WHO IS THE "IDEAL" MISTRESS?

The most determined advocates of free-love have never upheld the old, lazy indulgence towards man and his "wild oats." The ideal mistress, whom they so confidently exalt over the wife, is not the "kept woman" behind Victorian respectability. Modern writers have, boldly and justly, attacked that discreet indiscretion with the unanswerable logic of facts. If we allow men licence, justice demands equal liberty for women. Sin is not less, but greater, for being in secret, however flimsy the veil.

It is difficult, nevertheless, to see how mutual infidelity can actually remove the admitted evils of a situation it makes more complex; or to believe that publicity can, of itself, turn black to white. By some curious twist of reasoning, it really would seem that they maintain: "By lifting the blinds, we have created a \'new\' woman, the ideal of all the ages."

For where, after all, have they turned to [65]find her, save to their knowledge and experience of the past? We cannot, positively, reconstruct human nature.

There is a clear and concise exposition of the whole theory in Miss Romer Wilson\'s last novel, The Death of Society. It is the story of Mr. Smith and his short visit to a distinguished Norwegian writer. He, quite openly, worships the old man\'s young wife—"his girl, his woman, his desire"—and though for them "time was so short they could not afford to sleep," it is expressly stated that "she, the perfect woman in whom all women live, raised him to perfect manhood." "Now," he said, "I have confidence to do what I think right. . . . I do not care for opinion any longer."

Together, "they fell into the deep pool of love," when she "was too far gone in bliss to reply."

"Many men," she said, "men who came to see my husband, thought that I was part of the visit, and that no man who thought well of himself should go away without seducing me." But "that is how you seduced me, because I saw love sprang straight from your heart and not from custom."

"There was an Italian man who loved me, but not more than the books with gold covers [66]on his shelves. . . . He said I was the Muse of Comedy. . . . There was a Frenchman who said I was the Muse of Poetry. . . . There was a Russian who said nothing. . . . He loved me because we were both animals; but only you love me because I am part of your life and so I love you equally."

Miss Wilson, indeed, attempts to impart a unique atmosphere into this commonplace intrigue by a remarkable device. Smith "cannot speak German, nor speak Norwegian." She knows only a few words of English. "I like to pretend you hear," said Rosa, "I have always pretended"; and he "could address her in whatever words he liked," since "lovers\' language is universal."

By this method they do, in fact, hold conversations by the hour, answering each other with quite miraculous preciseness; understanding, we are expected to believe, the intimacies of thought and feeling behind each phrase: "though he had no idea what she had said, word for word." The intention, obviously, is to suggest some special mysterious, if not miraculous, bond of the spirit knitting two souls in one. The comment of a plain man, who deals with facts, must be that inarticulate love can be only physical. It does [67]not elevate, but further degrades, their intimacy. He "had gone back to the dust to learn about God."

They parted, however, because "they loved each other too much to ask for each other\'s lives." Meanwhile, "in patience and humility" they must wait "until after the Death of Society"—when they can be together.

"How should I act," said Rosa, "if there were no such a thing as Society? I know how I should act. . . . I owe nothing to either man or woman. My name? My husband\'s name?—these belong to Society. . . . I will not leave my husband, because he is an old man, nor my daughters, because they are young; but if I give you a day of love, and again a day perhaps, whom shall I hurt? . . . My soul belongs to nobody: I—Rosa Christiansen—am my own. My body is my soul\'s servant and friend, and by it I can know other souls as I know my own. . . . Oh! oh! My soul is mine, and loves your soul!"

We see that the "perfect woman" still kept on husband and home.

And Smith, thus "proudly numbering himself among the angels," al............