The writings to which I have referred in this chapter—the number of which could easily be increased tenfold without exhausting the abundance of recent belletristic literature occupied in the discussion of the sexual problem—should suffice to give some idea of how great is the interest in the important problems of the sexual life, how detailed and complicated the problems of that life have become under the influence of modern civilization, and with what earnestness they are treated in the belles-lettres of the day. The light and frivolous mood of Wieland and Clauren is no longer found to-day. In its place we have grandiose moral description, a more dramatic treatment of sexual problems, an unsparing exposure of the gloomier aspects of amatory life, and a psychological penetration into all the activities of the loving soul. Regarded as a whole, love in modern belletristic literature is treated from far worthier and higher standpoints than formerly. There is no ground whatever for regarding the widespread discussion of sexual problems in modern literature as a stigma of degeneration. In this respect our literature is merely a mirror of our time; and its tendencies indicate very clearly the emergence of a new, earnest, and more profound conception of the sexual relations between man and woman.
[794] 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.