INTRODUCTION
Thesubjects of these six psychological sketches are well known to English readers, with the exception of Amalie Skram, the Norwegian novelist, and Fru Leffler, who is known only as the biographer of Sonia Kovalevsky.
Laura Marholm, the writer of this book, is a German authoress of Norwegian extraction, who is celebrated for her literary criticisms and the beauty of her style. In September, 1889, she married Ola Hansson, the Swedish author of “Sensitiva Amorosa,” “Young Scandinavia,” and a novel called “Fru Esther Bruce,” in which the heroine is said to bear a strong resemblance to Eleonora Duse. He has also published a volume of prose poems, called “Ofeg’s Ditties,” which has been translated by George Egerton, whose vivid style and powerful descriptions have gained a place for her among the foremost women writers of the day.
Laura Marholm was the first to introduce her husband to the German public by means of two articles in theNeue Freie Presse. The first, called “A Swedish Love Poet,” appeared May24th, 1888, before they had met, and was written in praise of his early work, “Sensitiva Amorosa.” The second article was a criticism on “Pariahs,” and it is an interesting fact that in it she compares him to Gottfried Keller.
In all her writings, Laura Marholm looks at life through the spectacles of a happy marriage; she believes that matured thought and widened views can—in a woman’s case—be only the direct result of marriage; and consequently she considers marriage to be absolutely indispensable to every woman, and that without it she is both mentally and morally undeveloped. She has little sympathy with the Woman’s Rights movement, judged either from the social, political, or educational point of view; with regard to the latter, she has not had a university education herself, and she is not at all impressed by those who have. She considers that a woman’s individuality is of greater importance than her actions; she upholds woman’s influenceas woman, and has no sympathy with the advanced thinkers, who, with Stuart Mill at their head, would fain have women exert their influence as thinking, reasoning human beings, believing all other influence to be unworthy the dignity of the modern woman. Laura Marholm has the intuitive faculty, and this enables her to gauge the feelings of those women who spend a long youth in waiting—who are taught to believe, and who do believe, that their youth is nothingmore than a transition period between childhood and marriage,—women who grow old in waiting, and awake to reality to find behind them nothing but a wasted youth, and in the future—an empty old age. But these are not modern women, they are the women of theancien régime, who have missed their vocation, and failed to attain their sole object in life,—viz., marriage. On the one hand we are confronted with the old-fashioned girl, on the other by the new woman. Of the two, we prefer the new woman; and while recognizing her mistakes, and lamenting her exaggerated views, Laura Marholm acknowledges that she is formed of the best material of the age, and prophesies for her a brighter future. But her views differ greatly from those of Ibsen and Björnson. According to Ibsen, a woman is first of all a human being, and then a woman; she places the woman first, the human being last. Björnson believes that an intellectually developed woman with a life-work can get on very well by herself; Laura Marholm maintains that, apart from man, a woman is nothing. According to her, woman is a creature of instinct, and this instinct is her most precious possession, and of far greater value than the intellect. Of all the studies in this book, Fru Leffler is probably the one with whom she is least in sympathy. Fru Leffler was essentially intellectual, possessed of a somewhat cold and critical temperament, and inwriting the biography of Sonia Kovalevsky she was often unable to appreciate the latter’s very complicated character. Sonia was a rare combination of the mystic and the scientist; she was not only a mathematician, but also, in every important crisis of her life, a dreamer of prophetic dreams. The biography was intended to be the continuation of Sonia’s own story of her childhood, and the two should be read together. As a child, Sonia suffered from a painful conviction that in her family she was not the favorite, and it is probable that her unaccountable shyness, her want of self-confidence, and her inability to attract love in after life, were due to the fact of her having passed an unhappy and unloved childhood.
Fru Leffler’s writings are remarkable for the simplicity and directness of her style, her keen observation, and love of truth. Her talents were by no means confined to her pen; she held a salon,—the resort of the intellectual world of Stockholm,—and attained great popularity by her tactfulness and social gifts. She did not, however, shine in society to the same extent as Sonia Kovalevsky. Her conversation was not as brilliant and witty as the latter’s, but it was always interesting, and it was of the kind that is remembered long afterwards. “When she told a story, analyzed a psychological problem, or recounted the contents of a book, she always succeeded insetting forth its real character in a clear and decided manner.” Sonia, on the other hand, was ever ready with an original remark. Ellen Key tells how one day, when the conversation turned upon love, Sonia exclaimed: “These amiable young men are always writing books about love, and they do not even know that some people have a genius for loving, just as others have a genius for music and mechanics, and that for these erotic geniuses love is a matter of life and death, whereas for others it is only an episode.”
Fru Leffler travelled a great deal, and made many friends in the countries that she visited. She took great interest in socialism, anarchism, and all religious and educational movements. In London she attended lectures given by Mrs. Marx-Aveling, Bradlaugh, and Mrs. Besant. Theosophy, positivism, spiritualism, and atheism,—there was nothing which did not interest her. The more she saw the more she doubted the possibility of attaining to absolute truth in matters either social or religious, and the more attracted she became by the doctrine of evolution.
From this authoress, who was the chief exponent of woman’s rights in Sweden, we turn to a very different but no less interesting type. Eleonora Duse, the great Italian actress, has visited London during the past few years, acting in such a natural, and at the same time in such a simple and life-like manner, that a knowledge of thelanguage was not absolutely indispensable to the enjoyment of the piece. Besides most of the pieces mentioned here, she acted inLa Femme de Claude,Cleopatra, andMartha; but she attained her greatest triumph in Goldoni’s comedy,La Locandiera.
In all these typical women, Fru L. Marholm Hansson traces a likeness which proves that they have something in common. Numerous and conflicting as are the various opinions on the so-called “woman question,” the best, and perhaps the only, way of elucidating it is by doing as she has done in giving us these sketches. We have here six modern women belonging to five nationalities, three of whom are authoresses, and the other three—mathematician, actress, and artist, portrayed and criticised by one who is herself a modern woman and an authoress.
H. R.