing sound, hard as metal; it is the voice of an accuser -in whom all bitterness takes the form of reproaches which are unjust, -and yet unanswerable. It is the voice of a woman who is conscious -of being ill-treated and driven to despair, and who speaks in spite -of herself in the name of thousands of ill-treated and despairing -women. Who can tell us whether her nerves have ill-treated this -woman and driven her to despair, or whether it is her outward fate, -especially her fate with regard to the man? Women of this kind are not -confidential. They take back to-morrow what they have confessed to-day, -partly from a wish not to let themselves be understood, and partly -because the aspect of their experiences varies with every change of -mood, like the colors in a kaleidoscope. - -But throughout these changes, one single note is maintained in -“Discords,” as it was in “Keynotes.” In the latter it was a high, -shrill treble, like the song of a bird in spring; in “Discords” it is a -deep bass note, groaning in distress with the groan of a disappointed -woman. - - -V - -The tone of bitter disappointment which pervades “Discords” is the -expression of woman’s disappointment in man. Man and man’s love are -not a joy to her; they are a torment. He is inconsiderate in his -demands, brutal in his caresses, and unsympathetic with those sides of -her nature which are not there for his satisfaction. He is no longer -the great comic animal of “Keynotes,” whom the woman teases and plays -with--he is a nightmare which smothers her during horrible nights, a -hangman who tortures her body and soul during days and years for his -pleasure; a despot who demands admiration, caresses, and devotion, -while her every nerve quivers with an opposite emotion; a man born -blind, whose clumsy fingers press the spot where the pain is, and when -she moans, replies with coarse, unfeeling laughter, “Absurd nonsense!” - -Although I believed myself to be acquainted with all the books which -women have written against men, no book that I have ever read has -impressed me with such a vivid sense of physical pain. Most women come -with reasonings, moral sermons, and outbursts of temper: a man may -allow himself much that is forbidden to others, that must be altered. -Women are of no importance in his eyes; he has permitted himself to -look down upon them. They intend to teach him their importance. They -are determined that he shall look up to them. But here we have no trace -of Xantippe-like violence, only a woman who holds her trembling hands -to the wounds which man has inflicted upon her, of which the pain is -intensified each time that he draws near. A woman, driven to despair, -who jumps upon him like a wild-cat, and seizes him by the throat; and -if that does not answer, chooses for herself a death that is ten times -more painful than life with him, _chooses_ it in order that she may -have her own way. - -What is this? It is not the well-known domestic animal which we call -woman. It is a wild creature belonging to a wild race, untamed and -untamable, with the yellow gleam of a wild animal in its eyes. It is a -nervous, sensitive creature, whose primitive wildness is awakened by a -blow which it has received, which bursts forth, revengeful and pitiless -as the lightning in the night. - -That is what I like about this book. That a woman should have sprung -up, who with her instinct can bore to the bottom layers of womanhood -the quality that enables her to renew the race, her primæval quality, -which man, with all his understanding, has never penetrated. A few -years ago, in a study on Gottfried Keller’s women, I mentioned wildness -as the basis of woman’s nature; Mrs. Egerton has given utterance to -the same opinion in “Keynotes,” and has since tried to embody it in -“Discords;” her best stories are those where the wild instinct breaks -loose. - -But why this terror of man, this physical repulsion, as in the story -called “Virgin Soil”? The authoress says that it is because an -ignorant girl in her complete innocence is handed over in marriage to -an exacting husband. But that is not reason enough. The authoress’s -intellect is not as true as her instinct. There must be something -more. The same may be said of “Wedlock,” where the boarding-house cook -marries an amorous working man, who is in receipt of good wages, for -the sake of having her illegitimate child to live with her; he refuses -to allow it, and when the child dies of a childish ailment, she murders -his two children by the first marriage. - -Mrs. Egerton’s stories are not invented; neither are they realistic -studies copied from the notes in her diary. They are experiences. -She has lived them all, because the people whom she portrays have -impressed their characters or their fate upon her quivering nerves. -The music of her nerves has sounded like the music of a stringed -instrument beneath the touch of a strange hand, as in that masterpiece, -“Gone Under,” where the woman tells her story between the throes of -sea-sickness and drunkenness. The man to whom she belongs has punished -her unfaithfulness by the murder of her child, and she revenges herself -by drunkenness; yet, in spite of it all, he remains the master whom she -is powerless to punish, and in her despair she throws herself upon the -streets. - -Only one man has had sufficient instinct to bring to light this abyss -in woman’s nature, and that is Barbey d’Aurevilly, the poet who was -never understood. But in Mrs. Egerton’s book there is one element -which he had not discovered, and, although she does not express it in -words, it shows itself in her description of men and women. Her men are -Englishmen with bull-dog natures, but the women belong to another race; -and is not this horror, this physical repulsion, this woman raging -against the man, a true representation of the way that the Anglo-Saxon -nature reacts upon the Celtic? - -Two races stand opposed to one another in these sketches; perhaps the -authoress herself is not quite conscious of it, but it is plainly -visible in her descriptions of character, where we have the heavy, -massive Englishman, _l’animal mâle_, and the untamable woman who is -prevented by race instinct from loving where she ought to love. - -In “The Regeneration of Two,” Mrs. Egerton has tried to describe a -Celtic woman where she can love, but the attempt is most unsuccessful, -for here we see plainly that she lacked the basis of experience. There -are, however, many women who know what love is, although they have -never experienced it. Men came, they married, but the man for them -never came. - - -VI - -There is a little story in this collection called “Her Share,” where -the style is full of tenderness, perhaps even a trifle too sweet. It -affects one like a landscape on an evening in early autumn, when the -sun has gone down and twilight reigns; it seems as though veiled in -gray, for there is no color left, although everything is strangely -clear. Mrs. Egerton has a peculiarly gentle touch and soft voice where -she describes the lonely, independent working girl. Her little story is -often nothing more than the fleeting shadow of a mood, but the style is -sustained throughout in a warm stream of lyric; for this Celtic woman -certainly has the lyrical faculty, a thing which a woman writer rarely -has, if ever, possessed before. There is something in her writing -which seems to express a desire to draw near to the lonely girl and -say: “You have such a good time of it in your grayness. In Grayness -your nerves find rest, your instincts slumber, no man ill-treats you -with his love, you experience discontent in contentment, but you know -nothing of the torture of unstrung nerves. Would I were like you; but I -am a bundle of electric currents bursting forth in all directions into -chaos.” - -Besides these two dainty twilight sketches, she has others like the -description in “Gone Under,” of the storm on that voyage from America -to England where we imagine ourselves on board ship, and seem to feel -the rolling sea, to hear the ship cracking and groaning, to smell -the hundreds of fetid smells escaping from all corners, and the damp -ship-biscuits and the taste of the bitter salt spray on the tongue. -We owe this forcible and matter-of-fact method of reproducing the -impressions received by the senses to the retentive power of her -nerves, through which she is able to preserve her passing impressions -and to reproduce them in their full intensity. She relies on her -womanly receptive faculty, not on her brain. - - * * * * * - -George Egerton’s life has been of the kind which affords ample material -for literary purposes, and it is probable that she has more raw -material ready for use at any time when she may require it; but at -present she retains it in her nerves, as it were, under lock and key. -She had intended from childhood to become an artist, and writing is -only an afterthought; yet, no sooner did she begin to write than the -impressions and experiences of her life shaped themselves into the form -of her two published works. Until the publication of “Discords,” we had -thought that she was one of those intensely individualistic writers who -write one book because they must, but never write another, or, at any -rate, not one that will bear comparison with the first; the publication -of “Discords” has entirely dispelled this opinion, and has given us -good reason to hope for many more works from her pen. - - - - -III - -_The Modern Woman on the Stage_ - - -I - -A lean figure, peculiarly attractive, though scarcely to be called -beautiful; a melancholy face with a strangely sweet expression, no -longer young, yet possessed of a pale, wistful charm; _la femme de -trente ans_, who has lived and suffered, and who knows that life is -full of suffering; a woman without any aggressive self-confidence, yet -queenly, gentle, and subdued in manner, with a pathetic voice,--such -is Eleonora Duse as she appeared in the parts which she created for -herself out of modern pieces. When first I saw her, I tried to think -of some one with whom to compare her; I turned over in my mind the -names of all the greatest actresses in the last ten years or more, and -wondered whether any of them could be said to be her equal, or to have -surpassed her. But neither Wolter nor Bernhardt, neither Ellmenreich -nor the best actresses of the _Théâtre Français_, could be compared -with her. The French and German actresses were entirely different; they -seemed to stand apart, each complete in themselves--while she too stood -apart, complete in herself. They represented a world of their own and a -perfected civilization; and she, though like them in some ways, seemed -to represent the genesis of a world, and a civilization in embryo. -This was not merely the result of comparing an Italian with French and -German, and one school with another,--it was the woman’s temperament -compared to that of others, her acute susceptibility, compared to which -her celebrated predecessors impressed one as being too massive, almost -too crude, and one might be tempted to add, less womanly. Many of -them have possessed a more versatile genius than hers, and nearly all -have had greater advantages at their disposal; but the moment that we -compare them to Duse, their loud, convulsive art suddenly assumes the -appearance of one of those gigantic pictures by Makart, once so fiery -colored and now so faded; and if we compare the famous dramatic artists -of the seventies and eighties with Duse, we might as well compare a -splendid festal march played with many instruments to a Violin solo -floating on the still night air. - -The pieces acted by Eleonora Duse at Berlin, where I saw her, were -mainly chosen to suit the public taste, and they differed in nothing -from the usual virtuosa programme. These consisted of Sarah Bernhardt’s -favorite parts, such as “Fédora,” “La Dame aux Camélias,” and pieces -taken from the _répertoire_ of the _Théâtre Français_, such as -“Francillon” and “Divorçons,” varied with “Cavalleria Rusticana,” and -such well-known plays as “Locandiera,” “Fernande,” and “The Doll’s -House.” She did not act Shakespeare, and there she was wise; for what -can Duse’s pale face have in common with the exuberant spirits and -muscular strength of the women of the _Renaissance_, whose own rich -life-blood shone red before their eyes and drove them to deeds of -love and vengeance, which it makes the ladies of our time ill to hear -described. But she also neglected some pieces which must have suited -her better than her French _répertoire_. She did not give us Marco -Praga’s “Modest Girls,” where Paulina’s part seems expressly created -for her, nor his “Ideal Wife,” into which she might have introduced -some of her own instinctive philosophy. Neither did she act the “Tristi -Amori” of her celebrated fellow-countryman, Giuseppe Giacosa. - -And yet, in the parts which she did act, she opened to us a new world, -which had no existence before, because it was her own. It was the world -of her own soul, the ever-changing woman’s world, which no one before -her has ever expressed on the stage; she gave us the secret, inner life -of woman, which no poet can wholly fathom, and which only woman herself -can reveal, which with more refined nerves and more sensitive and -varied feelings has emerged bleeding from the older, coarser, narrower -forms of art, to newer, brighter forms, which, though more powerful, -are also more wistful and more hopeless. - - -II - -Eleonora Duse has a strangely wearied look. It is not the weariness of -exhaustion or apathy, nor is it the weariness natural to an overworked -actress, although there are times when she suffers from that to so -great an extent that she acts indifferently the whole evening, and -makes the part a failure. Neither is it the weariness of despondency -which gives the voice a hollow, artificial sound, which is noticeable -in all virtuosas when they are over-tired. Neither is it the utter -prostration resulting from passion, like the drowsiness of beasts of -prey, which our tragic actors and actresses delight in. Passion, the -so-called great passion, which, according to an old legend recounted -in one of the Greek tragedies, comes like the whirlwind, and leaves -nothing behind but death and dried bones--passion such as that is -unknown to Duse. Brunhild, Medea, Messalina, and all the ambitious, -imperious princesses of historic drama are nothing to her; she is no -princess or martyr of ancient history, but a princess in her own right, -and a martyr of circumstances. Throughout her acting there is a feeling -of surprise that she should suffer and be martyred, accompanied by -the dim knowledge that it must be so--and it is that which gives her -soul its weary melancholy. For it is not her body, nor her senses, nor -her mind which give the appearance of having just awoke from a deep -lethargy; the weariness is all in her soul, and it is that which gives -her a soft, caressing, trustful manner, as though she felt lonely, -and yearned for a little sympathy. Love is full of sympathy, and that -is why Eleonora Duse acts love. Not greedy love, which asks more -than it gives, like Walter’s and Bernhardt’s; not sensual love, nor -yet imperious love, like the big woman who takes pity on the little -man, whom it pleases her to make happy. When Duse is in love, even in -“Fédora,” it is always she who is the little woman, and the man is -for her the big man, the giver, who holds her happiness in his hands, -to whose side she steals anxiously, almost timidly, and looks up at -him with her serious, wearied, almost child-like smile. She comes to -him for protection and shelter, just as travelers are wont to gather -round a warm fire, and she clings to him caressingly with her thin -little hands,--the hands of a child and mother. Never has woman been -represented in a more womanly way than by Eleonora Duse; and more than -that, I take it upon myself to maintain that woman has never been -represented upon the stage until now--by Eleonora Duse. - -She shows us the everlasting child in woman,--in the full-grown, -experienced woman, who is possessed of an erotic yearning for fulness -of life. Woman is not, and cannot be, happy by herself, nor is the -sacrifice of a moment enough for her; it is not enough for her to -live by the side of the man; a husband’s tenderness is as necessary -to her as the air she breathes. His passion, lit by her, is her life -and happiness. He gives her the love in which her life can blossom -into a fair and beautiful flower. And she accepts him, not with the -silly innocence of a child, not with the ignorance of girlhood, not -with the ungoverned passion of a mistress, not with the condescending -forbearance of the “superior woman,” not with the brotherly affection -of the manly woman,--we have had ample opportunity of seeing and -benefiting by such representations as those in every theatre, and in -every tongue, since first we began to see and to think. They include -every type of womanhood as understood and represented by actresses -great and small. But into all this, Duse introduces a new element, -something which was formerly only a matter of secondary importance on -the stage, which, by the “highest art,” was judged in the light of a -juggler’s trick, and was considered by the lower art as little more -than a valuable ingredient. She makes it the main-string on which -her acting vibrates, the keynote without which her art would have no -meaning. She accepts the man with the whole-hearted sincerity of an -experienced woman, who shrinks from the loneliness of life, and longs -to lose herself in the “loved one”. She has the dreadful sensation that -a human being has nothing but minutes, minutes; that there is nothing -lasting to rely on; that we swim across dark waters from yesterday -until to-morrow, and our unfulfilled desires are less terrible than -the feverish anxiety with which we anticipate the future in times of -prosperity. - -Eleonora Duse’s acting tells of infinite suspense. - -Her entire art rests on this one note,--Suspense: which means that -we know nothing, possess nothing, can do nothing; that everything is -ruled by chance, and the whole of life is one great uncertainty. This -terrible insecurity stands as a perfect contrast to the “cause and -effect” theory of the schools, which trust in God and logic, and offer -a secure refuge to the playwright’s art. This mysterious darkness, from -whence she steps forward like a sleep-walker, gives a sickly coloring -to her actions. There is something timid about her; she seems to have -an almost superstitious dislike of a shrill sound, or a brilliant -color; and this peculiarity of hers finds expression not only in her -acting, but also in her dress. - -We seldom see toilets on the stage which reveal a more individual -taste. Just as Duse never acted anything but what was in her own soul, -she never attempted any disguise of her body. Her own face was the only -mask she wore when I saw her act. The expression of her features, the -deep lines on her cheeks, the melancholy mouth, the sunken eyes with -their large heavy lids, were all characteristic of the part. She always -had the same black, broad, arched eyebrows, the same wavy, shiny black -Italian hair, which was always done up in a modest knot, sometimes -high, sometimes a little lower, from which two curls always escaped -during the course of her acting, because she had a habit of brushing -her forehead with a white and rather bony hand, as though every violent -emotion made her head ache. - -No jewel glittered against her sallow skin, and she wore no ornament -on her dress; there was something pathetic in the unconcealed thinness -of her neck and throat. She was of medium height, a slender body with -broad hips, without any signs of the rounded waist which belongs to -the fashionable figure of the drama. She wore no stays, and there was -nothing to hinder the slow, graceful, musical movements of her somewhat -scanty figure. She made frequent gestures with her arms which were -perfectly natural in her, although her Italian vivacity sometimes gave -them a grotesque appearance. But it was the grace of her form, rather -than her gestures, which called attention to the natural stateliness of -her person. As to her dresses, they were not in the least fashionable, -there was nothing of the French fashion-plate style about them; but -then she never made any attempt to follow the fashion,--she set it. -There was an antique look about the long soft folds of her dress, also -something suggestive of the _Renaissance_ in the velvet bodices and low -lace collars. - -But her arrangement of color was new; it was not copied either from the -antique or the _Renaissance_, and it was certainly not in accordance -with the present-day fashion. She never wore red,--with the exception -of Nora’s shabby blouse,--nor bright yellow, nor blue; never, in fact, -any strong, deep color. The hues which she affected most were black and -white in all materials, whether for dresses or cloaks. She always wore -pale, cream-colored lace, closely folded across her breast, from whence -her dress fell loosely to the ground; she never wore a waist-band of -any kind whatever. - -She sometimes wore pale bronze, faded violet, and quiet myrtle green in -soft materials of velvet and silk. There was an air of mourning about -her dresses which might have suited any age except merry youth, and -that note was entirely absent from her art, for she was never merry. -She had a happy look sometimes, but she was never merry or noisy on the -stage. I have twice seen her in a hat; and they were sober hats, such -as a widow might wear. - - -III - -I saw Duse for the first time as “Nora.”[2] I was sorry for it, as I -did not think that an Italian could act the part of a heroine with such -an essentially northern temperament. I have never had an opportunity -of seeing Frau Ramlo, who is considered the best Nora on the German -stage, but I have seen Ibsen’s Nora, Fru Hennings of the Royal Theatre -of Copenhagen, and I retained a vivid picture of her acting in my mind. -Fru Hennings’ Nora was a nervous little creature, with fair hair and -sharp features, very neat and _piquante_, but dressed cheaply and not -always with the best taste; she was the regular tradesman’s daughter, -with meagre purse and many pretensions, whose knowledge of life was -bounded by the narrow prejudices of the parlor. There was something -undeveloped about this Nora, with her senseless chatter, something -almost pitiable in her admiration for the self-important Helmer, and -something childish in her conception of his hidden heroism. There was -also a natural, and perhaps inherited tendency for dishonest dealings, -and a well-bred, forced cheerfulness which took the form of hopping -and jumping in a coquettish manner, because she knew that it became -her. When the time comes that she is obliged to face life with its -realities, her feeble brain becomes quite confused, and she hops -round the room in her tight stays, with her fringe and high-heeled -boots, till, nervous and void of self-control as she is, she excites -herself into the wildest apprehensions. This apprehension was the -masterpiece of Fru Hennings’ masterly acting. She kept the mind fixed -on a single point, which had all the more powerful effect in that it -was so characteristically depicted,--she showed us the way by which -a respectable tradesman’s daughter may be driven to the madhouse or -to suicide. But when the change takes place, and a fully developed, -argumentative, woman’s rights woman jumps down upon the little goose, -then even Fru Hennings’ undoubted art was not equal to the occasion. -The part fell to pieces, and two Noras remained, connected only by -a little thread,--the miraculous. Fru Hennings disappears with an -unspoken _au revoir!