Note 794 — Chapter XXXI

Eduard Grisebach, “Catalogue of World Literature, with Literary and Bibliographical Annotations” (second edition, Berlin, 1905).

[795] K. Lange, “The Nature of Art,” vol. ii., pp. 161-177 (Berlin, 1901).

[796] Philipp Frey, “The Battle of the Sexes,” pp. 33, 34 (Vienna, 1904).

[797] Reference has previously been made (p. 673) to an English novel similar in character to Vera’s book—viz., “The Heavenly Twins,” by Sarah Grand. But the classical English example of a novel devoted to the consideration of the differing standards by which preconjugal sexual intercourse is judged in man and in woman respectively is “Tess of the D’Urbervilles,” by Thomas Hardy.

[798] In “The Woman who Did,” by Grant Allen, we have an English novel advocating free love; like “Eine für Viele,” this evoked a number of novels with allied titles, such as “The Woman who Didn’t,” “The Woman who Wouldn’t,” and the like. A far profounder study of a free union between a man whose wife refused to divorce him (on “moral” grounds) and another woman is George Meredith’s “One of Our Conquerors.” In “Jude the Obscure,” by Thomas Hardy, we have another detailed consideration of the difficulties attendant on a free union in a society under the dominion of Philistine morality. A recent novel in which freer sexual relationships are discussed from a somewhat ideal standpoint is “In the Days of the Comet,” by H. G. Wells. (In the character of Sue Bridehead, in “Jude the Obscure,” we have a remarkable study of the “frigid” type of woman. I have before alluded, in a note to p. 435, to a recent novel by Hubert Wales, “Mr. and Mrs. Villiers,” devoted to the question of sexual frigidity in woman.)—Translator.

[799] “Bourgeois morality is the arch-murderer, which murders your youth and the youth of many of your sisters. If we lived in natural conditions, you would always, from the days of your childhood, be surrounded by young persons of the other sex. One of these would have contracted a friendship for you; another would have honoured you from a distance; with a third you would have played joyfully. But from your twentieth year onwards, three or four or more of them would have ardently wooed you, because you are strong and beautiful and chaste. And so with tears, and passion, and suffering, with games and kisses, you would have gladly become a woman; thus it is even yet among the children of manual labourers. A beautiful, chaste, diligent workman’s child has wooers enough. But among the so-called cultured people, morality has distorted and destroyed all the beauty of nature.... Where the middle-class youth goes to and fro, there goes also, like an old youth-hating aunt, morality, and destroys for each poor girl the best time of her life; and many never come to marriage, and many come too late.”

[800] In “Divorçons,” a comedy by V. Sardou and E. de Najac, we have an exceedingly witty, though trivial, treatment of the idea of a terminable marriage contract.—Translator.

[801] An early example of the “emancipated woman” in English literature is to be found in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Aurora Leigh.” This conception of feminine character aroused the usual hostility in minds working along the older grooves, so that Edward Fitzgerald, when Mrs. Browning died, is said to have exclaimed: “Thank God! No more ‘Aurora Leighs’!”—Translator.

[802] George Gissing’s “The Unclassed” is a powerful study of the life of a London prostitute.—Translator.

[803] Bayet, “À propos des ‘Avariés’” (Brussels, 1902).

[804] We may include in this category Willy’s “La Môme Picrate,” and also the “Claudine” novels by the same author (“Claudine à l’École,” “Claudine à Paris,” etc.).

[805] Consult also the work “Lieblingsminne und Freundesliebe in der Weltliteratur,” by Elisar von Kupffer.

[806] And at a later date Verlaine wrote other homosexual poems, “Les Hommes,” which for the most part are still unpublished.

[807] A work of similar character to these is the notable novel recently published (February, 1907) “Die Stimme,” by Grete Meisel-Hess (Berlin, 1907).