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
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
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?