_ - -When Eleonora Duse comes upon the stage as Nora, she is a pale, -unhealthy-looking woman, with a very quiet manner. She examines -her purse thoughtfully, and before paying the servant she pauses -involuntarily, as poor people usually do before they spend money. And -when she throws off her shabby fur cloak and fur cap, she appears -as a thin, black-haired Italian woman, clad in an old, ill-fitting -red blouse. She plays with the children, without any real gayety, as -grown-up people are in the habit of playing when their thoughts are -otherwise occupied. Fru Linden enters, and to her she tells her whole -history with true Italian volubility, but in an absent manner, like a -person who is not thinking of what she is saying. She likes best to -sit on the floor--very unlike women of her class--and to busy herself -with the Christmas things. In the scene with Helmer an expression of -submissive tenderness comes over her, she likes to be with him, she -feels as though his presence afforded her protection, and she nestles -to his side, more like a sick person than a child. - -The scenes which are impressed with Nora’s modern nervousness come -and go, but Duse never becomes nervous. The many emotional and sudden -changes which take place, the unreasonable actions and other minor -peculiarities of a child of the _bourgeois décadence_,--these do -not concern her. Duse never acts the nervous woman, either here or -elsewhere. She does not act it, because she has too true and delicate -a nervous susceptibility. She can act the most passionate feelings, -and she often does so; but she never acts a capricious, nervous -disposition. She has too refined a taste for that, and her soul is too -full of harmony. - -Ibsen’s Nora is hysterical, and only half a woman; and that is what he, -with his poetic intuition, intended her to be. Eleonora Duse’s Nora is -a complete woman. Crushed by want and living in narrow surroundings, -there is a certain obtuseness about her which renders her willing -to subject herself to new misfortunes. There is also something of -the child in her, as there is in every true woman; but even in her -child-like moments she is a sad child. Then the misfortune happens! -But, strange to say, she makes no desperate attempt to resist it; she -gives no hysterical cry of fear, as a meaner soul would do in the -struggle for life. There is something pitiable in a struggle such as -that, where power and will are so disproportionately unlike. Duse’s -Nora hastily suppresses the first suggestion of fear; but she does -not admire her muff meanwhile, like Fru Hennings. She merely repeats -to herself over and over again in answer to her thoughts: “No, no!” -I never heard any one say “no” like her; it contains a whole world -of human feeling. But all through the night she hears fate say “Yes, -yes!” and the next day, which is Christmas Day, she is overcome with a -fatalistic feeling. She dresses herself for the festival, but not with -cheap rags like Nora; she wears an expensive dark green dress, which -hangs down in rich graceful folds. It is her only best dress, and sets -off her figure to perfection; it makes her look tall and slender, but -also very weary. And as the play goes on, she becomes even more weary -and more resigned, and when death comes, there is no help for it. -Then, after the rehearsal of the tarantella, when Helmer calls to her -from the dining-room and she knows that fate can no longer be averted, -she leaps through the air into his arms with a cry of joy,--to look -at her one would think that she was one of those thin, wild, joyless -Bacchantes whose bas-reliefs have come down to us from the later period -of Grecian art. - -The third act:--Nora and Helmer return from the mask ball. She is -absent-minded and quite indifferent to everything that goes on around -her. That which she knows is going to happen, is to her already a -thing of the past, since she has endured it all in anticipation; her -actions in the matter are only mechanical. - -When Helmer goes to empty the letter-box, she does not try to stop him -with a hundred excuses, she scarcely makes a weak movement to hold him -back; she knows that it must come, nothing that she can do will prevent -it. While Helmer reads the letter, she stands pale and motionless, and -when he rushes at her, she throws on her mantle and leaves the room -without another word. - -He drags her back and overwhelms her with reproaches, in which the -pitiful meanness of his soul is laid bare. Now Duse’s acting begins -in earnest, now the dramatic moment has come--the only moment in the -drama--for the sake of which she took the part. - -She stands by the fireplace, with her face towards the audience, -and does not move a muscle until he has finished speaking. She says -nothing, she never interrupts him. Only her eyes speak. He runs -backwards and forwards, up and down the room, while she follows him -with her large, suffering eyes, which have an unnatural look in them, -follows him backwards and forwards in unutterable surprise,--a surprise -which seems to have fallen from heaven, and which changes little by -little into an unutterable, inconceivable disappointment, and that -again into an indescribably bitter, sickening contempt. And into her -eyes comes at last the question: “Who are you? What have you got to do -with me? What do you want here? What are you talking about?” - -The other letter drops into the letter-box, and Helmer loads her with -tender, patronizing words. But she does not hear him. She is no longer -looking at him. What does the chattering creature want now? She does -not know him at all. She has never loved him. There was once a man -whose sympathy she possessed, and who was her protector. That man is no -more, and she has never loved any one! - -She turns away with a gesture of displeasure, and goes to change her -clothes, anxious to get away as quickly as possible. He stops her. What -then? The woman is awake in her. She is a woman in the moment of a -woman’s greatest ignominy,--when she discovers that she does not love. -What does he want with her? Why does he raise objections? He----? _Tant -de bruit pour une omelette!_ She throws him a few indifferent words, -shrugs her shoulders, turns her back upon him, and goes quickly out at -the door. Presently we hear the front door close with a bang. There is -no mention at all about the “miracle.” - -That is how Duse united Nora’s double personality. Make it up! There -is no making it up between the man and wife, except the kiss and the -shrug of the shoulders. She ignores Ibsen’s principal argument. Reason, -indeed? Reason has never settled anything in stern reality, least of -all as regards the relationship between husband and wife. One day Nora -wakes up and finds that Helmer has become loathsome to her, and she -runs away from him with the instinctive horror of a living person for -a decomposed corpse. Of course nothing “miraculous” can happen, for -that would mean that the living person should go mad and return to the -corpse. - -Eleonora Duse treats all her parts in the same independent manner that -she treats the text of Nora. When we are able to follow her, and that -is by no means always, we notice how she alters it to suit herself, -how another being comes to the front,--a being who has no place in -the written words, and whom the author never thought of, whom he, -in most cases, could certainly not have drawn from his own views of -life and his own inner consciousness. Duse’s heroine is more womanly, -in the deeper sense of the word, than the society ladies in Ibsen’s -and Sardou’s dramas, and she is not only more simple than they are, -but also far greater. Eleonora Duse is not a dialectician like Ibsen -and Sardou; their hair-splitting logic is no concern of hers, and it -certainly was not written for her. She has an instinctive, unerring -intuition of what the part should be, and she throws herself into it -and acts accordingly. She does not vary much; she is not a realist who -makes a careful note of every little peculiarity, and arranges them in -a pattern of mosaic; she is truthful to a reckless extent, but not -always true to the letter; sometimes like this, sometimes like that, -she differs in the different parts. She is true, because she is proud -and courageous enough to show herself as she really is. There is no -need for her to be otherwise. There is danger of uniformity in this -great simplicity of hers, and she would not escape it if it were not -for her emotional nature, and an intense, almost painful sincerity, -which was perhaps never represented on the stage before her time, and -which was certainly never before made the groundwork of a woman’s -feelings. She comes to meet us half absorbed in her own thoughts, a -complete woman,--complete in that indissoluble unity which is the -basis of a healthy woman’s nature: woman-child and also woman-mother, -a woman with the stamp which is the result of deep, vital experience, -with a woman’s tragedy ineffaceably engraved on every feature,--this -same woman’s tragedy which she reproduces upon the stage. It is the -fact of her not troubling herself about anything else that imbues her -acting with an air of simplicity, and because she is such a complete -woman herself, there is an air of indescribable stateliness about her -acting. She not only simplified all that she took in hand, but she -also improved it. For all these characters which she created were the -result of the completeness of her womanly nature, and that is why they -never had but the one motive, for all the evil they did, and for their -hate: they revenged themselves for the _crimen læsæ majestatis_, which -sin was committed against their womanly nature, and which a true woman -never forgives, as when the priceless pearl of her womanhood has been -misused. That is why they made no pathetic gestures, no noise or tragic -screams, but acted quietly and silently, as we do a thing which is -expected of us, with a quiet indifference, as when intact nature bows -itself under and assists fate. - -That is how Duse acted Nora, but she acted Clotilde in “Fernande” in -the same mood, also Odette in the play, called by the same name, both -by Sardou, and that was more difficult. Clotilde and Odette are a -couple of vulgar people. Clotilde, a widow of distinction, revenges -herself upon a young man of proud and noble family, who has been her -lover for many years, but has broken his marriage vows, by encouraging -his attachment for a dishonored girl, whom she persuades him to marry, -and afterwards triumphantly tells him his wife’s history. - -Odette’s husband finds her one night with her lover, and he turns -her out of the house in the presence of witnesses. For several years -she leads a dissolute life, dishonoring the name of her husband and -grown-up daughter. This stain on the family makes it almost impossible -for the latter to marry, and the husband offers the fallen woman a -large sum of money to deprive her of his name. She agrees, on condition -that she shall be allowed to see her daughter. She is prevented from -making herself known to the latter, and when she comes away after the -interview, she drowns herself in a fit of hysterical self-contempt. -Such are the contents of the two pieces into which Duse put her -greatest and best talent. - - -IV - -She comes as Clotilde into the gambling saloon, to inquire after the -young girl whom she had nearly driven over. She is simply dressed, and -has the appearance of a distinguished lady, with a happy and virtuous -past. The manner in which she receives the girl in her own house, -talks to her and puts her at her ease, was so kind and hearty that -the audience, very unexpectedly in this scene, broke into a storm of -applause before the curtain had gone down. Her lover returns from a -journey which arouses her suspicion, and she, anxious not to deceive -herself, elicits the confession that he no longer cares for her, and is -in love with some one else. That some one is Fernande. He goes to look -for her, finds her in the same house, and returns immediately. Clotilde -thinks that he has come back to her. Her speechless delight must be -seen, for it cannot be described; her whole being is suffused with a -radiant joy, she trembles with excitement. When it is all made plain to -her, and there is no longer any room for doubt, she bows her head over -his hand for an instant, as though to kiss it, as she had so often done -before, then she strokes it softly with her own.... She will never look -into his face again, yet she cannot cease to love the clear, caressing -hand, which calls to mind her former happiness. - -She lets things take their course, and when it is over she has the -scene with Pomerol, when she defends her conduct. Duse has a form -of dialectic peculiar to herself, which is neither sensible nor -deliberate, but impulsive. When she does wrong she does it--not because -she is bad, but because she cannot help herself. A part of her nature, -which was the source of her life, is wounded and sick unto death, and a -gnawing, burning pain compels her to commit deeds as dark and painful -as her own heart. She goes about it quietly, doing it all as a matter -of course; to her they seem inevitable as the outer expression of a -hidden suffering. - -She is at her best in the passionate “Fédora,” when she represents this -state of blank amazement, mingled with despair, taking the place of -what has been love. If she afterwards comes across the French cynic, -she reasons with him too--but like a woman, _i.e._, she drowns his -arguments in an extraordinary number of interjections, with or without -words. She never crosses the threshold of her life as an actress, she -never once attains to the consciousness of objective judgment. - -When the man whom she loves is married to the dishonored girl, Clotilde -comes to bring him the information which she has reserved until now. -Suddenly she stands in the doorway, and sees that he is alone, and -there comes over her an indescribable expression of dumb, suppressed -love. She seems to be making a frantic appeal to the past to be as -though it had never taken place, and in the emotion of the moment she -has forgotten what brought her there. Not until he has unceremoniously -shown her the door, and opened the old wound, does she tell him who his -wife is. - -The same with “Odette.” She is in love, and she receives her lover. At -that moment her husband comes home. (Andó, Duse’s partner, is almost -as good an actor as she is.) He is a shallow, restless, hot-tempered -little man, who seizes her by the shoulders as she is about to throw -herself into the other man’s arms. She collapses altogether, and stands -before him stammering and ashamed. He thrusts her out of the house, -although it is the middle of the night, and she is lightly clad. In a -moment she has drawn herself up to her full height,--a woman deprived -of home and child, on whom the deadliest injury has been inflicted in -the most barbarous manner; in the presence of such cruelty, her own -fault sinks to nothing, and with a voice as hoarse as that of an animal -at bay, she cries, “Coward!” and leaves him. - -Many years have gone by, and we meet Odette once more, this time as -a courtesan in a gambling saloon. She is very much aged,--a thin, -disillusioned woman, for whom her husband is searching everywhere, with -the intention of depriving her of his name. There is still something -about her which bears the impress of the injured woman. She recalls the -past as clearly as though it happened only yesterday; for she can never -forget it, and time has not lessened the disgrace. She treats him with -wearied indifference, and her voice is harsh like an animal’s, and she -chokes as though she were trying to smother her indignation. - -Then follows the last act, when she meets her daughter. She comes in, -dressed like an unhappy old widow, shaking with emotion, and scarcely -able to contain herself. Her eyes are aglow with excitement, as she -rushes forward, ready to cast herself into her daughter’s arms. But -when she sees the fresh, innocent girl, she is overcome with a feeling -of shyness, and shrinks from her with an awkward, anxious gesture. -She speaks hesitatingly, like one who is ill at ease; she raises her -shoulders and stoops, and holds her thin, restless hands clasped -together, lest they should touch her daughter. The girl displays the -various little souvenirs that belonged to her mother, and plays the -piece which was her favorite, and talks about her “dead mother.” Then -this man and woman are stirred with a deep feeling, which is the -simple keynote of humanity, which they never experienced before in -the days when they were together. And they sit and cry, each buried in -their own sorrow, and far apart from one another. After that she puts -her trembling arms round the girl, and kisses her with an expression -in her face which it is impossible to simulate, and which cannot be -imitated,--which no one understands except the woman who is herself a -mother. She gazes at her daughter as though she could never see enough -of her; she strokes her with feverish hands, arranges the lace on her -dress, and you feel the joy that it is to her to touch the girl, and -to know that she is really there. Then she becomes very quiet, as -though she had suffered all that it was possible for her to suffer. -As she passes her husband, she catches hold of his outstretched hand, -and tries to kiss it. Then she tears herself away, overcome with the -feeling that she can endure it no longer. - -Eleonora Duse prefers difficult parts. She was nothing more than -an ordinary actress in “La Locandiera,” and the witty dialogue in -“Cyprienne” and “Francillon” had little in common with her nature. -Even the part of “La Dame aux Camélias” was an effort to her. The -silly, frivolous cocotte, with her consumptive longing to be loved, -was too exaggerated a part for Eleonora Duse. A superabundance of good -spirits is foreign to her nature, which is sad as life itself. Pride -and arrogance she cannot act, nor yet the trustfulness which comes from -inexperience. She gave the impression of not feeling young enough for -“La Dame aux Camélias’” happy and unhappy moods. Eleonora Duse’s art is -most at home where life’s great enigma begins:--Where do we come from? -Why are we here? Where are we going to? We are tossed to and fro on the -waters in a dense fog; we suffer wrong, and we do wrong, and we know -not why. Fate! fate! We are powerless in the hands of Fate! When Duse -can act the blindness of fatalism, then she is content. - -She was able to do so in “Fédora.” - -The pretty, fashionable heroine does not change into a fury when the -man whom she loves is brought home murdered. When we meet her again she -is quite quiet,--a calm, cold woman of the world, with only one object -in life, which is to punish the murderer. It is a task like any other, -but it is inevitable, and must be undertaken as a matter of course. She -makes no display of anger, and takes no perverse pleasure in thoughts -of vengeance. The murderer is nothing to her,--he is a stranger. But -she has been rendered desolate in the flower of her youth; the table of -life, which is never spread more than once, has been upset before her -eyes at the very moment of her anticipated happiness, and this is an -injury which she is going to repay. She is proud, and has no illusions; -she is a just judge, who recompenses evil with evil and good with good. -This “Fédora” is reserved and unreasoning. - -The scene changes. She loves the man whom she has been pursuing, and -she discovers that the dead man has been false to both of them, and -she realizes that now for the first time life’s table is spread for -her, while the secret police, to whom she has betrayed him, are waiting -outside, and she clings to him terrified, showers caresses upon him, -kisses him with unspeakable tenderness. There is something in her of -the helplessness of a little child, mingled with a mother’s protecting -care, as she implores him to remain, and entices him to love, and seeks -refuge in his love, as a terrified animal seeks refuge in its hole. - -There are two other features of Eleonora Duse’s art which deserve -notice. These are, the way in which she tells a lie, and the way she -acts death. As I have said already, she is not a realist, and she -frames her characters from her inner consciousness, not from details -gathered from the outward features of life. Her representation of death -is also the outcome of her instinct. A death scene has no meaning -for her unless it reflects the inner life. As a process of physical -dissolution, she takes no interest in it. She has not studied death -from the side of the sick-bed, and she makes short work of it in -“Fédora,” as also in “La Dame aux Camélias.” In the first piece, the -point which she emphasizes is the sudden determination to take the -poison; in the second, it is her joy at having the man whom she loves -near her at the last. - -Then her manner of lying. When Duse tells a lie, she does it as if it -were the simplest and most natural thing in the world. Her lies and -deceptions are as engaging, persuasive, and fantastic as a child’s. -Lying is an important factor in the character of a woman who has much -to fight against, and it is a weapon which she delights to use, and -the use of it renders her unusually fascinating and affectionate. Even -those who do not understand the words of the play, know when Duse is -telling a lie, because she becomes so unusually lively and talkative, -and her large eyes have an irresistible sparkle in them. - -“Cavalleria Rusticana” was the only good Italian play that Duse acted. -She was more of a realist in this piece than in any other, because -she reproduced what she had seen daily before her eyes,--her native -surroundings, her fellow-countrymen,--instead of that which she had -learned by listening to her own soul. Her Santuzza--the poor, forsaken -girl with the raw, melancholy, guttural accents of despair--was -life-like and convincing, but the barbaric wildness of the exponent was -something which was as startling in this stupid, pale weakly creature -as a roar from the throat of a roe deer. - - -V - -And now to sum up:--Eleonora Duse goes touring all round the world. -She is going to America, and she is certain to go back to Berlin and -St. Petersburg and Vienna, and other places where she may or may not -have been before. She will have to travel and act, travel and act, as -all popular actresses have done before her. She will grow tired of it, -unspeakably tired,--we can see that already,--but she will be obliged -to go on, till she becomes stereotyped, like all the others. - -When we see her again, will she be the same as she is now? Her -technical power is extraordinary, but her art is simple; melancholy and -dignity are its chief ingredients. Will Duse’s womanly nature be able -to bear the strain of never-ending repetition? This fear has been the -cause of my endeavor to accentuate her individuality as it appeared -to me when I saw her. Hers is not one of those powerful natures -which always regain their strength, and are able to fight through -all difficulties. Her entire acting is tuned upon one note, which is -usually nothing more than an accompaniment in the art of acting; that -note is sincerity. In my opinion she is the greatest woman genius on -the stage. - -Nowadays we are either too lavish or too sparing in our use of the word -genius; we