BOO KS
119
can take no credit for
The Subjection
>of
Women.
His convIctIon that
women are the equals of men Mill assigns to the period when, not having
yet met Mrs. Taylor, he was still under his father's overwhelming in–
fluence. But we know the unforgivably low esteem in which James
Mill held his wife and daughters. John's belief that women are the
equals of men would represent a sizable disagreement with James Mill.
Whether or not, then, Mill actually came to this view when he says
hf!
did, is not his insistence that he did tantamount to a profound
dissociation from, even a repudiation of, his father? Is he not saying,
though all unconsciously, that his mother's position in the family went
against his own feelings, and is he not trying to endow her with the
full human status denied her in the family hierarchy? The open step
he could not take, either then or ever-of acknowledging the flesh
and blood mother. But at least her place has been cleared, to be filled
by the second Harriet, also in legal thrall to a man whose death Mill
must await before she can come fully into her own.
Of course the flesh less, bloodless quality of Mrs. Taylor is one
of the things which most strikes us in her correspondence. This was
no woman, no real woman- the letters, full as they are of injured
vanity, petty egoism and ambition, show no touch of true femininity, no
announcmg a new book of poems by
DYLAN THOMAS
IN COUNTRY SLEEP
All of the new poems which Thomas has written smce the
publication of his
Selected Writings
in 1946
Trade Edition: $2.00
100 Copies signed
by
the poet: $7.50
P UBLISHED BY
NEW DIRECTIONS, 347
ADAMS
ST.,
BROOKLYN
1, N. Y.
