ABSTRACT
The Emancipated is a remarkable novel, but, like too much of the best contemporary fiction, its perusal is more calculated to give pain than pleasure. Many evidences of close observation lie scattered over the three volumes; but it is the observation of morbid symptoms rather than of healthy life. Mr Gissing's men and women are not simple enough to be satisfied with merely living, they must perpetually watch themselves live; they are as it were for ever feeling their own pulse. The author, too, is never tired of examining their symptoms mental and moral, and he lays his diagnosis before his readers at wearisome length. But his fundamental error, which in a degree vitiates the accuracy ofhis view oflife, is that he mistakes mere evanescent surface currents of thought and feeling for real and profound modifications in human nature. He takes too seriously such phrases as 'the modem ideal oflife', 'the altered relation ofthe sexes', 'the complex modem woman', etc. It is, perhaps, the inevitable fate of lesser men to be taken by these passing shows of things, while none but the very greatest pierce to the permanent underlying realities-the central core of humanity, which remains for ever the same, or alters so slowly that, as with the hourhand of a watch, we cannot discern its onward movement. Therefore it is that while writers of yesterday are already out of date, Shakespeare's heroes and heroines are as true to life now as they were when he created them-in all essentials as much of our day as of his. Indeed the brightest and prettiest thread that runs through Mr Gissing's rather sombre web is but a nineteenth century version of 'the taming of the shrew'. Miriam Baske, the heroine of the episode in question, is, no doubt, intended to be regarded as one of 'the emancipated', because, having been reared in 'the strictest sect of the Pharisees', she gradually, amid fresh scenes and new influences, shakes offthe sectarian yoke. But, in truth, she does but exchange one yoke for another. It is love-not reason-that conquers her fierce spiritual pride; and finally, she blissfully yields to the somewhat Petruchio-like wooing of a rugged, masterful, but sterling man, and becomes a happy wife. The really 'emancipated' women in the story, one and all, make shipwreck
