FICTION.
DANGEROUS AGES.*
A QUARTETTE of women whose ages range from twenty to eighty-four forms the subject of this discriminating and analytical
novel. When it is said that the girl is the great-grandchild of the eldest lady, the ages of the mother and grandmother who come between can be surmised. Besides being exceedingly amusing, the book must necessarily be interesting to the student of modern womanhood. Miss Macaulay is a keen observer, and each of her portraits is a highly finished representation of the particular type of woman which it illustrates. Naturally, it must not be supposed that every girl in the present day is as modem in her social outlook on life as is Gerda Bendish. She, with her extreme objection to the formal union of marriage, is a good deal in advance of the normal post-war girl—which is forturinte in the opinion of those who were born in the recesses of the nineteenth century. Young people of advanced tendencies will consider Gerda with wistful envy, and wish that their own friends were as outspoken and held such advanced opinions. Gerda's mother, Neville, is caught in the web of matrimonial circumstances quite as securely as any woman of thirty years ago. Before her marriage she had intended to be a doctor, and at the age of forty-three, her children being grown up, she tries to go back to the work, only to find that her brain after twenty years of married life has lost its power of close application to scientific matters. Her mother, Mrs. Hilary, who is sixty- four, is afflicted with the restless irritability of the vacant mind. She indeed was happy when fulfilling her duties as wife and mother, and now that her exceedingly large family has grown up and her husband is dead, the poor lady is too much tired out to be able to turn to a new way of life. It will occur to the old-fashioned reader that, according to modern ideas of the supreme importance of civic duty, this is no unhappy fate. Unless and until people are agreed that the upbringing of five or six children on fairly satisfactory lines is a disadvantage instead of an advantage, this old profession of wife and mother, even if it does not take the whole of a woman's life, will remain of such vital importance to the State that the small matter of its exponents being restlessly out of a job at the age of sixty-three is of no sort of importance. Poor Mrs. Hilary has, in the words of the French social expert, prepared for herself " une tristo vieillesse " through never having learnt to play cards, but, after all, she has only herself to blame for this, as well as for other more important omissions. Gra,ndmamma at eighty-four is a completely contented figure, and her ancient mind is far more fluid to modern ideas than that of her very tiresome daughter. She has been a widow since soon after sixty, and, having luckily been trained in the hard work of a vicaress, has been able to interest herself in parish work until the time comes when rest is really welcome. Being an exceedingly intelligent old woman, she realizes that a vacant life is most difficult for the middle- aged to bear, and says of her daughter :—
" She would have been quite happy like that forty years ago. The young have high spirits, and cen amuse themselves without work. She never wanted work when she was eighteen. It's the old who need work. They've lost their spring and their zest for life, and need something to hold on to. It's all wrong, the way we arrange it—making the young work and the old sit idle. It should be the other way about. Girls and boys don't get bored with perpetual holidays ; they live each moment of them hard ; they would welcome the eternal Sabbath ; and indeed I trust we shall all do that, as our youth is to be renewed like eagles. But old ago on this earth is far too sad to do nothing in. Remember that, child, when your times comes."
All this is completely true, but it must be pointed out that grandmamma herself did not make a very great success of her job when she was bringing up Mrs. Hilary, who is so narrow- minded, jealous, and futile a woman that the reader cannot but imagine that Mr. Hilary pere must have been a most remarkable
man for the family to have turned out so comparatively well. The principal quartette does not furnish, however, the only set of characters in the book. Neville Bendish has two unmarried sisters and two married brothers, one of whom has a wife who can only be described as an example of the type of " courtisane." We do not hear of her doing anything morally wrong, but her whole attitude and outlook on life are an offence to morality. Of the two unmarried sisters, Pamela, the elder, is devoted to good works, and Nan, the younger, is of the emanci- pated type of modern woman, bound by no conventions and earning her own living by her pen in a society which is decidedly emancipated. In the end, owing to a disappointment in love, Nan goes off with a married man, with whom it does not seem in the least likely that she will find happiness.
Practically the whole book may be taken as a demonstration of Walter Bagehot's saying : "It's a horrid scrape to be a woman," and this in spite of all the high hopes of the improve- ment of the position of women in the present day. Unfortu- nately, unless we take as gospel the author's motto from Trivia —" Human life on this minute and perishing planet is a mere episode, and as brief as a dream . . ."—and come to the inevitable conclusion that, this being the case, nothing matters, we are bound to acknowledge that, unless the State becomes the manag- ing guardian of children, the position of women is and will remain unequal from the point of view of public life to that of men. It may be that our ideals of family life are wrong, and that government control of infants is what is wanted for the happiness of the world. But when we see what happens under government control of railways and mines, it must be confessed that to hand over our tender babies to such guardians seems a most hazardous and terrifying experiment. Surely it is better that middle-aged women should be unhappy, used up, and out of a job, rather than that our children should be brought up without that individual care and love which we find is the lot of the happy majority in every section of society. Unless the world is to perish, women must sacrifice their lives to those of the children. And those who cry that they would not mind giving up their lives, but that they think it intolerably hard to sacrifice a small part, and be left objectless at the end, must be answered that unfortunately it cannot be helped, that civic virtue requires this from them, and that what they do with themselves after, when their most important function is finished, is a matter of small importance.
Vtre have left ourselves little room to speak of the many
exceedingly diverting episodes in the book. There is, for instance, a delightful account of a bicycling tour in Cornwall in which the reader will hear the very echo of the waves breaking over their black rocks. The art of this is subtle, for the descrip- tions given are entirely incidental to the action of the story.
During the tour Nan Hilary is making a silent but desperate struggle to retain the love of Barry Briscoe, who, convinced of her indifference, has transferred his affections to her niece Girder. There is also a delightful episode in which Mrs. Hilary takes to psycho-analysis and suffers extremely exhilarating shocks from the conversation of her doctor, who is of the school of Freud, and whose descriptions of her dreams and their meanings fill her with emotion :—
" Her dreams, which she had to recount to him at every sitting, bore such terrible significance—they grew worse and worse as Mrs. Hilary could stand more. 'An, well,' Mrs. Hilary sighed uneasily, after an interpretation into strange terms of a dream she had had about bathing. 'It's very odd, when I've never even thought about things like that.'
Your Unconscious,' said Mr. Cradock, firmly, has thought the more. The more your Unconscious is obsessed by a thing, the less your conscious self thinks of it. It is shy of the subject, for that very reason.'
Mrs. Hilary was certainly shy of the subject, for that reason or others. When she felt too shy of it, Mr. Cradock let her change it. It may be true, she would say, but it's very terrible, and I would rather not dwell on it.'"
Indeed, the whole book is full of penetrating sentences analysing the conscious as well as the unconscious selves of its women
readers. While most of these will not fail to find themselves in one or other of the characters depicted, they will be so amused and interested by the whole novel that they will almost forgive the author for having told them the truth. Men readers will, of course, find the story altogether delightful.
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