Masculine and Feminine Literature
Somewhere lately I read a review of Home and the reviewer says that it was probably written by a woman, giving I forget what reason as to description of home life, and details of that sort, which “no one but a woman could have written with such fidelity to truth.” But I couldn’t believe it even before the truth came out the other day. Home is distinctly a man’s story, written by a man. The psychology of it is man-psychology (unconscious of course), and its appeal is more strongly to masculine than to feminine taste—much as I hate to think they differ in literature. I have heard several men speak of it as one of the best stories they ever read, and I, myself, though liking it, could never become more than mildly enthusiastic. To be sure, it is a great tale of adventure. But for whom is the great adventure? Alan and Gerry go blithely about the world in pursuit of it. Alix, Gerry’s wife, after taking a feeble little step in the direction of what was for her a stirring adventure, returns home, chastened, and is properly punished by years of waiting for her husband to close up his small affairs. Her great adventure was sitting at home rearing Gerry’s child. Clem’s seems to have been sitting at home waiting for Alan to get through roving and come back to her. And never a comment to the effect that this should not have been perfectly soul-satisfying to both of the women, and never a notion, apparently, but that they were richly rewarded for their waiting by being allowed to spend the rest of their lives caring for the two bold adventurers. I couldn’t believe a woman living in the twentieth century could even have imagined such stupidities. I don’t mean that Home isn’t interesting, as stories go, but it is the crudest kind of man-psychology and will be as out-of-date in a few years as Clarissa Harlowe is now.
I’ve been wondering a great deal lately whether there is a masculine and feminine literature after one is grown up. I know there was for me as a child. When a story like Camp Mates began in Harper’s Young People I regretted that it was not something by Lucy C. Lillie, who wrote of adorably nice little girls. But possibly if I had ever gone out for long walks and camped for the day in the open as my own little lad does now, I too would have read Camp Mates. A man not undistantly related to me by marriage confessed the other day that he was fondest of stories telling of castaways on desert islands. “It’s a thing I’d like to do myself—have a try at an island,” he said, eagerly. “With your wife?” I asked, tentatively. He nodded, and gulped his dinner, and then immediately repented: “With no woman,” he said, firmly; “they bring civilization, and I’d want it wild.” Well, I don’t blame him. It’s appalling to think of how many men would measure up to a desert island test—would procure by hook or crook some manner of sustenance. And I can think of few, very few women (among whom I do not include myself) whom I should select as companions if I were thus stranded. I mean, of course, as far as their resourcefulness is concerned. Perhaps that is why, in stories of adventure, the woman is left behind, inevitably; or, if she is washed up on the shore by the waves, proves an encumbrance, delightful or otherwise. And it is all a matter of training—not, as our novelist would have us believe, a deplorable lack of brains and stamina.