either brandish it abroad with every trumpet, or else avoid -it altogether. We are willing to allow that there are geniuses amongst -actors and actresses, and that such have existed, and may perhaps -continue to exist, but I have never observed that any attempt is made -to distinguish between the genius of man and woman on the stage. This -may possibly be accounted for by the fact that the difference was not -great. The hero was manly, the heroine womanly, and the old people, -whether men or women, were either comic or tearful, and the characters -of both sexes were usually bad. The difference lay chiefly in the -dress, the general comportment, and the voice: one could see which was -the woman, and she of course acted a woman’s feelings; tradition ruled, -and in accordance with it the actress imitated the man, declaimed her -part like him, and even went as far as to imitate the well-known tragic -step. Types, not individuals, were represented on the stage, and I have -seldom seen even the greatest actresses of the older school deviate -from this rule. - -The society pieces were supposed to represent every-day life; therefore -it was necessary before all else that the actress should be a lady, and -where a lady’s feelings are limited, hers were necessarily limited too. -To every actress, the tragedian not excepted, the question of chief -importance was how she looked. - -But Duse does not care in the least how she looks. Her one desire is -to find means of expressing an emotion of the soul which overwhelms -her, and is one of the mysteries of her womanly nature. Her acting is -not realistic; by which I mean that she does not attempt to impress -her audience by making her acting true to life, which can be easily -attained by means of pathological phenomena, such as a cough, the -cramp, a death-struggle, etc., which are really the most expressive, -and also, in a coarse way, the most successful. She will have none of -this, because it is the kind of acting common to both sexes. What she -wants is to give expression to her own soul, her own womanly nature, -the individual emotions of her own physical and psychical being; -and she can only accomplish that by being entirely herself, _i.e._, -perfectly natural. That is why she makes gesticulations, and speaks in -a tone of voice which is never used elsewhere upon the stage; and she -never tries to disguise her age, because her body is nothing more to -her than an instrument for expressing her woman’s soul. - -What is genius? The word has hitherto been understood to imply a -superabundance of intelligence, imagination, and passion, combined -with a higher order of intellect than that possessed by average -persons. Genius was a masculine attribute, and when people spoke of -woman’s genius, their meaning was almost identical. A finer spiritual -susceptibility scarcely came under the heading of genius; it was -therefore, upon the whole, a very unsatisfactory definition. There can -be no doubt that there is a kind of genius peculiar to women, and it is -when a woman is a genius that she is most unlike man, and most womanly; -it is then that she creates through the instrumentality of her womanly -nature and refined senses. This is the kind of productive faculty -which Eleonora Duse possesses to such a high degree. - -A woman’s productive faculty has always shown a decided preference -for authorship and acting,--the two forms of art which offer the best -opportunity for the manifestation of the inner life, as being the most -direct and spontaneous, and in which there are the fewest technical -difficulties to overcome. A woman’s impulses are of such short duration -that she feels the need for constant change of emotion. The majority -of women are attracted by the stage, and there is no form of artistic -production which they find more difficult to renounce. Why is this? We -will leave vanity and other minor considerations out of the question, -and imagine Duse shedding real tears upon the stage, enduring real -mental and maybe physical sufferings, experiencing real sorrow and real -joy. - -And now, putting aside all question of nerves and auto-suggestion, we -would ask what it is that attracts a woman to the stage? - -Sensation. - -A productive nature cannot endure the monotony of real life. To it, -real life means uniformity. Uniformity in love, uniformity in work, -uniformity in pleasures, uniformity in sorrows. To break through this -uniformity--this half sleep of daily existence--is a craving felt by -all persons possessed of superfluous vitality. This vitality may be -more or less centred on the ego, and for such,--_i.e._, the persons -who are possessed of the largest share of individual, productive -vitality,--authorship and acting are the two shortest ways of escape -from the uniformity of daily life. Of these two, the last-named form -of artistic expression is best suited to woman, and the woman who has -felt these sensations, especially the tragic ones, can never tear -herself away from the stage. For she experiences them with an intensity -of feeling which belongs only to the rarest moments in real life, and -which cannot then be consciously enjoyed. But the artificial emotions, -which can scarcely be reckoned artificial, since they cause her excited -nerves to quiver,--of these she is strangely conscious in her enjoyment -of them; she enjoys both spiritual and physical horror, she enjoys the -thousand reflex emotions, and she also enjoys the genuine fatigue and -bodily weakness which follow after. For the majority of women our life -is an everlasting, half-waking expectation of something that never -comes, or it may be nothing more than a hard day’s work; but life -for a talented actress becomes a double existence, filled with warm -colors--sorrow and gladness. She can do what other women never can or -would allow themselves to do, she can express every sensation that she -feels, she can enjoy the full extent of a woman’s feelings, and live -them over and over again. But because this life is half reality and -half fiction, and because the strain of acting is always followed by a -feeling of emptiness and dissatisfaction, great actresses are always -disillusioned, and that is perhaps the reason why Duse’s attractive -face wears an expression of weariness and hopeless longing. But the -warm colors--the colors of sorrow and passion--are always enticing, -and that is why great tragedians can never forsake the stage, although -gradually, little by little, the intensity of their feelings grows -less, and the colors become pale and more false. - - - - -IV - -_The Woman Naturalist_ - - -I - -It is a well-known peculiarity of Norwegian authors that they all -want something. It is either some of the “new devilries” with which -Father Ibsen amuses himself in his old age, or else it is the Universal -Disarm-ment Act and the peace of Europe, which Björnson, with his -increasing years and increasing folly, assures us will come to pass -as a result of “universal morality;” or else it is the rights of the -flesh, which have been discovered by Hans Jaeger; but whatever they -want, it is always something that has no connection with their art -as authors. All their writings assume the form of a polemical or -critical discussion on social subjects; yet in spite of their boasted -psychology, they care little for the great mystery which humanity -offers to them in the unexplored regions lying between the two poles: -man and woman; and as for physiology, they are as little concerned -about it as Paul Bourget in his _Physiologie de l’Amour Moderne_, where -there is no more physiology than there is in the novels of Dumas _père_. - -“When the green tree,” etc. That is the style of the Norwegian authors; -and as for the authoresses of the three Scandinavian countries,--they -are all ladies who have been educated in the high schools. They cast -down their eyes, not out of shyness,--for the modern woman is too -well aware of her own importance to be shy,--but in order to read. -They read about life, as it is and as it should be, and then they set -themselves down to write about life as it is and as it should be; but -they really know nothing of it beyond the little that they see during -their afternoon walks through the best streets in the town, and at the -evening parties given by the best _bourgeois_ society. - -This is the case with all Scandinavian authoresses, with one exception. -This one exception can see, and she looks at life with good large eyes, -opened wide like a child’s, and sees with the impartiality that belongs -to a healthy nature; she can grasp what she sees, and describe it too, -with a freshness and expressiveness which betray a lack of “cultured” -reading. - - -II - -A lady of remarkable and brilliant beauty may sometimes be seen in -the theatre at Copenhagen, or walking in the streets by the side of a -tall, stout, fair gentleman, whose features resemble those of Gustavus -Adolphus. Any one can see that the lady is a native of Bergen. To us -strangers, the natives of Bergen have a certain something whereby we -always recognize them, no matter whether we meet them in Paris or in -Copenhagen. Björnson’s wife has it as decidedly as the humblest clerk -whom we see on Sundays at the table of his employer at Reval or Riga. -Their short, straight noses lack earnestness, their hair is shiny and -untidy, their eyes are black as pitch, and they have the free and -easy movements that are peculiar to a well-proportioned body; it is -as though the essence of the vitality of Europe had collected in the -old Hanseatic town of the North. I do not think that the inhabitants -of Bergen are remarkable for their superior intelligence; if they -were it might hinder them from grasping things as resolutely, and -despatching them as promptly as they are in the habit of doing. But -among Norwegians, who are known to have heavy, meditative natures, the -people of Bergen are the most cheerful and light-hearted,--in as far as -it is possible to be cheerful and light-hearted in this world. - -The lady who is walking by the side of the man with the -Gustavus-Adolphus head is a striking phenomenon in Copenhagen. She is -different from every one else, which a lady ought never to be. Compared -with the flat-breasted, lively, and flirtatious women of Copenhagen, -she, with her well-developed figure and large hips, is like a great -sailing-ship among small coquettish pleasure boats. She is always doing -something which no lady would do; she wears bright colors, which are -not the fashion; and I saw her one evening at an entertainment, where -there were not enough chairs, sitting on a table and dangling her -feet,--although she is the mother of two grown-up sons! - - -III - -When the woman’s rights movement made its appearance in Norway, -authoresses sprang up as numerous as mushrooms after the rain. Women -claimed the right to study, to plead, and to legislate in the local -body and the state; they claimed the suffrage, the right of property, -and the right to earn their own living; but there was one very simple -right to which they laid no claim, and that was the woman’s right to -love. To a great extent this right had been thrust aside by the modern -social order, yet there were plenty of Scandinavian authors who claimed -it; it was only amongst the lady writers that it was ignored. They did -not want to risk anything in the company of man; they did not want any -love on the fourth story with self-cooked meals; they preferred to -criticise man and all connected with him; and they wrote books about -the hard-working woman and the more or less contemptible man. The -two sexes were a vanquished standpoint. These were completed by the -addition of beings who were neither men nor women, and, in consequence -of the law of adaptability, they continued to improve with time, and -woman became a thinking, working, neutral organism. - -Good heavens! When women think! - -Among the group of celebrated women-thinkers,--Leffler, Ahlgren, -Agrell, etc.,--who criticised love as though it were a product of the -intelligence, followed by a crowd of maidenly amazons, there suddenly -appeared an author named Amalie Skram, whom one really could not accuse -of being too thoughtful. It is true that in her first book there was -the intellectual woman and the sensual man, and a seduced servant -girl, grouped upon the chessboard of moral discussion with a measured -proportion of light and shade,--that was the usual method of treating -the deepest and most complicated moments of human life. But this book -contained something else, which no Scandinavian authoress had ever -produced before: her characters came and went, each in his own way; -every one spoke his own language and had his own thoughts; there was -no need for inky fingers to point the way; life lived itself, and the -horizon was wide with plenty of fresh air and blue sky,--there was -nothing cramped about it, like the wretched little extract of life -to which the other ladies confined themselves. There was a wealth of -minute observation about this book, brought to life by careful painting -and critical descriptions, a trustworthy memory and an untroubled -honesty; one recognized true naturalism below the hard surface of a -problem novel, and one felt that if her talent grew upon the sunny -side, the North would gain its first woman naturalist who did not write -about life in a critical, moralizing, and polemical manner, but in whom -life would reveal itself as bad and as stupid, as full of unnecessary -anxiety and unconscious cruelty, as easy-going, as much frittered away -and led by the senses as it actually is. - -Two years passed by and “Constance Ring,” the story of a woman who was -misunderstood, was followed by “Sjur Gabriel,” the story of a starving -west coast fisherman. There is not a single false note in the book, -and not one awkward description or superfluous word. It resembles one -of those sharp-cut bronze medallions of the Renaissance, wherein the -intention of the artist is executed with a perfected technical power in -the use of the material. This perfection was the result of an intimate -knowledge of the material, and that was Fru Skram’s secret. Her soul -was sufficiently uncultured, and her sense of harmony spontaneous -enough to enable her to reproduce the simplest cause in the heart’s -fibre. She describes human beings as they are to be found alone with -nature,--with a raw, niggardly, unreliable, Northern nature; she -tells of their never-ending, unfruitful toil, whether field labor -or child-bearing, the stimulating effect of brandy, the enervating -influence of their fear of a harsh God,--the God of a severe -climate,--the shy, unspoken love of the father, and the overworked -woman who grows to resemble an animal more and more. Such are the -contents of this simplest of all books, which is so intense in its -absolute straightforwardness. The story is told in the severest style, -in few words without reflections, but with a real honesty which looks -facts straight in the face with unterrified gaze, and is filled with a -knowledge of life and of people combined with a breadth of experience -which is generally the property of men, and not many men. We are forced -to ask ourselves where a woman can have obtained such knowledge, and we -wonder how this unconventional mode of thinking can have found its way -into the tight-laced body and soul of a woman. - -A second book appeared the same year, called “Two Friends.” It is the -story of a sailing vessel of the same name, which travels backwards and -forwards between Bergen and Jamaica, and Sjur Gabriel’s grandson is the -cabin boy on board. This book offers such a truthful representation of -the life, tone of conversation, and work on board a Norwegian sailing -vessel, that it would do credit to an old sea captain. The tone is -true, the characters are life-like, and the humor which pervades the -whole is thoroughly seamanlike. The description of how the entire -crew, including the captain, land at Kingston one hot summer night -to sacrifice to the Black Venus, and the description of the storm, -and the shipwreck of the “Two Friends” on the Atlantic Ocean, the -gradual destruction of the ship, the state of mind of the crew, and the -captain’s suddenly awakened piety;--it is all so perfectly life-like, -so characteristically true of the sailor class, and so full of local -Norwegian coloring, that we ask ourselves how a woman ever came to -write it,--not only to experience it, but to describe it at all, -describe as she does with such masterly confidence and such plain -expressions, without any affectation, prudery, or conceit, and without -any trace of that dilettantism of style and subject which has hitherto -been regarded as inseparable from the writings of Scandinavian women. - - -IV - -Whence comes this sudden change from the dilettante book, “Constance -Ring,” with its Björnson-like reflections, to the matured style of -“Sjur Gabriel” and “Two Friends”? - -I could not understand it all at first, but the day came when I -understood. Amalie Skram as a woman and an author had come on to the -sunny side. - -I have often wondered why it is that so few people come on to the -sunny side. I have studied life until I became the avowed enemy of all -superficial pessimism and superficial naturalism. I have discovered a -secret attraction between happiness and individualism,--an attraction -deeper than Zola is able to apprehend; it is the complete human beings -who, with wide-opened tentacles, are able to appropriate to their own -use everything that their inmost being has need of; but whether a -person is or is not a complete human being, that fate decides for them -before they are born. - -Fru Amalie Skram was, in her way, one of these complete women. She -passed unscathed through a girl’s education, was perhaps scarcely -influenced by it, and with sparkling eyes and glowing cheeks she gazed -upon the world and society with the look of a barbaric Northern woman, -who retains the full use of her instinct. When quite young she married -the captain of a ship, by whom she had two sons. She went with him -on a long sea voyage round the world; she saw the Black Sea, the Sea -of Azof, and the shores of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. She saw -life on board ship, and life on land,--man’s life. Her mind was like -a photographic plate that preserves the impressions received until -they are needed; and when she reproduced them, they were as fresh and -complete as at the moment when they were first taken. These impressions -were not the smallware of a lady’s drawing-room; they represented the -wide horizon, the rough ocean of life with its many dangers. It was the -kind of life that brings with it freedom from all prejudice, the kind -of life which is no longer found on board a modern steamer going to and -fro between certain places at certain intervals. - -But it was not to be expected that the monotony of the life could -satisfy her. She separated herself from her husband, and remained on -shore, where she became interested in various social problems, and -wrote “Constance Ring.” - -It was then that she made the acquaintance of Erik Skram. - -The man with the head of Gustavus Adolphus is Denmark’s most Danish -critic. His name is little known elsewhere, and he cannot be said to -have a very great reputation; but this may be partly accounted for -by the fact that he has no ambition, and partly because he has one -of those profound natures that are rendered passive by the depth of -their intellect. He is a man of one book, a novel called “Gertrude -Colbjörnson,” and he is never likely to write another. But he -contributes to newspapers and periodicals, where his spontaneous talent -is accompanied by that quiet, delicate, easy-going style which is one -of the forms of expression peculiar to the Danish sceptics. - -Fru Amalie Müller became Fru Amalie Skram, and the bold Bergen woman, -who was likewise the dissatisfied lady reformer of Christiania, became -the wife of a born critic, and went to live at Copenhagen. She was an -excitable little _brunette_, he a fair, phlegmatic man, and together -they entered upon the struggle for the mastery, which marriage always -is. - -In this struggle Fru Amalie Skram was beaten; every year she became -more of an artist, more natural, more simple, more herself, and more -of all that a woman never can become when she is left to herself. Her -husband’s superior culture liberated her fresh, wild, primitive nature -from the parasites of social problems; the experienced critic saw that -her strength lay in her keen observation, her happy incapacity for -reasoning and moralizing, her infallible memory for the impressions -of the senses and emotions, and her good spirits, which are nothing -more than the result of physical health. He cautiously pushed her into -the direction to which she is best suited, to the naturalism which is -natural to her. Her books were no longer drawn out, neither were they -as poor in substance as books by women generally are, even the best of -them; they grew to be more laconic than the majority of men’s books, -but clear and vivid; there was nothing in them to betray the woman. And -after he had done this much for her, the experienced man did yet one -thing more,--he gave her the courage of her recollections. - - -V - -Amalie Skram’s talent culminated in “Lucie.” In this book we see -her going about in an untidy, dirty, ill-fitting morning gown, and -she is perfectly at home. It would scandalize any lady. Authoresses -who struggle fearlessly after honest realism--like Frau von -Ebner-Eschenbach and George Eliot--might perhaps have touched upon it, -but with very little real knowledge of the subject. Amalie Skram, on -the other hand, is perfectly at home in this dangerous borderland. She -is much better informed than Heinz Tovote, for instance, and he is a -poet who sings of women who are not to be met with in drawing-rooms. -She describes the pretty ballet girl with genuine enjoyment and -true sympathy; but the book falls into two halves, one of which has -succeeded and the other failed. Everything that concerns Lucie is a -success, including the part about the fine, rather weak-kneed gentleman -who supports her, and ends by marrying her, although his love is not -of the kind that can be called “ennobling.” All that does not concern -Lucie and her natural surroundings is a failure, especially the fine -gentleman’s social circle, into which Lucie enters after her marriage, -and where she seems to be as little at home as Amalie Skram herself. -Many an author and epicurean would have hesitated before writing such -a book as “Lucie.” But Amalie Skram’s naturalism is of such an honest -and happy nature that any secondary considerations would not be likely -to enter her mind, and in the last chapter the brutal naturalism of the -story reaches its highest pitch. In the whole of Europe there are only -two genuine and honest naturalists, and they are Emile Zola and Amalie -Skram. - -Her later books--take, for instance, her great Bergen novel, “S. G. -Myre,” “Love in North and South,” “Betrayed,” etc.