THE
SUBJECTION OF WOMEN
331
too
or might be "worked up"-legal practices and prison conditions in
Dickens, commerce in Balzac, etc.
But that special
vigor
of James, Balzac, Dickens or Racine, that
queer, remaining strength to produce masterpiece after masterpiece–
that is belittling! The careers of women of prodigious productivity, like
George Sand, are marked by a great amount of failure and waste, in–
dicating that though time was spent at the desk perhaps the supreme
effort was not regularly made. Who can help but feel that
some
of
James's vigor is sturdily rooted in his masculine flesh and this repeatedly
successful creativity is less likely with the "weaker sex" even in the
socialist millennium.
It
is not suggested that muscles write books, but
there is a certain sense in which, talent and experience being equal, they
may be considered a bit of an advantage. In the end, it is in the matter
of experience that women's disadvantage is catastrophic. It is very dif–
ficult to know how this may be extraordinarily altered.
Coquettes, mothers, prostitutes and "minor" writers--one sees these
faces, defiant or resigned, still standing at the Last Judgment. They are
all
a little sad, like the Chinese lyric:
Why do I heave deep sighs?
It is natural, a matter of course, all
creatures have their laws.
