DOI article:
Street, George Slythe: An appreciation of Ouida
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27805#0175
By G. S. Street 171
and far more plausibly can it be objected against a long tale of
novels : but I have a suspicion that some of the writers so in-
criminated have not attempted the large task attributed to
them. Granted, then, that Ouida has not put all the women in
the world into her novels: what of those she has ?
Certainly her best-drawn women are hateful : are they also
absurd ? I think they are not. They are over-emphasised
beyond doubt, so much so, sometimes, that they come near to
being merely an abstract quality—greed, belike, or animal
passion—clothed carelessly in flesh. To be that is to be of the
lowest class of characters in fiction, but they are never quite that.
A side of their nature may be presented alone, but its presentation
is not such as to exclude, as in the other case, what of that nature
may be left. And, after all, there have been women—or the
chroniclers lie sadly—in whom greed and passion seem to have
excluded most else. The critics may not have met them, but
Messalina and Barbara Villiers, and certain ladies of the Second
Empire, whose histories Ouida seems to have studied, have lived
all the same, and it is reasonable to suppose that a few such are
living now. One may be happy in not knowing them, in the
sphere of one’s life being too quiet and humdrum for their gorgeous
presence, but one hears of such women now and then.
They are not, I think, absurd in Ouida’s presentment, but I
confess they are not attractive. One’s general emotion with
regard to them is regret that nobody was able to score off or
discomfit them in some way. And that, it seems, was the
intention of their creator. She writes with a keenly pronounced
bias against them, she seeks to inform you how vile and baneful
they are. It is not a large-hearted attitude, and some would say
it is not artistic, but it is one iwe may easily understand and with
which in a measure we may sympathise. A novel is not a
sermon,
and far more plausibly can it be objected against a long tale of
novels : but I have a suspicion that some of the writers so in-
criminated have not attempted the large task attributed to
them. Granted, then, that Ouida has not put all the women in
the world into her novels: what of those she has ?
Certainly her best-drawn women are hateful : are they also
absurd ? I think they are not. They are over-emphasised
beyond doubt, so much so, sometimes, that they come near to
being merely an abstract quality—greed, belike, or animal
passion—clothed carelessly in flesh. To be that is to be of the
lowest class of characters in fiction, but they are never quite that.
A side of their nature may be presented alone, but its presentation
is not such as to exclude, as in the other case, what of that nature
may be left. And, after all, there have been women—or the
chroniclers lie sadly—in whom greed and passion seem to have
excluded most else. The critics may not have met them, but
Messalina and Barbara Villiers, and certain ladies of the Second
Empire, whose histories Ouida seems to have studied, have lived
all the same, and it is reasonable to suppose that a few such are
living now. One may be happy in not knowing them, in the
sphere of one’s life being too quiet and humdrum for their gorgeous
presence, but one hears of such women now and then.
They are not, I think, absurd in Ouida’s presentment, but I
confess they are not attractive. One’s general emotion with
regard to them is regret that nobody was able to score off or
discomfit them in some way. And that, it seems, was the
intention of their creator. She writes with a keenly pronounced
bias against them, she seeks to inform you how vile and baneful
they are. It is not a large-hearted attitude, and some would say
it is not artistic, but it is one iwe may easily understand and with
which in a measure we may sympathise. A novel is not a
sermon,