--are not to be -compared with the three that we have mentioned. They are naturalistic, -of course; their naturalism is of the best kind; they are still _unco -in de la nature_, but they are no longer entirely _vu à travers un -tempérament_. They are no longer quite Amalie Skram. - -Norwegian naturalism--we might almost say Teutonic -naturalism--culminated in Amalie Skram, this off-shoot of the Gallic -race. Compared with her, Fru Leffler and Fru Ahlgren are good little -girls, in their best Sunday pinafores; Frau von Ebner is a maiden aunt, -and George Eliot a moralizing old maid. All these women came of what is -called “good family,” and had been trained from their earliest infancy -to live as became their position. All the other women whom I have -sketched in this book belonged to the upper classes, and like all women -of their class, they only saw one little side of life, and therefore -their contribution to literature is worthless as long as it tries to -be objective. Naturalism is the form of artistic expression best suited -to the lower classes, and to persons of primitive culture, who do not -feel strong enough to eliminate the outside world, but reflect it as -water reflects an image. They feel themselves in sympathy with their -surroundings, but they have not the refined instincts and awakened -antipathies which belong to isolation. Where the character differs from -the individual consciousness, they do not think of sacrificing their -soul as a highway for the multitude, any more than their body--_à la_ -Lucie--to the _commune bonum_. - - - - -V - -_A Young Girl’s Tragedy_ - - -I - -It seldom happens that a genuine confession penetrates through the -intense loneliness in which a person’s inner life is lived; with -women, hardly ever. It is rare when a woman leaves any written record -of her life at all, and still more rare when her record is of any -psychological interest; it is generally better calculated to lead one -astray. A woman is not like a man, who writes about himself from a -desire to understand himself. Even celebrated women, who are scarce, -and candid women, who are perhaps scarcer still, have no particular -desire to understand themselves. In fact, I have never known a woman -who did not wish, either from a good or bad motive, to remain a _terra -incognita_ to her own self, if only to preserve the instinctive -element in her actions, which might otherwise have perished. There -is also another reason for this reticence. A woman does not live the -inner life to anything like the same extent as a man; her instincts, -occupations, needs, and interests lie outside herself; whereas a man -is more self-contained,--his entire being is developed from within. -Woman is spiritually and mentally an empty vessel, which must be -replenished by man. She knows nothing about herself, or about man, or -about the great silent inflexibility of life, until it is revealed to -her consciousness by man. But the woman of our time--and many of the -best women, too--manifests a desire to dispense with man altogether; -and she whom Nature has destined to be a vessel out of which substance -shall grow, wishes to be a substance in herself, out of which nothing -can grow, because the substance wherewith she endeavors to fill the -void is unorganical, rational, and foreign to her nature. The mistake -is tragic, but there is nothing impressive about it; it is merely -hopeless, chaotic, heart-rending; and because it is chaotic in itself, -it creates a void for the woman who falls into it,--a void in which she -perishes. The more talented she is, and the more womanly, the worse -it will be for her. And yet it is generally the talented woman who is -most strongly attracted by it, and man remains to her both inwardly and -outwardly as much a stranger as though he were a being from another -planet. What can be the origin of this devastating principle at the -core of woman’s being? Among all the learned and celebrated women whom -I have attempted to depict in this book, there is not one in whom -it has not shown itself, either in a lasting or spasmodic form; but -neither is there one who did not suffer acutely on account of it. How -did it begin in these women, who were so richly endowed, whose natures -were so productive? Was it developed by means of outward suggestion? Or -does it mark a state of transition between old and new? It is possible -that it is not found only amongst women, but that there is something -corresponding to it in men. I shall return to this subject afterwards. - -Of all the books which women have written about themselves, I -only know of two that are written with the unalloyed freshness of -spontaneity, and which are therefore genuine to a degree that would -be otherwise impossible; these are Mrs. Carlyle’s diary and Marie -Bashkirtseff’s journal. The contents of both books consist chiefly -of the cries of despair which issue from the mouths of two women who -feel themselves captured and ill-used, and are consequently tired -of life, though they do not know the reason nor who is to blame. -Mrs. Carlyle was an imbittered woman, unwilling to complain of, yet -always indirectly abusing, that disagreeable oddity, Thomas Carlyle; -he was an egotistical boor, who required everything and gave nothing -in return, and was certainly not the right husband for her. The two -books stand side by side: one is the writing of a discontented woman -of a much older generation, whose long-suppressed wrath, annoyance, -and indignation, combined with bodily and spiritual thirst, resulted -in a nervous disease; while the other is far more extraordinary and -difficult to comprehend, as it is the writing of a young girl who is -rich, talented, and pretty, and who belongs entirely to the present -generation of women, since she would be only thirty-four years of age -were she living now. Both books are confessions _d’outre tombe_, and -they are both the result of a desire to be silent,--a desire not often -felt by women. - -Mrs. Carlyle maintained this silence all her life long towards her -husband, and it was not until after her death that he discovered, by -means of the diary, how little he had succeeded in making her happy; -his surprise was great. Marie Bashkirtseff also maintained silence -towards an all too affectionate family, consisting of women only. -They both possessed a strength of mind which is rare in women, and -it was owing to this that they did not confide their troubles to any -one; theirs was the pride that belongs to solitude, for they had -neither women friends nor confidants, and it was only when they were -no longer able to contain themselves that some of their best and worst -feelings overflowed into these books,--in Mrs. Carlyle’s case in a few -bittersweet drops, but with Marie Bashkirtseff they were more like a -foaming torrent filled with thundering whirlpools, with here and there -a few quiet places where the stream widens out into a beautiful clear -lake, and thin willows bend over the still waters. The one felt that -she had not developed into a full-grown woman by her marriage; the -other was a young girl who never grew to be a woman; but both are less -interesting on account of what they tell us than on account of that -which they have not known how to tell. Marie Bashkirtseff’s book, which -in the course of ten years has run through almost as many editions, is -especially interesting in the latter respect, and is a perfect gold -mine for all that has to do with the psychology of young girls. - - -II - -Marie Bashkirtseff was descended from one of those well-guarded -sections of society from whence nearly all the women have sprung who -have taken any active part in the movements of their time during -the latter half of our century. Hers was more than ordinarily -happily situated. The two families from whose union she sprang, the -Bashkirtseffs and Babanins, were both branches of old South-Russian -nobility; but for some reason or other, which she appears never to have -ascertained, the marriage between her parents was an unhappy one. They -separated after having been married for a couple of years, during which -time two children, a son and a daughter, were born, and her mother -returned to her old home, accompanied by little Marie. Petted and -spoiled by her grandparents, her mother, her aunt, and the governesses, -who, even at that early age, were greatly impressed by her numerous -talents and determined will, she spent the first years of her life on -her grandparents’ property; but in May, 1870, the whole family went -abroad, including the mother, aunt, grandfather, Marie, her brother, -her little cousin, a family doctor, and a large retinue of servants. - -For two years they wandered from place to place, staying at Vienna, -Baden-Baden, Geneva, and Paris, and finally settling at Nice. It was -there that Marie, who was then twelve years of age, began the journal, -published after her death at four-and-twenty, which was to be her real -life work. - -She has bequeathed other tokens of her labor to posterity. They hang -in the Luxembourg museum, in the division reserved for pictures by -artists of the present day which have been purchased by the State. If -we go into one of the smaller side rooms, we are suddenly confronted -by a picture of dogs barking in a desert place; there is something so -real and vivid about it that the rest of the State-rewarded industry -seems pale and lifeless in comparison. A bit of nature in the corner -attracts, while it makes us shiver; it is large, bold, brutal,--and -what does it represent? Only a couple of street urchins talking to each -other as they stand in front of a wooden paling. There is no doubt but -that the influence of Bastien Lepage has been at work here. There is -something that reminds us of him in the hot, gray, sunless sky; but -there is also a certain Russian atmosphere about it that gives a dry -look that contrasts strangely with the French landscapes. And where -would Bastien Lepage get these contours? We have never seen lines -more carelessly drawn, and yet so true; there is real genius in them. -This picture is a primitive bit of Russian nature, child-like in its -honesty, and the painter is Marie Bashkirtseff. - -Near the door hangs a little portrait of a young woman dressed in fur. -She has the typical Russian face, with thick, irregular eyebrows, from -under which a pair of Tartar eyes look at you straight in the face with -a curious expression. What can it be? Is it indifference, or defiance; -or is it nothing more than physical well-being? - -Among all the pictures painted by women that I have ever seen, I do not -remember anywhere the temperament and individuality of the artist are -revealed with greater force. The touch is so primitive, so uncultured -in the best and worst sense of the word, that it surprises us to think -that it is the work of a woman, half child, who belongs to the best -society; it would seem rather to suggest the claws of a lioness. - -Yet Marie Bashkirtseff was a thorough lady, not only by birth and -education, but in her heart as well; she was a lady to the tips of -her fingers, to an extreme that was almost absurd; she was not merely -a fashionable lady, in the way that certain clever young men take a -half ironical pleasure in appearing fashionable, but a lady in real -earnest, with all the intensity of a religious bigot. - -She had been educated by ladies, by a gentle and refined though -rather shallow mother, by an aunt whose vocation seems to have -consisted in self-sacrifice for others, a domineering grandmother, two -governesses,--one Russian and the other French,--and an “angelical” -doctor who lived in the house, and always travelled with them, and who -seems to have become somewhat of a woman himself from having lived -amongst so many women. - -She was no more than twelve years old when she discovered that her -governesses were insupportably stupid, and that the only thing that -they understood was how to make her waste her precious youth. There -was no time for that. She was already aware of the shortness of time, -and it was her anxiety to make the most of it that afterwards hurried -her short life to its close. She was possessed of an intense thirst -for everything,--life, knowledge, enjoyment, sympathy. But although -her grandfather had been “Byronic” in his youth, the family passed -their lives vegetating with true Russian indolence; there was no help -for it; she knew that nothing better was to be expected of them. And -accordingly she hunted her governesses out of the house and took her -education into her own hands. A tutor was engaged, and a list was -made from which no branch of learning was excluded. The tutor nearly -fainted with astonishment when it was shown to him, but he was still -more astonished at Marie’s progress afterwards. Drawing was the only -lesson in which the future great artist did not succeed; it bored her, -and nothing came of it. - -Her inner life, meanwhile, is stirred with tumultuous passions. She is -in love, as passionately and as truly in love as any matured woman. -And, after all, this thirteen-year-old girl is a matured woman; she -is more developed, more truly woman-like than the worn-out woman of -three-and-twenty, who only lived with half her strength. The man -whom she loves is a very distinguished Englishman, who had bought a -villa at Nice, where he spent a few months with his mistress every -year,--but this circumstance does not affect Marie in the very least; -she is experienced in her knowledge of the world, and by no means -bourgeois in her way of thinking. There is another reason, however, -that causes her intolerable suffering,--the handsome English duke is -too grand for her. She is troubled, not only because he pays her no -attention at present, but because she thinks that he is never likely -to esteem her sufficiently to wish to marry her, unless, indeed, she -could do something to make herself a name, and become celebrated. Marie -Bashkirtseff, accordingly, wishes to become celebrated. She would like -to be a great singer, who is at the same time a great actress; she -would like to have the whole world at her feet, including the duke, -and be able to choose between royal dukes and princes, and then she -would choose him. For a couple of years or more she lives upon this -dream, studies, reads, cries, and suffers that unnecessary overplus of -secret pain and anxiety which usually accompanies the development of -richly gifted natures. - -She has a lovely voice and great dramatic talent, but the former is -not fully developed, and cannot be trained for some years to come. -She buys cart-loads of books; but as there is no one to guide her -choice, and her social intercourse does not diverge a hairbreadth -outside her family and a small circle of friends, consisting chiefly -of compatriots, it is only natural that her reading should be confined -to Dumas _père_, Balzac, Octave Feuillet, and such literary tallow -candles as Ohnet, and others like him. Her taste remains uncultivated, -her horizon bounded by the family, and her knowledge continues to be a -mixture of ancient superstitions combined with the newest shibboleths. - -Her most familiar converse is between herself and her Creator, whom -her imagination pictures as a kind of superior great-grandfather, -very grand and powerful, and the only One in whom she can confide. To -Him she lays bare her heart, beseeching Him to give her that which -is a necessity of life to her, and she makes numerous promises, to -be fulfilled only on condition that her prayers are granted; she -respects what she conceives to be His wishes with regard to prayer -and almsgiving, and overwhelms Him with reproaches if these are of no -avail. And they are of no avail. Her voice, which has been tried and -praised by the highest musical authorities in Paris, is being gradually -undermined by a disease of the throat, and the duke marries; thus her -hopes of becoming famous and of gaining a great love are gone, gone -forever. - -Those were the first and second cruel wounds wherewith life made its -presence felt in this sensitive soul; they were wounds which never -healed, and which imparted hidden veins of venom to the healthy parts -of her being. - -Does not this remind us of the fairy tale about wounds that never -heal? Is not this just the way that the wounds made by Fate, or by -human beings, in our souls continue to bleed forever? They are like -tender places, which shrink from the touch throughout a lifetime, -and wither if a breath passes over them. The more sensitive a person -is, the more painful they are, and nothing is so easily wounded as -a growing organism. The nerves have a good memory, better even than -the brain, and there are some wounds received in youth and impressed -during growth which seem to have been wiped out ages ago, till suddenly -they present the appearance of a putrefying spot, a poisonous place, -the point of disintegration of the entire organism. Or there may be -something crippled in the person’s vitality. They live on, but one -muscle, perhaps only a very small one, is strained and just a little -out of order, and the soul is compelled to replace what the body lacks -by means of extra exertion, which is afterwards paid for by excessive -weariness. - -There are some sluggish natures, especially among women, who exert -their strength to the least possible degree, and do their work in a -half-hearted manner. There are also souls which seem all aglow with -the psychic and sensuous warmth of their natures, who carry the whole -substance of their being in the hand, and who give themselves up -entirely to the interest of what they are feeling and wishing for at -the moment. Their path is strewn with fragments of their life, which -fall off dead, and every stroke aimed at them hits the heart. Their -soul has no covering to protect them from disappointment; neither -have they the forgetful sleep of animals, wherein the body is at -rest. But such natures are generally possessed of an endless supply -of self-sustaining strength, which imbues them with the power to grow -again; and although their wounds are plentiful, their germinating cells -are plenteous also. The parts that are crippled remain crippled still, -but new possibilities are continually developing in new directions. - -The young girl of whose silly, half-fancied love story I have made so -much, was one of these natures. She was formed of the material out of -which destiny either moulds women who become the greatest of their sex, -or else casts them aside, discarded and broken. It generally depends -upon some very trifling matter which of the two takes place. Marie -was an exceedingly spoiled child when the first blow fell; but there -was something lacking in her nature--a dead spot that revealed itself -with the destruction of her voice--while her body was blossoming into -womanhood. There was a dead spot somewhere without as well, something -that lacked in life, else it were not possible to long so ardently and -not obtain. There was something that gazed at her with evil, ghost-like -eyes, causing her nerves to quiver beneath its icy breath. She was a -brave girl. She did not complain, did not look back, but drew herself -together, silent and determined. Her passionate love of work took the -form of painting, and as she could not become a great singer, she meant -to be a great painter. But a part of her being congealed and withered -away; her young heart had expanded to receive a return of the love it -had so freely given, and was left unsatisfied. - -The years passed in much the same way as they had passed before for -this spoiled child of fortune. A few people who were indifferent to -her died, and others came who were no less indifferent. They travelled -from Nice to Paris, and from Paris to Nice, but she was equally lonely -everywhere. She had no playfellows, no girl friends, no school-room -companions, and to life’s contrasts she remained a stranger. Her -cousin Dina was the only one who was always with her, and she was the -typical girl,--a pretty, good-natured nonentity. And thus, though -always lonely, she was never alone. Wherever she went, her mother and -aunt went with her, and wherever they did not go, Marie Bashkirtseff -did not go either. In all her journeyings, she never received a single -impression for herself alone; it was always reflected at the same -moment in the sun-glasses of her aunt and mother, and never a word did -she hear but was also heard by her duennas. No man was allowed within -the circle of her acquaintance until he had first been judged suitable -from a marriageable, as well as a social point of view. The female -atmosphere by which she was surrounded paralyzed every other. - -It was her destiny! - -Life was empty around her, and in the void her excited nerves became -even more and more centred upon her own ego. Her opinion of herself -assumed gigantic proportions, and whatever there had been of soul -grandeur in her nature was changed into admiration of self. And yet, in -spite of all, this girl, who was undoubtedly a genius, never realized -her own power to the full. The natural nobility of her feelings assumed -a moral, bourgeois dress, and her young senses, which had manifested -such a passionate craving at their first awakening, withered and grew -numb. - -She was sixteen when she experienced her second disappointment in love, -and it became for her the turning-point of her inner life. - -At her earnest request the family had gone to Rome. It was the time -of the Carnival, and after the conventional life at Nice, the sudden -outbreak of merriment in the Eternal City called forth a frivolous mood -in every one. There was something delightful in the ease with which -acquaintances were made, and the simple, straightforward manner in -which homage was done. A young man makes love to Dina; he belongs to an -old, aristocratic, Roman family, and is the nephew of an influential -cardinal. Marie entices him away from her, and the young Italian falls -a prey to the brilliant fascination and wild coquetry of her manner. -He is dazzled by such aggressive conduct on the part of so young a -girl, and the equivocal character of it spurs him on. He storms her -with declarations of love, and Marie reciprocates his passion,--not -very seriously perhaps, but her senses, her vanity, her pride, all are -on fire. The young man communicates to her something of his habitual -good spirits, and her head, no less than the heads of her mother and -aunt, is completely turned at the prospect of such a distinguished -_parti_. The family set to work in good earnest to bring matters to a -climax, for which object they employ suitable deputies, while Marie -persistently holds the legitimate joys of marriage before the face of -her importunate lover. The Italian slips past these dangerous rocks -with the dexterity of an eel. He knows what Marie and the house of -Bashkirtseff, convinced as they are of the grandeur of their Russian -ancestry, cannot realize,--that for him, the heir and nephew of the -cardinal, no marriage will be considered suitable unless it brings -with it connection with the nobility, or the advantages of an immense -fortune; and in this opinion he fully concurs. The result is that they -are always at cross purposes: he talks of love, she of marriage; he of -_tête-à-têtes_ on the staircase after midnight, she of betrothal kisses -between lunch and dinner under the auspices of her family. When his -allusions to his uncle’s disapproval of a marriage with a heretical -Russian lady from the provinces do not produce any effect on the family -other than indignation, expressive of their wounded feelings, he goes -away, and allows himself to be sent into retreat in a monastery. While -there, he ascertains that the Bashkirtseffs have left Rome and given up -all desire to have such a vacillating creature for a son-in-law. They -go to Nice, and no more is said about him until Marie persuades her -family to return to Rome, where she meets him at a party, but only to -discover that he loves her when there, and forgets her again the moment -that she is out of sight. This was the second time that she had knocked -at the door of life; and, as on