You shall call to me and I shall bend over you,
And that is all there is to life—
I bending over you in the darkness.
Soul-Sleep and Modern Novels
Will Levington Comfort
An American novelist who wanted sales, and who was willing to sacrifice all but the core of his character to get sales, found himself recently in a challenging situation. As he expressed it:
“Along about page two hundred in the copy of the novel I am on, the woman’s soul wakes up.”
“A woman’s novel?” I asked.
“Meant to be,” said he. “Study of a woman all through. Begins as a little girl—different, you know—sensitive, does a whole lot of thinking that her family doesn’t follow. Tries to tell ’em at first, but finds herself in bad. Then keeps quiet for years—putting on power and beauty in the good old way of bumps and misunderstanding. She’s pure white fire presently—body and brain—something else asleep. She wants to be a mother, but the ghastly sordidness of the love stories of her sisters to this enactment, frightens her from men and marriage as the world conducts it——”
“I follow you,” said I.