DOI article:
Le Gallienne, Richard: Four prose fancies
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27805#0320
Four Prose Fancies
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truth more imperative than that of lying stoutly on occasion—
for, indeed, there is often no other way of conveying the whole
truth than by telling the part-lie.
A watchful sincerity to our great conception of ourselves is the
first and last condition of our creating that finest work of art—a
personality ; for a personality, like a poet, is not only born, but
made.
III.—The Arbitrary Classification of Sex
In an essay on Vauvenargues Mr. John Morley speaks with
characteristic causticity of those epigrammatists “ who persist in
thinking of man and woman as two different species,” and who
make verbal capital out of the fancied distinction in the form of
smart epigrams beginning “ Les femmes.” It is one of Shake-
speare’s cardinal characteristics that he understood woman. Mr.
Meredith’s fame as a novelist is largely due to the fact that he too
understands women. The one spot on the sun of Robert Louis
Stevenson’s fame, so we are told, is that he could never draw a
woman. His capacity for drawing men counted for nothing,
apparently, beside this failure. Evidently the Sphinx has not the
face of a woman for nothing. That is why no one has yet read
her riddle, translated her mystic smile. Yet many people smile
mysteriously, without any profound meanings behind their smile,
with no other reason than a desire to mystify. Perhaps the
Sphinx smiles to herself just for the fun of seeing us take her
smile so seriously. And surely women must so smile as they hear
their psychology so gravely discussed. Of course, the superstition is
invaluable to them, and it is only natural that they should make
the most of it. Man is supposed to be a complete ignoramus in
regard
3l6
truth more imperative than that of lying stoutly on occasion—
for, indeed, there is often no other way of conveying the whole
truth than by telling the part-lie.
A watchful sincerity to our great conception of ourselves is the
first and last condition of our creating that finest work of art—a
personality ; for a personality, like a poet, is not only born, but
made.
III.—The Arbitrary Classification of Sex
In an essay on Vauvenargues Mr. John Morley speaks with
characteristic causticity of those epigrammatists “ who persist in
thinking of man and woman as two different species,” and who
make verbal capital out of the fancied distinction in the form of
smart epigrams beginning “ Les femmes.” It is one of Shake-
speare’s cardinal characteristics that he understood woman. Mr.
Meredith’s fame as a novelist is largely due to the fact that he too
understands women. The one spot on the sun of Robert Louis
Stevenson’s fame, so we are told, is that he could never draw a
woman. His capacity for drawing men counted for nothing,
apparently, beside this failure. Evidently the Sphinx has not the
face of a woman for nothing. That is why no one has yet read
her riddle, translated her mystic smile. Yet many people smile
mysteriously, without any profound meanings behind their smile,
with no other reason than a desire to mystify. Perhaps the
Sphinx smiles to herself just for the fun of seeing us take her
smile so seriously. And surely women must so smile as they hear
their psychology so gravely discussed. Of course, the superstition is
invaluable to them, and it is only natural that they should make
the most of it. Man is supposed to be a complete ignoramus in
regard