the former occasion, Fate held back the -joys which she seemed to have in store, only opening the door wide -enough to let in the face of a grinning Punchinello. - -Few writers have attempted to describe the state of a young girl’s mind -on such occasions, when a thousand cherished hopes are instantaneously -charred as though struck by lightning, and, worse still, all that -she had wished for becomes hateful in her eyes, and the shame of it -assumes a gigantic scale, and continues to increase, though maybe at -the cost of her life. Men have no suspicion of this, and they would -find it hard to understand, even supposing that they were given the -opportunity of observing it. They grow up amid the realities of -life; a girl, in the unreal. The disappointments which a man endures -are real ones, and unless he is a fool, he is in a position to form -an approximate valuation of his own importance. With a girl it is -different; her opinion of herself is exaggerated to an extent that is -quite fantastical and altogether unreal, and this is especially the -case when her education is of a strictly conventional character, and -has been conducted mainly by women. The preservation of her purity is -the foundation of her creed, but she is not told, nor does she guess, -wherein this purity consists, nor how it may be lost; and consequently -she imagines that it can be lost in every conceivable way,--by a mere -nothing, by a pressure of the hand, but in any case by a kiss. This -kiss Marie Bashkirtseff had actually given and received, and after it -she had been forgotten and despised! That kiss branded her in secret -all her life. She never forgot it. - -This is not the only consequence of the change from the real to the -unreal which takes place when the outer world casts its reflection in -the mirror of a young girl’s soul. Every girl has an exaggerated idea -of the value of the mystic purity of her maidenhood in the eyes of men; -and when she makes a man happy by the gift of herself, she imagines -that she has given him something extraordinary, which he must accept on -bended knee. What words can describe the humiliation which she feels if -he does not set a sufficiently high value on the gift, or if he thrusts -it aside like a pair of old slippers that do not fit! All girls are -silly to a certain extent, even the cleverest; and the girl who is not -silly on this point must have lost something of her girlish modesty. - -In the case of Marie Bashkirtseff, a part of her being was blighted -after her encounter with the Italian, and she never entirely recovered -from the effects of it. This, her first acquaintance with a man, was so -full of racial misunderstandings and others besides, that it destroyed -her faith in man, as indeed it is doomed to be destroyed sooner or -later in every girl with a strong individuality and healthy nature. -And for her, as for many another, followed the lifeless years into the -middle of the twenties, when a new and very different faith begins to -show itself as the result of wider views of life and internal changes. -But with her this faith never came. Her vitality gave way too soon. -Those dead years which must inevitably follow upon an all too promising -and too early maturity, leaving a young woman apparently trivial -and devoid of any true individuality of character, and which often -last until the thirties, when the time comes for a new and greater -change,--those years with Marie, as with many another “struggling” -girl, were filled with an unnatural craving for work. - -She wanted to be something on her own account, as an individual. She -compelled her mother and aunt to go with her to Paris, where she could -go to Julian’s studio, which was the only one for women where painting -was taught seriously. The working hours were from eight to twelve, from -one to five. - -But she worked longer. This spoiled child, who had never known what -it meant to exert herself, was not satisfied with eight hours of hard -labor. She works in the evenings as well, after she comes home; she -works on Sundays; she is dead to the world, and with the exception of -her daily bath, she renounces every luxury of the toilet, and succeeds -in condensing into two years the work of seven. One day Julian tells -her that she must work alone, “because,” he says, “you have learned all -that it is possible to teach.” - - -III - -Marie Bashkirtseff was not born an artist, with that stern -predestination with which nature determines the career of persons -with one talent. If her voice had not been destroyed during its -development, she would in all probability have become one of those -great singers whose charm lies not only in the outward voice, but in -the indescribable fascination of a deep, strong individuality. Her -journal, especially the first part, reveals an authoress with a rare -psychological intuition, an understanding of human nature, a deep -sympathy, a mastery of expression, and an early-matured genius, which -are unsurpassed even among Russians, well known for the richness of -their temperament. If this young woman, whose short life was consumed -by a craving for love, had gained the experience she so greatly -desired, where would the woman be found who could have borne comparison -with her? Who like her was created to receive the knowledge whereby a -woman is first revealed to herself, and is developed into the being who -is earth’s ruler,--the great mother, on whose lap man reposes, and from -whence he goes forth into the world? All that she had was original; it -was all of the best material that the earth has to give; and therein -lay the mystery of her downfall. - -The backbone of her nature was that indomitable pride whereby a great -character reveals the consciousness of its own importance. The lioness -cannot wed with the house-dog. The same instinct which, in animals, -marks the boundary line between the different species, determines in -a still higher degree--higher far than the materialistic wisdom of -our schools will allow--the attractions and antipathies of love. The -iron law which compels healthy natures to preserve their distinction, -prevented this girl from sinking to the level of the men of her own -class, amongst whom she might have found some to love her. She tried -it more than once, but it did not answer. Her exceptionable nature -required a husband superior to herself. One or two such men might be -found nowadays, who not only as productive minds, but also in the -subtle charm of their manly characters, would have been the born -masters of an enchantress such as Marie Bashkirtseff. But these men -are not to be met with in the drawing-rooms and studios of Paris, nor -yet in the Bois de Boulogne; not in St. Petersburg either, nor on the -family estates of Little Russia, and she never got to know them. - -This woman, who was born to become a great singer, a great painter, a -great writer, born--before all else--to be loved with a great love, -never learned to know love, and died without being great in any way, -because she was enchained all her life long to that which was greater -than all her possibilities,--a young girl’s infinite ignorance. - -In spite of all the knowledge that she had acquired, in spite of all -the probings of her sensitive nerves and sharp intellect, she remained -always and in everything incomplete. It is one of the results of the -incompleteness of which unmarried women are the victims, that they -seek everywhere the complete, the perfected in man,--_i.e._, they seek -for that which is only to be found in men who are growing old, and -have nothing more to give; in whom there are no slumbering ambitions, -and no hidden aspirations. She must have passed by, unheeding, many -a young genius, who perhaps went to an inferior woman to satisfy the -passion which might have proved to both of them an endless source of -blessedness, health, and regeneration. She must have felt many a look -rest upon her, arousing sensations which, to her white soul, were a -mystery. For this girl, who had drunk deeply of the literature of her -time, and who knew theoretically everything that there was to know, -was yet unspoiled by a single trace of premature knowledge. The pages -of her journal are innocent from beginning to end,--an innocence that -is stupid while it is touchingly intact. Marie Bashkirtseff’s journal -is not merely a contribution to the psychology of girls, it is a young -girl’s psychology in the widest, most typical sense,--the psychology -of the unmarried state, bequeathed by one who is ignorant to those -who know, as her only memorial upon earth, but a memorial that will -last longer than marble or bronze. She died young, but she had no wish -to die. She took twelve years to write this book, and she wrote it on -her travels, in the midst of her pleasures, in the midst of her work, -in the despair of her loneliness, and in her fear when she shrank from -death; she wrote it during sleepless nights, and on days passed in -blessed abstraction in the beauties of nature. She always addressed -the unknown hearers who were ever present to her imagination; she -spoke to them so that, in case she should die young, she might live -upon earth in the memory of the strangers who happened to read her -journal. A “human document,” by a young girl, she thought, must be -of sufficient interest not to be forgotten, and she promises to tell -us everything connected with her little person. “All, all,--not only -all her thoughts, but she will not even hide what is laughable and -disadvantageous to herself; for what would be the object of a book like -this, unless it told the truth absolutely, accurately, and without -concealment?” - -The confessions are by no means a human document in the sense that her -three patron saints--Zola, Maupassant, and Goncourt--would have used -the word. They do not contain a single naked reality. They are modest, -not only with the modesty of a child of nature, but with the modesty of -a young hot-house beauty, a delicate lady of fashion, beneath whose -snow-white resplendent dress--the work of a Parisian dressmaker--are -concealed the bleeding wounds and the pitiless signs of death. But she -lets us follow her from the rich beginnings of her youth onwards, until -the stream of life trickles away drop by drop, leading us on to the -weary resignation of her last days. - -This exhaustion begins to show itself immediately after the two years -of reckless overwork and study in Julian’s studio; but the cause of -it was mental rather than physical. Julian’s last words were: “You -have learned all that it is possible to teach--the rest depends upon -yourself.” And Robert-Fleury, the principal academical professor, -nodded his approval. After that they left her. But where was she to -begin? Where was the rest to come from? What was she to do--she, who -had been such a phenomenal pupil? How was she to obtain sufficient -individuality for original production? Learn! yes, of course. A girl -can do that better than the most painstaking young man of the faculty. -There is nothing to prevent it; her sex will slumber as long as the -brain is kept at work. But artistic production is another matter. -Whence should it come? Not from herself, for she has nothing; she -has had no experience. She can represent what she has seen, or she -can imagine, but that is all. Marie’s nature was too truthful to be -satisfied with imitation. The old academical art did not appeal to -her, as was very natural, and the new was just bursting its shell, -and contained all the impurity and rubbish that belongs to a state of -transition. The imperfect in her desired the perfect; she who was an -incomplete woman felt the need of a perfected man. - -She made no progress. She painted at home from models, and she went -out driving with her maid, accompanied by some young Russian friends, -and sketched street scenes from the carriage. So great was her need -for ideas that she attempted pictures on religious and historical -subjects, and with some difficulty she finished a picture for the -next Salon,--went half mad with empty pride, but had to admit that it -was very much inferior to the former one which she had painted under -Julian’s supervision. For two years she meets with no success. Her -pictures contain nothing that is characteristic; she has no individual -style, no personal experiences, and no original ideas. But her -individuality, though dormant, is too strong to allow her to imitate -the style of other lady artists, one half of whom are too amateurish, -and their painting too devoid of character, to content her, while the -others have betrayed their sex, and adopted a severe, masculine style. - -At last the day came when Bastien Lepage was a public celebrity. Marie -Bashkirtseff saw his pictures, became his pupil, worshipped him, and -ever after sang his praises. - -Yet, in all this, there was something lacking. - -His bright coloring, and the atmosphere of his landscapes, with their -pale, sultry heat, the aggressive physical character of his people, -etc.,--all these points appealed strongly to her South-Russian nature. -He set free her national feelings, which had hitherto been bound and -suppressed beneath academical influences, and she discovered a kindred -spirit in him, a primitive element at the root of his being, which -made her tenderly disposed towards him. But she had no intention of -remaining his pupil. She was too deeply conscious of the difference -between them, and saw clearly that his influence was not likely to be -more than a passing phase. - -She worshipped him from a long-suppressed desire to worship some one, -but her worship was calm and passionless. This little Bastien Lepage -was not the man to arouse her deepest affections; he was too bourgeois, -and his fine art was too tame. - -And yet she praised him, half mechanically. Saint Marceaux, the -sculptor, had appealed to her feelings more deeply than he had done. - -There was a reason for it. There was a strong tie between these two -beings, who seemed only destined to exert a passing influence over one -another. - -They were both ill when they made each other’s acquaintance: life, with -its deceptive pleasures, had ruined the health of Bastien Lepage; and -Marie Bashkirtseff was ill from want of life,--her youth, her beauty, -her vitality, had all been wasted. - -It is the usual fate of the cultured young people of our time: he comes -to her ruined, because he has satiated his thirst; she comes to him -ruined, because her thirst has never been satisfied. - -They are as far apart as two separate worlds, and they do not -understand one another. - -The development of the last few years, through which Marie Bashkirtseff -had passed before she met Bastien Lepage, had brought her and the -readers of her journal nothing but pain and dulness. - -What with ambitious plans for artistic work, and the life with her -family,--which resembled a convent more than anything else, interrupted -by occasional smart dinners, balls, and various projects of worldly -marriages, which came to nothing,--Marie Bashkirtseff had become -superficial and almost stupid. Her genius appeared to have flown, and a -sickly, _blasée_ hot-house plant, solely occupied with herself, was all -that remained of her. She was like the ordinary girl of good family, -who has grown rather disagreeable, and is no longer quite young, who -is still ignorant of most things, and becomes extremely tiresome by -chattering on subjects which she does not understand. All this is -changed after her meeting with Bastien Lepage. - -She regains her youth in a wonderful way; she becomes shy and easily -bewildered. When he pays his first visit she gets quite confused, -turns back three times before entering the drawing-room, and cannot -think of anything to say after they have shaken hands. But he, with -his unaffected manner, and little insignificant person, soon succeeds -in putting her at her ease. The long tirades in her journal come to an -end at last, and are followed by short, cautious, but very expressive -sentences. - -Bastien Lepage is anything but a lover. His manner is straightforward -and simple, and he holds himself strikingly aloof, maybe for want of -practice in the art of love-making, or perhaps out of sheer weariness. - -When he leaves her, she becomes as vain and egotistical as before; but -when he is there she watches his every movement with a still, calm joy. - -She had been ill for several years. One lung was affected, and now the -other followed suit; she also suffered from deafness, and that troubled -her more than anything else. She had never given a thought to her -health. - -When Bastien is there, all is well. She is always able to hear what -he says, and in his eyes she is always pretty; her art takes a new -turn, and inspired by him she becomes original. The result is the -picture in the Luxembourg, called “A Meeting,” besides several very -good portraits. There is no question of love between them; he is never -anything but the artist, and her old coquettish manner vanishes. She -has a peculiarly tender affection for him, and the development from a -self-centred girl to a full-grown woman is accomplished within her. - -He suddenly becomes violently and hopelessly ill. He is seized with -violent pains, followed by the cramp, and his legs are paralyzed. - -The green bud of her love withers without ever having blossomed. But as -his illness grows worse, his longing to have Marie always beside him -increases. When he is sufficiently free from pain to go out driving, he -gets his brother to carry him up to her; and at other times she comes -with her mother to visit him. It is quite a little idyl. His mother, a -worthy woman of the working-class, cooks his soup; while her mother, -who is a smart lady, cuts his hair, which has grown too long, and his -brother, the architect, crops his beard. After their united efforts he -looks as handsome as ever, and no longer so ill. Then Marie must sit by -his bedside, while he turns his back upon the others and looks only at -her,--and speaks of art. - -It is September, 1884. Marie coughs and coughs. Bastien is getting -worse and worse, and he cannot bear her to leave him, even while he -is undergoing his worst paroxysms of pain. On the 1st of October she -writes in her journal: - -“_Tant de dégoût et tant de tristesse!_ - -“What is the use of writing? - -“Bastien Lepage is getting worse and worse. - -“And I cannot work. - -“My picture will not be finished. - -“Alas! Alas! - -“He is dying and suffers a great deal. When one is with him, one seems -to have left the world behind. He is already beyond our reach, and -there are days when the same feeling comes over me. I see people, they -talk, and I answer; but I seem to be no longer on the earth,--a quiet -indifference, not painful, almost like an opium dream. And he is dying! -I go there more from habit than anything else; he is a shadow of his -former self, and I, too, am scarcely more than a shadow; what is the -good of it all? - -“He is hardly conscious of my presence now; there is little use in -going; I have not the power to enliven him. He is contented to see me, -and that is all. - -“Yes, he is dying, and it is all the same to me; I do not take myself -to account for it; it is something that cannot be helped. - -“Besides, what difference does it make? - -“All is over. - -“In 1885 they will bury me.” - -In that she was mistaken, for she died the same month. Until the last -few days Bastien Lepage had himself carried up to her; and she, shaken -by the fever of the last stage of consumption, had her bed moved -into the drawing-room, where she could receive him. There, by her -bedside, as she had formerly sat beside his, with his legs resting -upon a cushion, he remained until the evening. They scarcely spoke; -they were together, and that was all they cared for. And she, who ever -since her first awakening consciousness had yearned so passionately -and so impatiently for permission to live her life, died now, silent, -resigned, without a murmur; and knowing that the end was near, she was -great in death, since she had not succeeded in being great in her short -life. - - -IV - -What remained of her? A book of a thousand pages, of which, in ten -years, nearly ten thousand copies were sold, which André Theuriet -provided with an introductory poem written in his best style, and to -which Maurice Barrès dedicated an altar built by himself and sanctified -a rather mistaken Marie Bashkirtseff cult. There was also “A Meeting” -in the Luxembourg, which, according to Marie Bashkirtseff’s own report, -Bastien Lepage criticised as follows: “He says that it is comparatively -easy to do _choses canailles_, peasants, street urchins, and especially -caricatures; but to paint beautiful things, and to paint them with -character,--there is the difficulty.” - -In order to complete the sketch of this girl, in which I have tried -especially to accentuate the typical element, I should like to let her -speak for herself, with her characteristic expressions, her impulsive -views and peculiar temperament. - -At the age of thirteen, she writes:-- - -“My blood boils, I am quite pale, then suddenly the blood rises to -my head, my cheeks burn, my heart beats, and I cannot remain quiet -anywhere; the tears burn within me, I force them back, and that only -makes me more miserable; all this undermines my health, ruins my -character, makes me irritable and impatient. One can always see it in a -person’s face, whether they take life quietly. As for me, I am always -excited. When they deprive me of my time for learning, they rob me for -the whole of my life. When I am sixteen or seventeen, my mind will be -occupied with other thoughts; now is the time to learn.” - -And afterwards, with a depth of understanding worthy of Nietzsche:-- - -“All that I say is not original, for I have no originality. I live only -outside myself. To walk or to stand still, to have or not to have, -it is all the same to me. My sorrows, my joys, my troubles do not -exist....” - -And again:-- - -“I want to live faster, faster, fast.... I am afraid it is true that -this longing to live with the speed of steam foretells a short life....” - -“Would you believe it? To my mind everything is good and beautiful, -even tears, even pain. I like to cry, I like to be in despair, I like -to be sad. I like life, in spite of all. I want to live. I long for -happiness, and yet I am happy when I am sad. My body cries and shrieks; -but something in me, which is above me, enjoys it all.” - -Then this simile, drawn with wonderful delicacy:-- - -“At every little sorrow my heart shrinks into itself, not for my own -sake, but out of pity--I do not know whether anybody will understand -what I mean--every sorrow is like a drop of ink that falls into a -glass of water; it cannot be obliterated, it unites itself with its -predecessors and makes the clear water gray and dirty. You may add as -much water as you like, but nothing will make it clear again. My heart -shrinks into itself, because every sorrow leaves a stain on my life, -and on my soul, and I watch the stains increasing in number on the -white dress which I ought to have kept clean.” - -At the age of fourteen she wrote these prophetic words:-- - -“Oh! how impatient I am. My time will come; I believe it, yet something -tells me that it will never come, that I shall spend the whole of my -life waiting, always waiting. Waiting ... waiting!” - -When she was sixteen, at the time of the incident with the cardinal’s -nephew:-- - -“If I am as pretty as I think, why is it that no one loves me? People -look at me! They fall in love! But they do not love me! And I do so -want to be loved.” - -At seventeen, the first entry in her journal for that year:-- - -“When shall I get to know what this love is of which we hear so much?” - -Later on:-- - -“Very much disgusted with myself. I hate all that I do, say, and write. -I despise myself, because not a single one of my expectations has been -fulfilled. I have deceived myself. - -“I am stupid, I have no tact, and I never had any. I thought I was -intellectual, but I have no taste. I thought I was brave; I am a -coward. I believed I had talent, but I do not know how I have proved -it.” - -At the age of eighteen:-- - -“My body like that of an antique goddess, my hips rather too Spanish, -my breast small, perfectly formed, my feet, my hands, my child-like -head. _À quoi bon?