ABSTRACT
After the Virgin, what do we know of a mother's (introspective) speech? In this domain, desire (of the child) lays down the law. (Kristeva, " A New Type of Intellectual" 299)
A peculiarity which has lately been much remarked as characteristic of those records of human history contemptuously called fiction [is] the unimportance, or ill-report, or unjust disapproval of the mother in records of this description-that it is almost impossible to maintain her due rank and character in a piece of history, which has to be kept within certain limitsand where her daughter the heroine must have the first place. To lessen her pre-eminence by dwelling at length upon the mother-unless that mother is a fool, or a termagant, or something thoroughly contrasting with the beauty and virtues of the daughter-would in most cases be a mistake in art. For one thing the necessary incidents are wanting, for I strongly object, and so I think do most people, to mothers who fall in love, or think of marriage, or any such vanity in their own person, and unless she is to interfere mischievously with the young lady's prospects, or take more or less the part of the villain, how is she to be permitted any importance at all? For there cannot be two suns in
t
. t a,
i t -century
l
' ' resented .
