They are however rescued from the last degree of actual crime in each
case by the good taste of the author, feeling that such chapters had
better not be written voluntarily in fiction, or perchance by his love
for his proud maidens, whom he cannot taint with degradation in act,
even if the sin upon their souls be wellnigh as black in the eyes of a
strict judge, arbiter alike of the seen and the unseen. Such are hardly
the conceptions wherewith the brain of a cultivated woman would teem. It
were too glaring treason to her sex and to her own nature. Although it
must be said that there is no word of coarseness or bold suggestion of
wickedness to be found upon any page. So far from it, we scarcely find
recognized the crime to which the maidens are tempted, and we
half-ignorantly wonder at the existence of compunctions, excited at we
can scarcely say what. But the author knew probably well enough, and if
she were one of the sisterhood of women, then must she be isolated and
at enmity with them all. Her hand is against every woman's and every
woman's hand against her.
Perhaps there is a fault in the tone of these novels. This may have been
inferred by some strict moralists from the preceding paragraph. But they
have indeed not the slightest trace of impropriety about them. They are
not tainted in the slightest with the insidious viciousness of French
novels. Their fault arises from rather an opposite tendency of mind and
a different train of feelings.
Pages:
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97