_ When no one loves me. - -“There is one thing that is really beautiful, antique: that is a -woman’s self-effacement in the presence of the man she loves; it must -be the greatest, most self-satisfying delight that a superior woman can -feel.” - -In 1882, at the beginning of her illness:-- - -“So I am consumptive, and have been so for the last two or three -years. It is not yet bad enough to die of it.... Let them give me ten -years longer, and in these ten years, fame or love, and I shall die -contented, at the age of thirty.” - -The following year:-- - -“No, I never was in love, and I never shall be any more; a man would -have to be very great to please me now, I require so much.... - -“And simply to fall in love with a handsome boy,--no, it would not -answer. Love could no longer wholly occupy me now; it would be a matter -of secondary importance, a decoration to the building, an agreeable -superfluity. The idea of a picture or a statue keeps me awake for -nights together, which the thought of a handsome man has never done.” - -In another place:-- - -“Whom shall I ask? Who will be truthful? Who will be just?” - -“You, my only friend, you at least will be truthful, for you love me. -Yes, I love myself, myself only.” - -Two weeks before her death, after a visit from Bastien Lepage:-- - -“I was dressed entirely in lace and plush, all white, but different -kinds of white; Bastien Lepage opened his eyes wide with joy. - -“‘If only I could paint!’ he said. - -“‘And I!’ - -“Obliged to give it up,--the picture for this year!” - -Her portrait represents the face of a typical beauty of Little Russia; -the firm, dark eyebrows, arched over eyes that are far apart, give the -face an expression that is peculiarly honest and straightforward. The -eyes gaze fixedly and dreamily into the distance; the nose is short, -with nostrils slightly distended, the mouth soft and determined, with -the upper lip passionately compressed. The face is round as a child’s, -and the neck short and powerful, on a squarely built, fully developed -body. - - - - -VI - -_The Woman’s Rights Woman_ - - -I - -The latter half of our century is comparatively poor in remarkable -women. Nowadays, when women are more exacting than they used to be, -they are of less importance than of old. We have rows of women artists, -women scientists, and authoresses; the countries of Europe are overrun -with them, but they are all mediocrities; and in the upper classes, -although there are plenty of eccentric ladies, they are abnormities, -not individuals. The secret of a woman’s power has always lain in what -she is, rather than in what she does, and that is where the women of -to-day appear to be strangely lacking. They do all kinds of things, -they study and write books without number, they collect money for -various objects, they pass examinations and take degrees, they hold -meetings and give lectures, they start societies, and there never was -a time when women lived a more public life than at present. Yet, with -all that, they are of less public importance than they used to be. -Where are the women whose drawing-rooms were filled with the greatest -thinkers and most distinguished men of their day? They do not exist. -Where are the women with delicate tact, who took part in the affairs -of the nation? They are a myth. Where are the women whose influence -was acknowledged to be greater than the counsel of ministers? Where -are the women whose love is immortalized in the works of the greatest -poets? Where are the women whose passionate devotion was life and joy -to man, bearing him on wings of gladness towards the unknown, and -leading him back to the beautiful life on earth? They have been, but -where are they now? The more that woman seeks to exert her influence -by main force, the less her influence as an individual; the more she -imbues this century with her spirit, the fewer her conquests as woman. -Her influence on the literature of the eighties has shown itself in an -intense, ingrained hatred. It is she who has inspired man to write his -hymn of hatred to woman,--Tolstoi in the “Kreutzer Sonata,” Strindberg -in a whole collection of dramas, Huysman in “En Ménage,” while many a -lesser star is sceptical of love; and in the writings of the younger -authors, where this scepticism is not so apparent, we find that they -understand nothing at all about women. It is a peculiar sign of the -times that, in spite of the many restrictions of former days, men and -women never have stood wider apart than at present, and have never -understood one another more badly than now. The honest, unselfish -sympathy, the true, I should like to say organical union, which is -still to be observed in the married life of old people, seems to have -vanished. Each goes his or her own way; there may be a nervous search -for each other and a short finding, but it is soon followed by a speedy -losing. Is it the men who are to blame? The men of former days were -doubtless very different, but in their relations to women they were -scarcely more sociable than at present. - -Or is it the women who are at fault? For some time past I have watched -life in its many phases, and I have come to the conclusion that it is -the woman who either develops the man’s character or ruins it. His -mother, and the woman to whom he unites himself, leave an everlasting -mark upon the impressionable side of his nature. - -In most cases the final question is not, What is the man like? but, -What kind of a woman is she? And I think that the answer is as follows: -A woman’s actions are more reasonable than they used to be, and her -love is also more reasonable. The consequence is a lessening of the -passion that is hers to give, which again results in a corresponding -coolness on the part of the man. The modern system of educating girls -by teaching them numerous languages, besides many other branches of -knowledge, encourages a superficial development of the understanding, -and renders women more exacting, without making them more attractive; -and while the average level of intelligence among women is raised, -and the self-conceit of the many largely increased, the few who are -original characters will in all probability disappear beneath the -pressure of their own sex, and in consequence of the apathy which -governs the mutual relations of both sexes. - -The age in which we live has produced another class of women in their -stead, who, since they represent the strongest majority, must be -reckoned as the type. It is natural that they should have neither the -influence nor the fascination of the older generation, and they are not -as happy. They are neither happy themselves, nor do they make others -happy; the reason is that they are less womanly than the others were. -From their midst the modern authoresses have gone forth, women who in -days to come will be named in connection with the progress of culture; -and I think that Anne Charlotte Edgren-Leffler, Duchess of Cajanello, -will long be remembered as the most characteristic representative of -the type. - - -II - -She was the supporter of a movement that originated with her, and -ceased when she died. She was known in countries far beyond her -native Sweden; her books were read and discussed all over Germany, -and her stories were published in the _Deutsche Rundschau_. She had a -clearer brain than most women writers; she could look reality in the -face without being afraid, and indeed she was not one who was easily -frightened. She was very independent, and understood the literary side -of her calling as well as its practical side, and her struggles were -by no means confined to her writings. She threw aside the old method -of seeking to gain her ends by means of womanly charm; she wanted to -convince as a woman of intellect. She condemned the old method which -used to be considered the special right of women, and fought for the -new right, _i.e._, recognition as a human being. All her arguments were -clear and temperate; she was not emotional. The minds from which she -fashioned her own were Spencer and Stuart Mill. Nature had endowed her -with a proud, straightforward character, and she was entirely free from -that affected sentimentality which renders the writings of most women -unendurable. - -In the course of ten years she became celebrated throughout Europe, -and she died suddenly about six months after the birth of her first -child. Sonia Kovalevsky, the other and greater European celebrity, who -was Professor of Mathematics, and her most intimate friend, also died -suddenly, as did several others,--Victoria Benediktson (Ernst Ahlgren), -her fellow-countrywoman, and for many years her rival; Adda Ravnkilde, -a young Danish writer, who wrote several books under her influence; and -a young Finnish authoress named Thedenius. The last three died by their -own hands; Sonia Kovalevsky and Fru Edgren-Leffler died after a short -illness. - -Fru Leffler was the eldest,--she lived to be forty-three; the others -died younger,--the last two very much younger. But they all made the -same attempt, and they all failed. They wanted to stand alone, they -demanded their independence, they tried to carry into practice their -views with regard to man. - -George Sand made the same attempt, and she succeeded. But then her -independence took a very different form from theirs. She followed the -traditions of her family, and set no barriers to love; she drank of the -great well of life until she had well-nigh exhausted it. She was quite -a child of the old _régime_ in her manner of life. The efforts made by -these other women, at the close of the nineteenth century, took the -form of wishing to dispense with man altogether. It is this feature of -Teutonic chastity, bounding on asceticism, that was the tragic moment -in the lives of all these short-lived women. - -It is a strange piece of contemporary history of which I am about to -write. It is this that is the cause of the despondent mood peculiar to -the last decade of our century; it is this that acts as a weight upon -our social life, that makes our leisure wearisome, our joys cold. It is -this decay in woman’s affection that is the greatest evil of the age. - -One of the tendencies of the time is the craving for equality, which -seeks to develop woman’s judgment by increasing her scientific -knowledge. It might have answered from the woman’s point of view, so -far, at least, as the man was concerned, for it does not much matter to -a woman whom she loves, as long as she loves some one. But women have -become so sensible nowadays that they refuse to love without a decisive -guarantee, and this calculating spirit has already become to them a -second nature to so great an extent that they can no longer love, -without first taking all kinds of precautionary measures to insure -their future peace and comfortable maintenance, to say nothing of the -unqualified regard which they expect from their husbands. - -All things are possible from a state of mind such as we have described, -except love, and love cannot flourish upon it. If there is a thing for -which woman is especially created,--that is, unless she happens to be -different from other women,--it is love. A woman’s life begins and ends -in man. It is he who makes a woman of her. It is he who creates in her -a new kind of self-respect by making her a mother; it is he who gives -her the children whom she loves, and to him she owes their affection. -The more highly a woman’s mind and body are developed, the less is she -able to dispense with man, who is the source of her great happiness or -great sorrow, but who, in either case, is the only meaning of her life. -For without him she is nothing. - -The woman of to-day is quite willing to enjoy the happiness which man -brings, but when the reverse is the case, she refuses to submit. -She thinks that, with a little precaution, she can bring the whole -of life within the compass of a mathematical calculation. But before -she has finished her sum, and proved it to see if it is correct, -happiness and sorrow have flown past her, leaving her desolate and -forsaken,--hardened for want of love, miserable in spite of a cleverly -calculated marriage, and imbittered in the midst of joyless ease and -sorrow unaccounted for. - -Such was the fate of these five short-lived authoresses, although -they might not have described it as I have done. Anne Charlotte -Edgren-Leffler was chief among the Scandinavian women’s rights women -who have made for themselves a name in literature. Her opinions were -scattered abroad among thousands of women in Germany and in the North, -and as she died without being able to dig up the seed which she had -sown, she will always be considered as a type of the _fin de siècle_ -woman, and will remain one of its historical characters. - -I write this sketch in the belief that it will not be very unlike the -one she would have written of herself, had she lived long enough to do -so. - - -III - -Anne Charlotte Leffler was born at Stockholm, and, like all her -townsfolk, she was tall, strong, and somewhat angular. She was by -nature cold and critical, and in this respect she did not differ -from the women of North Sweden. The daughter of a college rector, -she had received a thoroughly good education, and was probably far -better educated than the majority of women, as she grew up in the -companionship of two brothers, who were afterwards professors. - -When she was nineteen years of age, she published her first work, a -little play, in two acts, called “The Actress.” The piece describes the -struggle between love and talent, and the scene is laid in the rather -narrow sphere of a small country town. The characters are decidedly -weak, but not more so than one would naturally expect from the pen -of an inexperienced girl of the upper class. There was nothing to -show that it was the work of a beginner. Her faculty for observation -is extraordinarily keen, her descriptions of character are terse, -striking, and appropriate, and the construction of the piece is clever. -It shows a thoughtful mind, and there is none of the clumsy handling -noticeable in young writers; the conflict is carefully thought out, and -described with mathematical clearness. But however ornate an author’s -style, however remarkable her intellect, these qualities do not form -the most important part of her talent as a woman and an authoress. In -considering the first book of a writer who afterwards became celebrated -throughout Europe, the question of primary importance is this: How much -character is revealed in this book? - -Or, to put the question with greater precision, since it concerns a -woman: How much character is there that the author was not able to -suppress? - -The sky seems colored with the deep glow of dawn; it is the great -expectancy of love. Here we have the writing of a young girl who knows -nothing about love except the one thing,--that it is a woman’s whole -existence. She has never experienced it, but her active mind has -already grasped some of its difficulties; and one great difficulty, -which must not be overlooked, is the bourgeois desire to maintain -a sure footing. An actress is going to marry into a respectable -middle-class family. Nobody in this section of society can think of -love otherwise than clad in a white apron and armed with a matronly -bunch of keys. Love here means the commonplace. The actress is -accustomed to a worse but wider sphere; love for her means to become a -great actress, to attain perfection in her art, but to her intended it -means that she should love him and keep house. - -The problem does not often present itself like this in real life, and -if it did the result would in all probability be very different; in -the imagination of a well-bred girl of eighteen, like Anne Charlotte -Leffler, it was the only conclusion possible. And as he will not -consent to her wishes, and she refuses to give way to his; as he has -no desire to marry an actress, and she no intention of becoming a -housewife, they separate with mutual promises of eternal platonic love. - -The end is comic, but it is meant to be taken seriously. No matter how -it begins, the ordinary woman’s book always ends with platonic love; -and it is very characteristic of Anne Charlotte Leffler that her first -play should have a platonic and not a tragic ending. - -The tragic element, which generally assumes supernatural proportions -in the imagination of the young, did not appeal to her; her life was -placed in comfortable, bourgeois surroundings, and she was perfectly -contented with it. - -We find the same want of imagination in all the Swedish authoresses, -from Fru Lenngren, Frederica Bremer, and Fru Flygare-Carlén onwards. - -A few years later Anne Charlotte Leffler wrote a three-act play, called -“The Elf,” of which the two first acts afford the best possible key to -her own psychology. It was acted for the first time in 1881, but it was -probably written soon after her marriage, in 1872, with Edgren, who was -at that time in the service of the government. - - -IV - -Fru Edgren was one of those proud, straightforward women who would -never dream of allowing any one to commiserate them. She made no -attempt to suit her actions to please the world; her sole ambition was -to show herself as she really was. When she wished to do a thing, she -did it as quickly as possible, and without any one’s help. She wrote -under the influence of her personal impressions, her personal judgment, -and her personal opinions; whatever she might attain to in the future, -she was determined to have no one but herself to thank for it. But she -was a woman. Though usually possessed of a clear judgment, she did -not sufficiently realize what it means for a woman to enter upon a -literary career by herself. She succeeded in her literary career; but -in doing so she sacrificed the best part of her life, and was obliged -to suppress her best and truest aspirations, thereby destroying a large -amount of real artistic talent. - -There are few things that afford me more genuine pleasure than the -books of modern authors. I enjoy them less on account of what they tell -me than for that which they have been unable to conceal. When they -write their books, they write the history of their inner life. You -open a book and you read twenty lines, and in the tone and character -of those twenty lines you seem to feel the beating of the writer’s -pulse. In the same way as a fine musical ear can distinguish a single -false note in an orchestra, a fine psychological instinct can discern -the true from the false, and can tell where the author describes his -own feelings and where he is only pretending--can discern his true -character from among the multitude of conscious and unconscious masks, -and can say: This is good metal, and that a worthless composition, -wherewith he makes a dupe of himself and of others. - -The woman who attempts to write without a man to shield her, to throw a -protecting arm around her, is an unfortunate, incongruous being. That -which sets her soul aglow--which calls loudly within her--she dare not -say. When a man wishes to be a great writer, he defies conventionalism -and compels it to become subservient to him; but for a lonely woman, -conventionalism is her sole support, not only outwardly, but inwardly -also. It forms a part of her womanly modesty; it is the guide of her -life, from which naught but love can free her; that is why the more -talented a woman is, the more absolutely love must be her pilot. - -Fru Edgren’s best play and her two most interesting stories are “The -Elf,” “Aurora Bunge,” and “Love and Womanhood.” None of her other works -can be said to equal these in depth of feeling, and none strike a more -melancholy note. There is an emotional, nervous life in them which -presents an attractive contrast to the cold irony of her other works. -She has put her whole being into these writings, with something of her -womanly power to charm; while in the others we meet with the clear -insight, the critical faculty, and the rare sarcasm to which they owe -their reputation. - -Yet in these three works we notice how very much she is hedged in on -all sides by conventionalism. “The Elf,” “Love and Womanhood,” and -“Aurora Bunge” make us think of a large and beautiful bird that cannot -fly because its long, swift wings have been broken by a fall from the -nest. - -The “elf” is the wife of the respected mayor of a small country -town. Her father was a Swedish artist, whose whole life was spent in -travelling, because every time that he came home he was driven away by -the narrow social life of Sweden. When he is lying on his deathbed, -he leaves his penniless child to the care of his younger friend, the -Mayor, who knows no better way of providing for her than by making her -his wife. He is universally considered the best son, the best partner -in business, and the best man--in the town. The elf wanders about the -woods, and becomes the subject of much gossip, likewise of envy, among -the smart ladies of the town. - -One evening when they are giving a party, and she forgets to play the -part of hostess, their neighbor, a Baron, arrives with his sister. -Both, no longer young, free from illusions, liberal in thought and -speech, seem to carry with them a breath from a bigger world; their -mere presence serves to make the elf thoughtlessly happy, and from -henceforward she sits daily to the Baron for a picture representing -Undine when the knight carries her through the wood, and her soul -awakes within her. The elf’s soul--_i.e._, love--is also awakened. -She feels herself drawn towards this man, who has sufficient fire -to awaken her womanhood with a kiss. She does not wish, she does not -think, but she would not like to be separated from him; he lives in an -atmosphere that suits her, and in which she thrives. She is still a -child; but the child would like to wake. It is true that her conscience -reproaches her with regard to the Mayor, but here the circumstances are -related as though she were not quite married,--that is a mistake which -nearly all Teutonic authoresses make. - -The Baron tells her the story of Undine. The knight finds her at the -moment when the brook stretches forth his long white arm to draw her -back, but he does not let her go; he takes her in his arms and carries -her away, and she looks up at him with a half anxious expression--there -is something new in this expression. She is no longer Undine. She -loves. She has a soul. - -In this drama, Anne Charlotte Edgren-Leffler, the future leader of -the woman’s rights movement, makes the confession that a woman’s soul -is--love. She is the only Swedish woman writer who would have owned as -much. - -The Baron is a decadent. Fru Edgren took this type from real life long -before the decadence made its appearance in literature. He had enjoyed -all sensations with delight and inner emotion, until the woman in the -elf opens her eyes in