136

THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.

Could any woman have depicted more sympathetically the hard, dull life of the faith­ful woman of the fields and prairies than Hamlin Garland and Major Kirkland and Bret Harte have done it? There was a little anonymous story that appeared in the “ Century ” a couple of years ago—I think it was called “ A Common Story”—and I remember every one, myself included, was certain that only a woman could have written it, because only a woman could possibly have had the necessary insight. It revealed the love story of an old maid, and it struck a note that must have vibrated in every woman’s heart. Yet this story was by that gifted young man, Walcott Bales- tier. I have heard various receipts for discovering the sex of an author, but have seen them all go down ingloriously before the simple strategy of the nom de plwne. It was generally conceded that no one but a man could have painted the rugged solemnity of the Tennessee Mountains and the primitive poetry of the lives of the mountaineers as Charles Egbert Craddock did. At least it was conceded, before Mary Murfree modestly appeared before the startled eyes of the editor of the “ Atlantic Monthly;” and I am sure that the claims of a certain man to the novels of George Eliot were immensely strengthened by the current view that it would be absurd to abscribe the simple, vigorous strength of “Adam Bede” to the hand of a woman. When we turn to those that would theorize about woman’s place in the republic of letters, what ideas do we find current: First, and I think this reasoning is not entirely un­familiar to you; we hear them say: “ Woman is the heart, and man the mind. Woman stands for the emotions and man for the intellect.” Therefore we should find that women may write charming love stories, but that it will be impossible for them to reveal any intellectual grasp; impossible for them to probe down into the deeper problems of life.

What do we find as an actual fact? We find the men critics showering anathe­mas at the authors of “Robert Elsmere” and “John Ward, Preacher,” for bringing into the domain of a novel serious problems and non-emotional material that properly belong rather to the domain of philosophy or theology. Then, of course, we are told that women lack the broad sympathy that is so necessary to the novelist of today. As Mrs. Browning’s Romney tells Aurora, “Women are sympathetic to the personal pangs, but hard to general suffering.” And yet, think of the exquisitely tender delin­eation of the forbidding New England old maid by Mary Wilkins, and those two great stories that immortalized the wrongs of two races, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and “Romola.” Then we are told that it is easy for women to write on fashionable soci­ety or of the village sewing circles, but in the very nature of things women are limited in their scope. It is impossible for them to depict the rough pimitive life of the fields and mines, and yet right here in America we have Mary Hallock Foote, Octave Thanet, and Miss Elliot, the author of “Jerry,” and so many others who seem to have gone straight down to the soil for inspiration. Then, of course, women have not had what are called “experiences.” How can a woman in her sheltered innocence know anything of certain phases of life, or if she does possess sufficient imagination, how will she treat it? Surely she can only give us what some one has called: “The moral harshness of copy-book maxims,” and yet with what passion and fireMrs. Humphery Ward has given us the Parisian episode in the life of David Grieve; and think of Elizabeth Stewart Phelps’ powerful and pitiful story, “Hedged In,” and the breadth and insight of Olive Schreiner. I am sure no one has dealt with the character of a guilty woman more exquisitely, more tactfully, more sympathetically, and yet with more powerful irony and pathos than Mrs. K. Clifford did with her Mrs. North in her story, “Aunt Anne.” While her Mrs. Walter Hibbert is a capital hit at the timid atti­tude of the average “good woman.”

I heard the other day that Mr. Brander Mathews so keenly misses the sense of humor in woman that he has resolved the next time he marries to marry a man. No, I am not going to get angry about it, it hits Mrs. Mathews so much harder than it hits me; nor am I going to assist Mr. Mathews to prove his cause by taking his skit too seri­ously. But I cannot resist just a reference to the delightful quality of the humor of