Mr. Warwick is plainly a great favorite with the author. She has for him that affection which writers entertain, not for those figures whom they have well known, but for such as they have much pondered. Miss Alcott has probably mused upon Warwick so long and so lovingly that she has lost all sense of his proportions. There is a most discouraging good-will in the manner in which lady novelists elaborate their impossible heroes. There are, thank Heaven, no such men at large in society. We speak thus devoutly, not because Warwick is a vicious person,--on the contrary, he exhibits the sternest integrity; but because, apparently as a natural result of being thoroughly conscientious, he is essentially disagreeable. Women appear to delight in the conception of men who shall be insupportable to men.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
A sense of proportion
At About Last Night, Carrie Frye quotes a hilarious and lengthy extract from Henry James's review of Louisa May Alcott's first novel. Here's the last bit:
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Last sentence seems to beg for:
ReplyDeletePot. Kettle. Black.