the first moment of half consciousness, and when -that happens she becomes indifferent to him. His passion cools. It -is true that his actions still tend in the same direction, but he is -able to gaze at his thoughts critically. He is not the knight who lifts -Undine out of the cold water. He leaves her lying in the brook. - -Among the experiences by means of which “independent” women, with a -“vocation,” awake to womanhood, this is probably the most common. It -is very difficult to define their feelings when they realize a change -in the man who first aroused their affections; but I think that I am -not far wrong in saying that it is something akin to loathing. The -more sensitive the woman, and the more innocent she is, the longer the -loathing will last. However cold her outward behavior may appear, the -feeling is still there. - -There is nothing that a woman resents more keenly than when a man -plays with her affections, and neglects her afterwards. The more -inexperienced the woman, the more unmanly this behavior seems. If she -is a true woman, her disappointment will be all the greater; she will -feel it not only with regard to this single individual, but it will -cast a shadow over all men. - -The last act reveals the author’s perplexity. From an æsthetic point -of view the ending is cold, and to a certain extent indifferently -executed; but judged from a psychological point of view, it is -thoroughly Swedish. Considered as the writing of a young lady in the -year 1880, it must be confessed that the dialogue is tolerably strong, -even _piquante_; but in order to please the highly respected public, it -is necessary for the play to end well. - -Suddenly they one and all--in this land of pietism and sudden -conversion--beat their breasts and confess their sins. The Mayor -examines himself, and repents that he was selfish enough to marry the -elf; his mother repents because she cared more for her son than her -daughter-in-law; the elf repents because she almost allowed herself -to be betrayed into falling in love; and the Baron’s sister, who, -throughout the piece, has always held aloft the banner of love and -liberty, repents in a general way, without any particular reason being -given. Thus everything returns to its former condition, and Undine -remains in the duck-pond. - -With this satisfying termination, “The Elf” survived a large number of -performances. - -The question which suggests itself to my mind is: Whether the author -intended the piece to end in this manner? Or was the original ending -less conventional, and was Fru Edgren obliged to alter it in order -that the play might be acted? What else could she do? A lonely woman -like her dared not sin against the public morals. It were better to -sin against anything else, only not against the public morals; for in -that case they would have condemned her to silence, and her career -would have been at an end. The keynote of the piece was the yearning to -escape from the long Swedish winters and the gossip by the fireside, -out into the fresh air, into the light and warmth of the South. - - -V - -Ten years afterwards Fru Edgren returned to the same problem in “Love -and Womanhood,” and this time she treated it with greater delicacy and -more depth of feeling. - -The heroine is no longer the traditional elf, but the modern -girl,--nervous, sensitive, with a sharp intellect and still sharper -tongue; she is very critical, very reserved, full of secret -aspirations, and very warm-hearted; her heart is capable of becoming -a world to the man she loves, but it needs a man’s love to develop -its power of loving. She loves an elegant, self-satisfied Swedish -lieutenant, who has served as a volunteer in Algiers, and has written -a book on military science; he is just an ordinary smart young man, -and he takes it for granted that she will accept him the instant he -proposes. But she refuses him. He is indignant and hurt; he cannot -understand it at all, unless she loves some one else. But no, she does -not love any one else. Then what is the reason? She is sure that he -does not care enough for her; there is such an indescribable difference -between her love for him, or rather the love that she knows herself -capable of feeling, and the affection that he has to offer her, that -she will not have him on any account, and looks upon his proposal -almost in the light of an insult. He goes away, and returns, soon -afterwards, engaged to a little goose. - -Fru Edgren develops an elaborate theory, to which she returns again -and again. According to her, it is only the commonplace little girls -of eighteen, innocence in a white pinafore, with whom men fall in -love. I myself do not think that there is much in it: a dozen men -who are nonentities fall in love with a dozen young women who are -likewise nonentities. On the other hand, we have that numerous type, -which includes the modern girl, full of soul, originality, and depth -of character, clever and modest, possessed of a keen divination with -regard to her own feelings and that of others, mingled with a chaste -pride that is founded upon the consciousness of her own importance,--a -pride that will not accept less than it gives. And these girls are -confined to the narrow circle to which all women are reduced, to -two or three possibilities in the whole course of their long youth, -possibilities which chance throws in their way, and which are perhaps -no possibilities at all to them. A few years pass by, and these girls -have become stern judges upon the rights of love, and they have -developed a bitter expression about the mouth, and a secret gnawing in -the soul. A few years more, and this unappreciated womanly instinct -will have brought them to hate men. - -Fru Edgren went the same way. In her “Sketches from Life” we find -some traces of this feeling in the stories where she displays the -comparative worth of men and women; take, for instance, the tale called -“At War with Society.” But before she had quite joined the army of -stern judges, she weighed the problem of love once more, in the second -of her five completed novels, called, “Aurora Bunge.” - -For the last ten years Aurora Bunge has been chief among the ball -beauties of Stockholm. Everything in her life is arranged and settled -beforehand. In the winter she goes to balls, night after night, to -parties and plays; in the summer she is occupied in much the same way -in a fashionable watering-place. For the last ten years she has known -exactly with whom she is going to dance, what compliments will be paid -her, what offers she will receive, and whom she is eventually going to -marry. The marriage can be put off until she is thirty--and now she is -nearly thirty, and the time has come. She is one of those girls who -have danced and danced until everything has grown equally indifferent -and wearisome to them; and yet she is without experience, and is likely -to remain so to the end. She allows herself perfect freedom of speech, -but she will never allow herself a single free action. A couple of -intrigues in the dim future are not entirely excluded from her plans, -but what difference will that make? She has something of Strindberg’s -“Julie,” but without the latter’s perversity; she is also some years in -advance of her. She would have no objection to eloping with a circus -rider, or doing something _de très mauvais goût_, but she knows that -she will never do it. The summer previous to the announcement of her -engagement she is seized with a fit of liking the country, and she -accompanies her mother to one of her properties, which is situated on a -desolate part of the coast. It is the first of her thirty summer visits -that is not quite _comme il faut_. In a sudden outburst of enthusiasm -for nature, she spends days and weeks wandering about in the woods and -fields, with torn dress and down-trodden shoes, and goes out sailing -with the fishermen. She becomes stronger and more beautiful, and is -more than ever imbued with an indescribable longing. This vague longing -leads her on towards that which she is going to experience--which is to -be her life’s only experience. She feels her pulses beat and her heart -burn within her, and not till then does the matured woman of thirty -tear aside the bandage that binds her eyes; and looking out, she cries: -Where art thou, who givest me life’s fulness? On one of her boating -expeditions, she goes to the nearest lighthouse. The lighthouse-keeper, -a strong, quiet young man, comes out. She looks, and she knows that it -is he! - -Up to this point Fru Edgren has copied the secret writing in her own -soul, and every touch is true. But her experience went no further. -The part that follows is psychological and logical too, but it has -the greatest fault that a romance can have; _i.e._, it is word for -word imagined, not experienced, and for this reason it is overdrawn. -Aurora has scarcely landed before a storm sets in. She flutters -like an exhausted bird, in and out of the narrow lighthouse. The -lighthouse-keeper sees the danger, and hurries down. She wants to throw -herself into the water. He climbs down the rocks and seizes hold of -her. Already before, this son of the people had found time to give her -a love poem to read. The storm lasts three days, and for three days she -remains there. On the fourth day the fishermen return to fetch her, and -the lighthouse-keeper is furious. By this time she is no better than a -very ordinary fisher girl. She is deathly pale, but insists on leaving -him. He threatens her with his fists, and she proposes that they should -drown themselves together; but his mother had already drowned herself, -and he does not wish to have two suicides in the family. Aurora goes -home, and they never meet again. A few months afterwards she marries an -officer who is in debt. - -Fru Edgren’s men may be divided into two types,--the one she cannot -endure, but she describes him admirably; the other she cannot -describe at all, but she likes him very much indeed. The first is the -fashionable man of Stockholm society, who has tasted life’s pleasures, -and is wearied of them; the second is the simple, unsophisticated son -of the people. - - -VI - -Fru Edgren looked life boldly in the face.--life, which was continually -passing her by, because she was a lady, whose duty it was to lead a -blameless existence. She was by this time a celebrated authoress, with -a comfortable income, but what had she gained by it? Merely this: that -envious eyes watched her more narrowly than before, and that she was -expected to live for the honor and glory of Sweden, and for the honor -and glory of her position as a woman writer. Yet, after all, were -they not in the North? And was she not allowed all possible freedom -up to a certain point? Even this certain point might be overstepped -sometimes,--in private, of course,--and such was the general usage. -But she was one of those proud natures who will not tolerate a greasy -fingermark on the untarnished shield of their honor, and she was also -one of those sovereign natures whose will is a law to themselves. - -We are confronted by a strange sight in Scandinavian literature. We -find man’s laxity and woman’s prudery existing side by side. Björnson, -Ibsen, Garborg, Strindberg, were contemporaries of Fru Edgren, and -their renown was at its height. The eighties were the great period of -Scandinavian romance, and this romance turned solely upon the problem -of man and woman. The productive enthusiasm of those days drove a -multitude of women into the fields of literature, including those whom -we have mentioned, who died early, and some lesser ones, who still -continue to lead a useless, literary existence. But their writings are -strangely poor compared with those of the men, even though there were -numbered amongst them an Edgren-Leffler, an Ahlgren, and a Kovalevsky. -The men were not afraid; they all had something to impart, and that -which they imparted was themselves. But there was not a single woman’s -voice to join in the mighty chorus of the hymn to love; not one of them -had experienced it, and they had nothing to say. Their longing kept -silence. When, however, the literature of indignation, with Kalchas -Björnson at its head, broke loose against the corruptions and depravity -of men, then all the authoresses raised their voices, and instituted a -grand inquisition. - -Fru Edgren took part in it. What hymn could she sing? She had no -experience of love, and her patience was at an end. Towards the end -of the eighties, love had completely vanished from her books, and its -place had been filled by the question of rights,--women’s rights with -regard to property and wage-earning, and marriage rights. “The Doll’s -House” was followed by a deluge of books on unhappy marriages, and Fru -Edgren contributed to increase their number. In a play called “True -Women,” she contrasts the hard-working, wage-earning woman with the -indolent, extravagant man; while she severely condemns the woman who -so far lowers herself as to love a husband who has been unfaithful to -her. She is, in fact, so badly disposed towards love that she allows -an honest, hard-working man, in the same piece, to be refused by an -honest, hard-working woman, and for the simple reason that superior -people must no longer propose, nor allow others to propose to them. - -Her drama, “How People do Good,” is written in the same mood. “The -Gauntlet” and “The Doll’s House” have exerted such a great influence -over her that she has unconsciously quoted whole sentences. She has -become no better than the ordinary platform woman; her former sense -and good taste are no longer to be observed in her writings, and even -socialism has a place in her programme. This woman, who knows nothing -of the proletarian, represents him in a melodramatic manner, as she has -done before with the son of the people. She travels about the country -and fights for her rights; she becomes a propagandist. - -It was at this time that the celebrated mathematician, Sonia -Kovalevsky, was appointed to the high school at Stockholm at the -instigation of Fru Edgren’s brother, Professor Mittag-Leffler, and -the two women became the greatest of friends. Sonia Kovalevsky had -practiced the principles of women’s rights and asceticism in her own -married life, and was now, after her husband had shot himself, a widow. - -She was probably Björnson’s model in more than one of his books, and -she combined Russian fanaticism with the Russian capacity to please. -She had not been long at Stockholm before the war broke loose. -Strindberg raged against women, ignoring Fru Edgren and others on -the plea that they could not be reckoned as women, since they had no -children. Björnson and Fru Edgren were everywhere welcomed at women’s -meetings as the champions of women’s rights. - -For four or five years Sonia Kovalevsky and Fru Edgren were almost -inseparable. Fru Edgren took back her maiden name of Leffler after her -separation from her husband. The two friends were always travelling. -They went to Norway, France, England, etc., together, and Fru Leffler -wrote her longest novel, “A Tale of Summer.” It was the old problem of -love and the artistic temperament. A highly gifted artist falls in love -with a commonplace schoolmaster,--she nervous, refined, independent; he -young, big, strong, true-hearted, and very like a trusty Newfoundland -dog. It does not answer. An artist must not marry, the most learned of -Newfoundland dogs cannot understand an artist, and yet artists have a -most unfortunate preference for Newfoundland dogs. - -There was something in this novel that was not to be found in any of -her earlier works,--a hasty, uneven beat of the pulse, something of the -fever of awakened passion. - -Sonia, meantime, was engaged with her work for the _Prix Bordin_; but -she had scarcely begun her studies before she left them to devote -herself to a parallel romance, about which she was very much excited. -It was called “The Struggle for Happiness: How it Was, and How it Might -Have Been.” She persuaded Fru Leffler to give this thought a dramatic -setting, and she was very anxious to have it published. It was nothing -more or less than a hymn to love, which had fast begun to set flame to -her ungovernable Russian blood. Fru Leffler wrote the piece, but it -proved an utter failure. - -On her travels she made the acquaintance of the Duke of Cajanello, a -mathematician, who was probably introduced to her by Sonia Kovalevsky -He was professor at the Lyceum at Naples, and Fru Leffler appears to -have fallen suddenly and passionately in love. Her last novel bears -witness to this fact; like the former one, it treats of “Love and -Womanhood,” but here the proof of true womanliness lies in the loving. -She was divorced from her husband and went to Italy. Liberty, love, -and the South,--all were hers at last. - -She had something else besides to satisfy her ambition as a society -lady, when, in May, 1890, she became the Duchess of Cajanello. After -her marriage she paid a visit to Stockholm with her husband, and every -one thought that she looked younger, more gentle, more womanly, and -happier than she had ever done before. - -After the marriage, her friendship with Sonia Kovalevsky was at an end. -The latter had not found happiness in loving, and she died in the year -1891. - -The Duchess of Cajanello lived at Naples, and in her forty-third year -she experienced for the first time the happiness of becoming a mother. -When she died, the little duke was scarcely more than six months old. -Up to the last few days of her life, she was to all appearances happy -and in good health. Her last work was the life of her friend Sonia -Kovalevsky. In writing it she fulfilled the promise which they had -made, that whichever of the two survived should write the life--a -living portrait it was to be--of the other. She had just begun to -correct the proofs before she died. On the last day before her illness, -she worked till three o’clock in the afternoon at a novel called “A -Narrow Horizon,” which was left unfinished. She died after a few days’ -illness. - -Fru Edgren-Leffler belonged to that class of women whose senses slumber -long because their vital strength gives them the expectation of long -youth. But when the day comes that they are awakened, the same vitality -that had kept them asleep overflows with an intensity that attracts -like a beacon on a dark night. It is the woman who attracts the man, -not the reverse. Fru Edgren-Leffler found in her fortieth year that -which she had sought for in vain in her twentieth and thirtieth,--love! -The unfruitful became fruitful; the emaciated became beautiful; the -woman’s rights woman sang a hymn to the mystery of love; and the -last short years of happiness, too soon interrupted by death, were a -contradiction to the long insipid period of literary production. - - -THE END - - - - -THE KEYNOTES SERIES. - - 16mo. Cloth. Each volume with a Titlepage and Cover Design. - - By AUBREY BEARDSLEY. - - _Price_ _$1.00._ - - - I. =KEYNOTES.= By GEORGE EGERTON. - - II. =THE DANCING FAUN.= By FLORENCE FARR. - - III. =POOR FOLK.= By FEDOR DOSTOIEVSKY. Translated from the Russian - by LENA MILMAN. With an Introduction by GEORGE MOORE. - - IV. =A CHILD OF THE AGE.= By FRANCIS ADAMS. - - V. =THE GREAT GOD PAN AND THE INMOST LIGHT.= By ARTHUR MACHEN. - - VI. =DISCORDS.= By GEORGE EGERTON. - - VII. =PRINCE ZALESKI.= By M. P. SHIEL. - - VIII. =THE WOMAN WHO DID.= By GRANT ALLEN. - - IX. =WOMEN’S TRAGEDIES.= By H. D. LOWRY. - - X. =GREY ROSES AND OTHER STORIES.= By HENRY HARLAND. - - XI. =AT THE FIRST CORNER AND OTHER STORIES.= By H. B. MARRIOTT - WATSON. - - XII. =MONOCHROMES.= By ELLA D’ARCY. - - XIII. =AT THE RELTON ARMS.= By EVELYN SHARP. - - XIV. =THE GIRL FROM THE FARM.= By GERTRUDE DIX. - - XV. =THE MIRROR OF MUSIC.= By STANLEY V. MAKOWER. - - XVI. =YELLOW AND WHITE.= By W. CARLTON DAWE. - - XVII. =THE MOUNTAIN LOVERS.= By FIONA MACLEOD. - - XVIII. =THE THREE IMPOSTORS.= By ARTHUR MACHEN. - -_Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, on receipt of price, by the -Publishers_, - -ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON, MASS. - -_John Lane, The Bodley Head, Vigo Street, London, W._ - - - - -_Messrs. Roberts Brothers’ Publications._ - - -Foam of the Sea. - -By GERTRUDE HALL, - -_Author of “Far from To-day,” “Allegretto,” “Verses,” etc._ - -16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. - -Miss Gertrude Hall’s second volume of short stories, “Foam of the Sea -and Other Tales,” shows the same characteristics as the first, which -will be instantly remembered under the title of “Far from To-day.” -They are vigorous, fanciful, in part quaint, always thought-stirring -and thoughtful. She has followed old models somewhat in her style, -and the setting of many of the tales is mediæval. The atmosphere of -them is fascinating, so unusual and so pervading is it; and always -refined are her stories, and graceful, even with an occasional touch of -grotesquerie. And there is an underlying subtleness in them, a grasp -of the problems of the heart and the head, in short, of life, which is -remarkable; and yet they, for the most part, are romantic to a high -degree, and reveal an imagination far beyond the ordinary. “Foam of the -Sea,” like “Far from To-day,” is a volume of rare tales, beautifully -wrought out of the past for the delectation of the present. - -Of the six tales in the volume, “Powers of Darkness” alone has a -wholly nineteenth century flavor. It is a sermon told through two -lives pathetically miserable. “The Late Returning” is dramatic and -admirably turned, strong in its heart analysis. “Foam of the Sea” is -almost archaic in its rugged simplicity, and “Garden Deadly” (the most -imaginative of the six) is beautiful in its descriptions, weird in its -setting, and curiously effective. “The Wanderers” is a touching tale -of the early Christians, and “In Battlereagh House” there is the best -character drawing. - -Miss Hall is venturing along a unique line of story telling, and must -win the praise of the discriminating.--_The Boston Times._ - -There is something in the quality of the six stories by Gertrude -Hall in the volume to which this title is given which will attract -attention. They are stories which must--some of them--be read more -than once to be appreciated. They are fascinating in their subtlety of -suggestion, in their keen analysis of motive, and in their exquisite -grace of diction. There is great dramatic power in “Powers of Darkness” -and “In Battlereagh House.” They are stories which should occupy more -than the idle hour. They are studies.--_Boston Advertiser._ - -She possesses a curious originality, and, what does not always -accompany this rare faculty, skill in controlling it and compelling it -to take artistic forms.--_Mail and Express._ - - -_Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, on receipt of price, by the -Publishers_, - - ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON, MASS. - - - - -FAR FROM TO-DAY. - -A Volume of Stories. - -BY GERTRUDE HALL, - -_16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00._ - -These stories are marked with originality and power. The titles are as -follows: viz., Tristiane, The Sons of Philemon, Servirol, Sylvanus, -Theodolind, Shepherds. - - Miss Hall has put together here a set of gracefully written - tales,--tales of long ago. They have an old-world mediæval feeling - about them, soft with intervening distance, like the light upon - some feudal castle wall, seen through the openings of the forest. - A refined fancy and many an artistic touch has been spent upon the - composition with good result.