novels of "gay life," with the prostitute heroine, are, quite obviously, strong moral intoxicants.
one does not pronounce the subject forbidden. we know, and recognize, that a man's mistress may be a nobler woman than his wife, the love between them more real; we know and recognize where mere passion may lead; and we do not carelessly push beyond the pale, those whom a hundred different circumstances—quite different degrees of moral weakness or reckless defiance through special trouble—may have led to live on man's desires. we do not dismiss them from thought, reading, and conversation.
nevertheless many novels now written use these most grave issues for mere dramatic effect, or to confound morality; and, to these ends, offer a falsely attractive picture of emotional adventure. in his terrible bed of roses, on the other hand, mr. w. l. george [34]treats his theme with the definite object of exposing the tragedy of a young woman with no training, suddenly forced to earn her living; and of expressing his righteous anger against the conditions of civilization. because, he declares, "a woman can scratch up a living but not a future; and the only job she's really fit for is to be a man's keep, legal or illegal, permanent or temporary." the narrative itself is most emphatically not free from offence, but the motive is honest and sincere.
mr. gilbert cannan, again, with less earnest intention but still legitimately, seems to have written pink roses to illustrate the demoralizing effects of the war on a quite decent, average young man, who was "left out" of things—through a weak heart. he drifts into an experiment of lust, but is not finally destroyed, because he recognized from the first that he had only sought the adventure—to fill the blank years.
the frail "cora" of mr. snaith's sailor merely stands for temptation, which no novelist can omit. the episode is not shirked, but it is treated with all the traditional reticence, which puts it outside our discussion here.
in these examples the motive may be [35]acknowledged towards justification; but such books as mr. w. l. george's confessions of ursula trent only respond to a morbid preference for melodramatic atmosphere: they assume, and encourage, our interest in the unclean.
to heighten the effect, they are—almost inevitably—untrue. the attractions and drama are exaggerated, giving a false glamour to the gravest tragedy of human nature. there is here obvious adventure, and far greater variety or colour than we can, most of us, reach in ordinary respectable life. there is even some real liberty for the individual (though far less than these superficial narratives suggest), in dramatic contrast to the slaving drudgery and imprisoned minds—of underpaid long hours of toil and drab unloving homes.
the hopeless tragedy, the bitter knowledge, the utter weariness and the slavery of the soul do not provide the novelist with dramatic material, and are—to a large extent—left out of the picture. he slurs over, or altogether ignores, the blunting of moral sense, the coarsening of moral fibre, the lowering of all ideals: the gradual loss of power over oneself, loss of will, loss of freedom, loss—even—of [36]desire. he may use the more obvious foulness and brutality as an occasion for drama—naturally not wishing to be transparently unreal. the moral tragedy is not there.
but by his own art standard, that demands the exact truth, he is condemned; and he is guilty of just that falsehood which he set out to expose and revile—of treating his characters as a class apart, rather types than individuals. as the victorians assumed, without charity, they were always lower than the "respectable"; he almost conveys the impression that they are necessarily higher—as careless, and far more dangerous, an assumption.
we can perhaps see more clearly where this perverse attack upon convention really leads from another example of fiction, frankly designed to sell.
it is, indeed, hard to detect the serious object or thought behind such books as the age of consent. the publisher claims "extraordinary delicacy" for its treatment of a "difficult, perilous, and exciting situation," which is "modern in the fullest sense." there is, we admit, nothing coarse here in language or thought, a welcome exception to-day; and the combination of essential purity, in a very real sense, with a courageous acceptance of [37]life, is revealed with real understanding of morality and of our natural instincts.
in other words, pamela is a true woman; with exceptional possession of herself, heroic impulse and a clean mind; capable of sustained, genuine self-sacrifice and self-restraint.
but when we consider the tests by which her nature is revealed and developed, the sordid vice in which she grew from girl to woman; the whole impression is reversed. circumstances and atmosphere are violently morbid and also quite abnormal. we have not only every conceivable variety in the cruel and profit-sharing intrigues of lust (with no sudden impulse to excuse, if not condone); but illustration and discussion of the most extreme and vile form of criminal mania that serves no purpose but to heighten the crude sensationalism.
the legal problem suggested by the title (a "practical" issue of grave importance to public morality) is only used for the mechanism of the plot; and spiritual purity is fertilized by manure. this, of course, may be achieved by a strong nature: virtue does sometimes triumph against long odds. but such books without doubt imply that the surroundings of loathly sin provide the most [38]favourable soil for the growth and strengthening of a girl's innocence to perfect womanhood. which is a lie.
can we finally hesitate to proclaim that too many novels, written round "gay life," create moods and stimulate emotions, by which truth and the right are hidden or denied?
