The Menace of the 'Sixties
Sin.-Mr. Simon Raven's problem is not a new one; in 1840, Thackeray. describing 'file Fashionable Authoress, wrote: The readiest of ready pens has Lady Flum- mery . . . only it runs so fast that it often leaves all sense behind it: and there it goes on. on. scribble, scribble, scribble, never flagging until it arrives at that fair winning post on which
is written IN'S' or 'THE 1 Ni)'; and shews that the course. whether it be of novel, annual, poem,
or what not, is complete. . .
Out comes the book; as for its merits, we may allow, cheerfully. that Lady Flummery has no lack of that natural esprit which every woman possesses; but here praise stops. For the style, she does not know her own language, but. in revenge, has a smattering of half a dozen others. . . .
Are authoresses to be bound by the rules of grammar? The supposition is absurd. We don't expect them to know their own language; we prefer rather the little graceful pranks and liberties they take with it. When, for instance. a celebrated authoress, who wrote a Diaress, calls somebody the prototype of his own father, we feel an obligation to her ladyship; the language feels an obligation; it has a charm and a privilege with which it was never before en- dowed: and it is manifest, that if we can call ourselves antetypcs of our grandmothers-can prophesy what we had for dinner yesterday, and so on. we get into a new range of thought. and discover sweet regions of fancy and poetry. of which the mind hath never even had a notion until now.
It may be then considered as certain that an authoress ought not to know her own tongue. Literature and politics have this privilege in common. that any ignoramus may excel in both.
DAVID WISE
Clare College. Cambridge
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