--_London Bookseller._ - - “Although these six stories are dreams of the misty past, their - morals have a most direct bearing on the present. An author who - has the soul to conceive such stories is worthy to rank among the - highest. One of our best literary critics, Mrs. Louise Chandler - Moulton, says: ‘I think it is a work of real genius, Homeric in its - simplicity, and beautiful exceedingly.’” - - Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford, in the _Newburyport Herald_:-- - - “A volume giving evidence of surprising genius is a collection of - six tales by Gertrude Hall, called ‘Far from To-day.’ I recall no - stories at once so powerful and subtle as these. Their literary - charm is complete, their range of learning is vast, and their human - interest is intense. ‘Tristiane,’ the first one, is as brilliant - and ingenious, to say the least, as the best chapter of Arthur - Hardy’s ‘Passe Rose;’ ‘Sylvanus’ tells a heart-breaking tale, full - of wild delight in hills and winds and skies, full of pathos and - poetry; in ‘The Sons of Philemon’ the Greek spirit is perfect, the - story absolutely beautiful; ‘Theodolind,’ again, repeats the Norse - life to the echo, even to the very measure of the runes; and ‘The - Shepherds’ gives another reading to the meaning of ‘The Statue and - the Bust.’ Portions of these stories are told with an almost archaic - simplicity, while other portions mount on great wings of poetry, ‘Far - from To-day,’ as the time of the stories is placed; the hearts that - beat in them are the hearts of to-day, and each one of these stories - breathes the joy and the sorrow of life, and is rich with the beauty - of the world.” - - From the _London Academy_, December 24th:-- - - “The six stories in the dainty volume entitled ‘Far from To-day’ are - of imagination all compact. The American short tales, which have of - late attained a wide and deserved popularity in this country, have - not been lacking in this vitalizing quality; but the art of Mrs. - Slosson and Miss Wilkins is that of imaginative realism, while that - of Miss Gertrude Hall is that of imaginative romance; theirs is the - work of impassioned observation, hers of impassioned invention. There - is in her book a fine, delicate fantasy that reminds one of Hawthorne - in his sweetest moods; and while Hawthorne had certain gifts - which were all his own, the new writer exhibits a certain winning - tenderness in which he was generally deficient. In the domain of - pure romance it is long since we have had anything so rich in simple - beauty as is the work which is to be found between the covers of ‘Far - from To-day.’” - -_Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, on receipt of price, by the -Publishers_, - - ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON, MASS. - - - - -THE WEDDING GARMENT. - -A Tale of the Life to Come. - -BY LOUIS PENDLETON. - -_16mo. Cloth, price, $1.00. White and gold, $1.25._ - -“The Wedding Garment” tells the story of the continued existence of -a young man after his death or departure from the natural world. -Awakening in the other world,--in an intermediate region between -Heaven and Hell, where the good and the evil live together temporarily -commingled,--he is astonished and delighted to find himself the same -man in all respects as to every characteristic of his mind and ultimate -of the body. So closely does everything about him resemble the world -he has left behind, that he believes he is still in the latter until -convinced of the error. The young man has good impulses, but is no -saint, and he listens to the persuasions of certain persons who were -his friends in the world, but who are now numbered among the evil, -even to the extent of following them downward to the very confines -of Hell. Resisting at last and saving himself, later on, and after -many remarkable experiences, he gradually makes his way through the -intermediate region to the gateways of Heaven,--which can be found only -by those prepared to enter,--where he is left with the prospect before -him of a blessed eternity in the company of the woman he loves. - -The book is written in a reverential spirit, it is unique and quite -unlike any story of the same type heretofore published, full of telling -incidents and dramatic situations, and not merely a record of the -doings of sexless “shades” but of _living_ human beings. - - The one grand practical lesson which this book teaches, and which is - in accord with the divine Word and the New Church unfoldings of it - everywhere teach, is the need of an interior, true purpose in life. - The deepest ruling purpose which we cherish, what we constantly - strive for and determine to pursue as the most real and precious - thing of life, that rules us everywhere, that is our ego, our life, - is what will have its way at last. It will at last break through - all disguise; it will bring all external conduct into harmony with - itself. If it be an evil and selfish end, all external and fair - moralities will melt away, and the man will lose his common sense and - exhibit his insanities of opinion and will and answering deed on the - surface. But if that end be good and innocent, and there be humility - within, the outward disorders and evils which result from one’s - heredity or surroundings will finally disappear.--_From Rev. John - Goddard’s discourse, July 1, 1894._ - - Putting aside the question as to whether the scheme of the soul’s - development after death was or was not revealed to Swedenborg, - whether or not the title of seer can be added to the claims of this - learned student of science, all this need not interfere with the - moral influence of this work, although the weight of its instruction - must be greatly enforced on the minds of those who believe in a later - inspiration than the gospels. - - This story begins where others end; the title of the first chapter, - “I Die,” commands attention; the process of the soul’s disenthralment - is certainly in harmony with what we sometimes read in the dim - eyes of friends we follow to the very gate of life. “By what power - does a single spark hold to life so long ... this lingering of the - divine spark of life in a body growing cold?” It is the mission - of the author to tear from Death its long-established thoughts of - horror, and upon its entrance into a new life, the soul possesses - such a power of adjustment that no shock is experienced.--_Boston - Transcript._ - - ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, - BOSTON, MASS. - - - - -POOR FOLK. - -A Novel. - - Translated from the Russian of FEDOR DOSTOIEVSKY, by LENA MILMAN, - with decorative titlepage and a critical introduction by GEORGE - MOORE. American Copyright edition. - -_16mo. Cloth. $1.00._ - - -A capable critic writes: “One of the most beautiful, touching stories -I have read. The character of the old clerk is a masterpiece, a kind -of Russian Charles Lamb. He reminds me, too, of Anatole France’s -‘Sylvestre Bonnard,’ but it is a more poignant, moving figure. How -wonderfully, too, the sad little strokes of humor are blended into -the pathos in his characterization, and how fascinating all the naive -self-revelations of his poverty become,--all his many ups and downs -and hopes and fears. His unsuccessful visit to the money-lender, his -despair at the office, unexpectedly ending in a sudden burst of good -fortune, the final despairing cry of his love for Varvara,--these hold -one breathless. One can hardly read them without tears.... But there is -no need to say all that could be said about the book. It is enough to -say that it is over powerful and beautiful.” - -We are glad to welcome a good translation of the Russian Dostoievsky’s -story “Poor Folk,” Englished by Lena Milman. It is a tale of unrequited -love, conducted in the form of letters written between a poor clerk and -his girl cousin whom he devotedly loves, and who finally leaves him to -marry a man not admirable in character who, the reader feels, will not -make her happy. The pathos of the book centres in the clerk, Makar’s, -unselfish affection and his heart-break at being left lonesome by his -charming kinswoman whose epistles have been his one solace. In the -conductment of the story, realistic sketches of middle-class Russian -life are given, heightening the effect of the denoument. George Moore -writes a sparkling introduction to the book.--_Hartford Courant._ - -Dostoievsky is a great artist. “Poor Folk” is a great novel.--_Boston -Advertiser._ - -It is a most beautiful and touching story, and will linger in the mind -long after the book is closed. The pathos is blended with touching bits -of humor, that are even pathetic in themselves.--_Boston Times._ - -Notwithstanding that “Poor Folk” is told in that most exasperating and -entirely unreal style--by letters--it is complete in sequence, and -the interest does not flag as the various phases in the sordid life -of the two characters are developed. The theme is intensely pathetic -and truly human, while its treatment is exceedingly artistic. The -translator, Lena Milman, seems to have well preserved the spirit of the -original.--_Cambridge Tribune._ - -ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, BOSTON, MASS. - - - - -THE WOMAN WHO DID. - -BY GRANT ALLEN. - -_Keynotes Series. American Copyright Edition._ - -16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. - -A very remarkable story, which in a coarser hand than its refined and -gifted author could never have been effectively told; for such a hand -could not have sustained the purity of motive, nor have portrayed the -noble, irreproachable character of Herminia Barton.--_Boston Home -Journal._ - -“The Woman Who Did” is a remarkable and powerful story. It increases -our respect for Mr. Allen’s ability, nor do we feel inclined to join -in throwing stones at him as a perverter of our morals and our social -institutions. However widely we may differ from Mr. Allen’s views on -many important questions, we are bound to recognize his sincerity, and -to respect him accordingly. It is powerful and painful, but it is not -convincing. Herminia Barton is a woman whose nobleness both of mind -and of life we willingly concede; but as she is presented to us by Mr. -Allen, there is unmistakably a flaw in her intellect. This in itself -does not detract from the reality of the picture.--_The Speaker._ - -In the work itself, every page, and in fact every line, contains -outbursts of intellectual passion that places this author among the -giants of the nineteenth century.--_American Newsman._ - -Interesting, and at times intense and powerful.--_Buffalo Commercial._ - -No one can doubt the sincerity of the author.--_Woman’s Journal._ - -The story is a strong one, very strong, and teaches a lesson that no -one has a right to step aside from the moral path laid out by religion, -the law, and society.--_Boston Times._ - - -_Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, on receipt of price, by the -Publishers_, - - ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON, MASS. - - - - -DISCORDS. - -A Volume of Stories. - -BY GEORGE EGERTON, author of “Keynotes.” - -AMERICAN COPYRIGHT EDITION. - -_16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00._ - -George Egerton’s new volume entitled “Discords,” a collection of short -stories, is more talked about, just now, than any other fiction of -the day. The collection is really stories for story-writers. They are -precisely the quality which literary folk will wrangle over. Harold -Frederic cables from London to the “New York Times” that the book is -making a profound impression there. It is published on both sides, the -Roberts House bringing it out in Boston. George Egerton, like George -Eliot and George Sand, is a woman’s _nom de plume_. The extraordinary -frankness with which life in general is discussed in these stories not -unnaturally arrests attention.--_Lilian Whiting._ - -The English woman, known as yet only by the name of George Egerton, -who made something of a stir in the world by a volume of strong -stories called “Keynotes,” has brought out a new book under the rather -uncomfortable title of “Discords.” These stories show us pessimism -run wild; the gloomy things that can happen to a human being are so -dwelt upon as to leave the impression that in the author’s own world -there is no light. The relations of the sexes are treated of in bitter -irony, which develops into actual horror as the pages pass. But in all -this there is a rugged grandeur of style, a keen analysis of motive, -and a deepness of pathos that stamp George Egerton as one of the -greatest women writers of the day. “Discords” has been called a volume -of stories; it is a misnomer, for the book contains merely varying -episodes in lives of men and women, with no plot, no beginning nor -ending.--_Boston Traveller._ - -This is a new volume of psychological stories from the pen and brains -of George Egerton, the author of “Keynotes.” Evidently the titles of -the author’s books are selected according to musical principles. The -first story in the book is “A Psychological Moment at Three Periods.” -It is all strength rather than sentiment. The story of the child, -of the girl, and of the woman is told, and told by one to whom the -mysteries of the life of each are familiarly known. In their very -truth, as the writer has so subtly analyzed her triple characters, they -sadden one to think that such things must be; yet as they are real, -they are bound to be disclosed by somebody and in due time. The author -betrays remarkable penetrative skill and perception, and dissects the -human heart with a power from whose demonstration the sensitive nature -may instinctively shrink even while fascinated with the narration and -hypnotized by the treatment exhibited.--_Courier._ - - -_Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed by Publishers_, - - ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON, MASS. - - - - -Balzac in English. - -MEMOIRS OF TWO YOUNG MARRIED WOMEN. - -BY HONORÉ DE BALZAC. - - Translated by KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY. 12mo. Half Russia. Price, - $1.50. - -“There are,” says Henry James in one of his essays, “two writers -in Balzac,--the spontaneous one and the reflective one, the former -of which is much the more delightful, while the latter is the more -extraordinary.” It is the reflective Balzac, the Balzac with a theory, -whom we get in the “Deux Jeunes Mariées,” now translated by Miss -Wormeley under the title of “Memoirs of Two Young Married Women.” -The theory of Balzac is that the marriage of convenience, properly -regarded, is far preferable to the marriage simply from love, and he -undertakes to prove this proposition by contrasting the careers of -two young girls who have been fellow-students at a convent. One of -them, the ardent and passionate Louise de Chaulieu, has an intrigue -with a Spanish refugee, finally marries him, kills him, as she herself -confesses, by her perpetual jealousy and exaction, mourns his loss -bitterly, then marries a golden-haired youth, lives with him in a -dream of ecstasy for a year or so, and this time kills herself through -jealousy wrongfully inspired. As for her friend, Renée de Maucombe, -she dutifully makes a marriage to please her parents, calculates -coolly beforehand how many children she will have and how they shall -be trained; insists, however, that the marriage shall be merely a -civil contract till she and her husband find that their hearts are -indeed one; and sees all her brightest visions realized--her Louis an -ambitious man for her sake and her children truly adorable creatures. -The story, which is told in the form of letters, fairly scintillates -with brilliant sayings, and is filled with eloquent discourses -concerning the nature of love, conjugal and otherwise. Louise and Renée -are both extremely sophisticated young women, even in their teens; and -those who expect to find in their letters the demure innocence of the -Anglo-Saxon type will be somewhat astonished. The translation, under -the circumstances, was rather a daring attempt, but it has been most -felicitousy done.--_The Beacon._ - - -_Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, on receipt of price by the -Publishers_, - - ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON, MASS. - - - - -GEORGE SAND IN ENGLISH. - -NANON. - -_Translated by ELIZABETH WORMELEY LATIMER._ - -It is, I think, one of the prettiest and most carefully constructed -of her later works, and the best view of the French Revolution from a -rural point of view that I know.--_Translator._ - -“Nanon” is a pure romance, chaste in style and with a charm of -sentiment well calculated to appeal to the most thoughtful reader. -George Sand has chosen the epoch of the French Revolution as the scene -of this last theme from her prolific pen, and she invests the time -with all the terrible significance that belongs to it. To the literary -world nothing that comes from her pen is unwelcome, the more so as in -this instance there is not the least trace of that risky freedom of -speech that too often disfigures the best work of the French school of -fiction. Nanon will be read with an appreciation of the gifted novelist -that is by no means new, and her claim to recognition is made stronger -and better by this masterly work. Her admirers--and they will be sure -not to miss Nanon--will feel a debt of gratitude to Elizabeth Wormeley -Latimer for a translation that preserves so well the clear, flowing -style and the lofty thoughts of the original; and the publishers, no -less than the reading public, ought to consider themselves fortunate in -the choice of so competent a translator.--_The American Hebrew._ - -This is among the finest of George Sand’s romances, and one who has -not made acquaintance with her works would do well to choose it as -the introductory volume. It belongs in the list of the best works of -that remarkable author, and contains nothing that is objectionable or -at all questionable in its moral tone. The scenes are laid among the -peasantry of France--simple-hearted, plodding, honest people, who know -little or nothing of the causes which are fomenting to bring about the -French Revolution. She portrays in clear and forcible language the -destitute condition of the rural districts, whose people were ignorant, -priest-ridden, and oppressed; and she shows the wretchedness and misery -that these poor people were compelled to endure during the progress -of the Revolution. The book is one of her masterpieces, by reason of -the exquisite delineations of character, the keen and philosophical -thought, the purity of inspiration, and the delicacy and refinement of -style. Throughout the story there is a freshness and vigor which only -one can feel who has lived at some time in close intimacy with fields -and woods, and become familiar with the forms, the colors, and the -sounds of Nature. The book has been translated by Elizabeth Wormeley -Latimer, who has performed her task admirably.--_Public Opinion._ - -Mrs. Latimer has achieved marked success in the translation of this -charming tale, preserving its purity, its simplicity, and its pastoral -beauty.--_Christian Union._ - - - One volume, 12mo, half Russia, uniform with our edition of “Balzac” - and “Sand” novels. Price, $1.50. - - ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON. - - - - -_A Beautiful Betrothal and Wedding Gift._ - -THE - -LOVER’S YEAR-BOOK OF POETRY. - -A Collection of Love Poems for Every Day in the Year. - -BY HORACE P. CHANDLER. - -FIRST SERIES. Vol. I. January to June. Bicolor, $1.25; white and gold, -$1.50. Vol. II. July to December. Bicolor, $1.25; white and gold, $1.50. - -SECOND SERIES. Vol. I. January to June. Bicolor, $1.25; white and gold, -$1.50. Vol. II. July to December. Bicolor, $1.25; white and gold, $1.50. - -The Poems in the First Series touch upon LOVE PRIOR TO MARRIAGE; those -in the Second Series are of MARRIED-LIFE AND CHILD-LIFE. - - These two beautiful volumes, clad in the white garb which is - emblematic of the purity of married love as well as the innocence of - childhood, make up a series unique in its plan and almost perfect in - its carrying out. It would be impossible to specify any particular - poems of the collection for special praise. They have been selected - with unerring taste and judgment, and include some of the most - exquisite poems in the language. Altogether the four volumes make up - a treasure-house of Love poetry unexcelled for sweetness and purity - of expression. _Transcript, Boston._ - - Mr. Chandler has drawn from many and diverse wells of English poetry - of Love, as the list for any month shows. The poetry of passion is - not here, but there are many strains of Love such as faithful lovers - feel.--_Literary World, Boston._ - - We do not hesitate to pronounce it a collection of extraordinary - freshness and merit. It is not in hackneyed rhymes that his - lovers converse, but in fresh metres from the unfailing - fountains.--_Independent, New York._ - - Mr. Chandler is catholic in his tastes, and no author of repute has - been omitted who could give variety or strength to the work. The - children have never been reached in verse in a more comprehensive and - connected manner than they are in this book.--_Gazette, Boston._ - - A very dainty and altogether bewitching little anthology. For each - day in each month of two years (each series covering a year) a poem - is given celebrating the emotions that beset the heart of the true - lover. The editor has shown his exquisite taste in selection, and his - wide and varied knowledge of the literature of English and American - poetry. Every poem in these books is a perfect gem of sentiment; - either tender, playful, reproachful, or supplicatory in its meaning; - there is not a sonnet nor a lyric that one could wish away.--_Beacon, - Boston._ - - “The selections,” says Louise Chandler Moulton, “given us are - nearly all interesting, and some of them are not only charming but - unhackneyed.”--_Herald, Boston._ - - A collection of Love poems selected with exquisite judgment from the - best known English and American poets of the last three centuries, - with a few translations.--_Home Journal, Boston._ - - There are many beautiful poems gathered into this treasure-house, and - so great is the variety which has been given to the whole that the - monotony which would seem to be the necessary accompaniment of the - choice of a single theme is overcome.--_Courier, Boston._ - - The selections are not fragments, but are for the most part complete - poems. Nearly every one of the poems is a literary gem, and they - represent nearly all the famous names in poetry.--_Daily Advertiser, - Boston._ - - Selected with great taste and judgment from a wide variety - of sources, and providing a body of verse of the highest - order.--_Commercial Advertiser, Buffalo._ - -_Sold by all booksellers. Mailed on receipt of price, postpaid, by the -publishers_, - - ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON, MASS. - - - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] Sonia’s mother was a German, the daughter of Schubert the -astronomer. Marie Bashkirtseff’s grandmother was also German, and Fru -Leffler was descended from a German family who had settled in Sweden. - -[2] “A Doll’s House,” by Henrik Ibsen. - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized or underlined text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. - - Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIX MODERN WOMEN *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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