Moral Poison in Modern Fiction

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  HERE ARE TWO PICTURES OF FREE LOVE!

  "After all, what is life for me? _Strange doors in strange houses,strange men and strange intimacies._ Sometimes weirdly grotesque andincredibly beastly. The secret vileness of human nature flung atme. Man revealing himself, through individual after individual, asutterly contemptible. I tell you, my dear eager fool, it is beyondmy conception ever to regard a man as higher than a frog, as lessrepulsive."

  It is a cry from Mr. Compton Mackenzie's glittering land of many, andstrange, sins—surely a nightmare of hell itself; cry of the gallantSylvia Scarlett, writing her own epitaph—"Here lies Sylvia Scarlett_who was always running away_."

  On the surface, indeed, it is a gay enough scene Mr. Mackenzie haspainted for us, when "her arm was twined round him like ivy, and theirtwo hands came together like leaves."

  Glittering and hot in the first flush of adventure, we see youth'sbrave curiosity endlessly awake. Yet it was cold, hard, and "strange"at the core: always, everywhere, a "stranger" upon the earth. Sylvia"was always running away"—from men and from herself; so weary, sohurt, and so afraid. For there was none to share the burden and thejoy, no footing for her; nothing to hold on to and steady life, nofuture to build: weary and restless and alone. She could never stayanywhere, with anyone; searching for ever, for she knows not what. For"life, which means freedom and space and movement, she is willing topay with utter loneliness at the end."

  For the wanderers there is no end we dare tell. Mr. Mackenzie has "ajolly conception of the adventurous men of London, with all its slyand labyrinthine romance"; but has he ever thought of following besideany of the men and women who flutter across his page—we cannot sayto their homes, for they have none? Dare he _live_ with "the muslinand patchouli, the aspidestras and yellowing photographs, as in unseenbasements children whined, while on the mantelpiece garish vasesrattled to the vibration of the traffic"; or with Mrs. Smith "creepingabout the stairs like a spider?" Dare he see his shrewd, bright Daisydie?

  To the novelist, indeed, they do not matter. They have played theirpart in his drama, and may shuffle off to the wings. _They are humanbeings in real life._ And for the truth about them, we could tellsuch a dreary, monotonous, bitter and tragic sheaf of "Lonely Lives."We should show them to you, wandering round and round, in and out,under bright lights or behind dark corners; every year more weak andfrightened, till strength fails them even for movement without hope,and they slip away into some silent pond.

  And finally, from the first, if all love means constant change torevive passion, a life of continual experiment in emotion; we dare notface the child.

  Novelists to-day, indeed, have given much thought to children. "Youknow," wrote Mr. Mackenzie, "that if I were to set down all I couldremember of my childhood the work would not yet have reached beyondthe fifth year." They all often remember much, with rare understandingand delicate insight. Heroes and heroines, to-day, are introduced tous in the cradle, and for many a chapter remain nursery-bound. But,curiously enough, we meet them all _at home, in a family group_. Everyone of the "newest" men and women, in modern novels, were brought up bytheir parents (or nearest relatives), and did inherit the great giftof influences they make no attempt to hand on. To fight fate they had,at least, the traditional defence: _a self moulded by a mother's andfather's love_.

  Fiction has not yet faced the offspring of Free Love.

  They are still, however, bravely inspired by visions of mother-love.The faith and loyalty they forbid to lovers, is still honoured in sons.How many of Mr. Cannan's young heroines, for instance, could ever havemothered his own Renè Fourny or the "Three Pretty Men." The Mrs. Morelof D. H. Lawrence, most passionately tempestuous of all the moderns,comes very near to the ideal. Few women have lived more absolutelyor continuously for, and in, their child. Yet few women can have hadbetter excuse or more temptation to desertion, greater need for a newstart. _Here was no love and no home, save what she made by loyalconstancy to the building up of the child she had borne._

  Who would condemn more fiercely, and with more bitter tears, theteaching of these men than the great mothers they have so noblycreated?

  There would be none such in life so lived.

  * * * * *

  Could any novelist have drawn for us a more mad picture of the emotionsaroused by sex-licence than may be read in _The Jewel in the Lotus_ byRosita Forbes? The heroine, Corona, "who paints, you know," is not,professionally, a gay woman. She had, perhaps justifiably, divorced herfirst husband; and achieved something like real love with a SpanishCatholic, whose religion alone prevented the legal sanction. He,however, died suddenly before the story opens; and "from that timeCorona deliberately cut away the soft side of life . . . she fought herlonely battle and she won."

  But "_she did not attempt to shut sex out of her life again_. On thecontrary, _there were many incidents_ in many countries, but to nosingle lover did she give any part of her soul. For a little whilethey drifted into her life, fulfilling the need her loneliness hadof companionship. She paid the price asked for affection, sympathy,kindness, and _it left no mark on her_. Sometimes passion took her andshe _loved like a man_ for a time and then forgot, but nothing and noone interfered with the strange, new force she was developing."

  "At thirty-five she was a woman, strong, courageous, intelligent, abrilliant conversationalist"—in fact, a popular Society Queen. Her"existence had been an orgy of sensation."

  Then the boy, Gerald, came into her life. He had a "wonderful" mother:"There's nothing I would not tell her, nothing that we do not talkover." It was his plan, and hers, for him not to marry "for ages, notfor ten years, if then. You see, I want to make my castle first. ThenI will ask someone to live in it. I want to give my wife everything. Iwant to stick her up in the public view and just arrange things for herquietly."

  _But_ his mother was "broad-minded." When "she sees a woman obviouslyhappy, she feels that she probably has a lover." She "wouldn't want allthe best" of her son's life. "She knows I don't mean to marry, and sheknows also that no man goes very far without a woman in his life."

  And, _not_ "necessarily, in the background. I can imagine a very greatfriendship developing into something more passionate while one wasyoung and impulsive, and then slipping gradually back into a wonderfulcomradeship."

  "And," he added, "I should never marry a woman who would mind my having_friends_!"

  All this he tells Corona—"very quietly and simply"; and then, "kissingher face swiftly, hotly, . . . till she bit him"; with incredible_naivete_, explains that he had talked about her with his mother—"Shefeels I should be safe with you" and "she would be a good friend to mymistress."

  In her first blaze of anger and scorn Corona spits out: "I suppose SirHenry is your mother's lover"; and the boy cries, "No, he is not! Howdare you suggest it? _My mother is much too fine a woman to have alover._ She never had one and never will have."

  This is the truth none can escape: the one answer possible for anydecent boy: the inspiration of all the youth of all ages, who have madefor us a fair world, illumined by faith, courage, and hope.