The Emancipated. By George Gissing. 3 vols. (Bentley and Son.)—There
is some powerful writing in this book. A reader may well be in doubt—possibly the author wishes to leave him in doubt—whether emancipation is, indeed, a good thing for woman. Miriam, for instance, is narrow and cold when she is bound by the trammels of her sectarian education ; but she is simply detest- able when she gets free from them. How Mallard, after seeing what he does of her, could make her his wife, passes our compre- hension. And the other heroine, Cecily, does not perplex us less. Here is a passage which describes her feelings when she has found that her husband is a reprobate :—" She asked no liberty to be vile, as her husband made himself ; but that she was denied an equal freedom to exercise all her powers, to enrich her life with experiences of joy, this fired her to revolt. A woman who belongs to the old education readily believes that it is not to experiences of joy, but of sorrow, that she must look for her true blessedness ; her ideal is one of renunciation ; religious motive is in her en- forced by what she deems the obligation of her sex. But Cecily was of the new world, the emancipated order. For a time she might accept misery as her inalienable lot; but her youthful years, fed with the new philosophy, must in the end repel." This is very true. And which is the better ? One might argue that if a woman may be happy, and, at the worst, has the beat of con- solations in her unhappiness, emancipation will not improve her lot. The story of The Emancipated 'is not pleasant reading ; indeed, it is far from it ; but it is much superior to the. average novel. No one will find it tedious or trifling.
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