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1930

Ellen Glasgow and the Victorian Morality in the South

Margie Pitman Clements College of William & Mary - Arts & Sciences

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Recommended Citation Clements, Margie Pitman, "Ellen Glasgow and the Victorian Morality in the South" (1930). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539624422. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-3660-1527

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Margie Pitman Clements m m m m tm m p ab tiae m m t m m m OF THE BSOTIEEMiHTS OF the mimm m Am mm for. ttedegree of U&&TBB. OFAHTS THE PURPOSE OP THIS THESIS IS

TO SHOW THAT ELLEH GLASGOW IS

NOT IN SYMPATHY WITH THE VIC­

TORIAN MORALITY AS IT EXISTED

IN THE SOUTH. SUMMARY

Yhis thesis contains concretemodern definitions of morality by Friedrick Paulsen* Wickham Steed* Walter lipp- man* and James fruslow Adams; it contains a list of Vir­ ginia conventions which were affected by Victorian Morality — conventions concerning democracy* family tradition* the church* woman *s work* divorce* the double standard of morals* and keeping up appearances. Following this is a discussion of the rise of the middle class in the South* through popular education and the gaining of wealth after the War between the States; and the effects on morals of the World War. fo show that Bllen Glasgow is interested in morality, there is next a list of the phases of morality treated in her novels* followed by a connotation of the usage of "mor­ ality w and kindred words in all her books* with exact use and page reference. Since Miss Glasgow is a Virginia by birth and tradi­ tion* there follows a list of reasons that show she is un­ usual in the attitude she takes in her novels—an attitude opposed to sentimentality and the following of the Victorian tradition in the South. Yhere follows a discussion of the general ideas of morality stressed in each novel, fhis is done in chronological order so that the development of Miss Glasgow's theories may be noted. At the end is a short con­ clusion, summarizing Miss Glasgow* s belief in truth and hon­ esty as opposed to hypocricy and sham.

X COKSHWS

A* Some modern definitions of morality !• Definitions by Friedrick Paulsen 2# Definitions by Wickham Steed 3ft' D e fin itio n s by W alter Xippman 4# Def inttions by James Iruslow Adams B. the effect of Victorian morality upon Virginia conventions 1# limits of the period treated 2« list of Virginia conventions a* Conventions concerning democracy b* Conventions concerning family tradition Oft Conventions concerning religion A* Conventions concerning business for women A. Work for married women: housekeeping S. Work fo r unmarried women 1* Housekeeping 2« School teaching 3* Marriage a# Conventions concerning the marriage bond A* Divorce Bi Continence Conventions concerning keeping up appearances Oft Steps * in the change of conventions in the South 1« Effect on convention of the War between the States a. Bise of the middle class b* Popular education o.« Materialism 2ft Effect on convention of the World War B. Statement of the thesis I, Phases of morality treated in her books 1# Democracy 2ft Family tradition 3* Heligion 4« Emancipation of women Si. Marriage 6ft Divorce 7* f r u th as opposed to sham Ft Usage of morality and kindred words in all books 9ft Connotations of "morality" and kindred words P a rt I I A. Ellen Glasgow's background,; unusual for her attitude S. General idea of morality stressed in each book I* (the Descendant 2# Phases of an Inferior Planet 3* fhe Voice of the People 4# ihe Battle-Ground 5ft The Deliverance 6« fhe Wheel o f l i f e 7* The Ancient law 8. fhe Romano© of a P lain Han 8# The Miller of Old Church 10ft V irg in ia lift life and Gabrielis 12. The Builder© 13. On© Ban in His Time 14. Yke Shadowy fh ird 15. Barren Ground 16. fhe Romantic Comedians 17. they Stooped to Folly 18. fhe Freeman and Other Poems

P art I I I Conclusion 1

In the early nineties, Friedrich Paulsen, at Berlin University taught "that the moral I m is the social law »• a law contingent, changing ant changeable, as circum­ stances might ordain—Commmities set up standards of mor­ ality, some hearing upon the preservation of the community Itself* Custom enjoins upon individuals the observation of these standards* the standards themselves may vary from time to time, from class to class, and from community 1 to community." Mm no longer considers the soul as the ruler of the passions* Saeh impulse may conquer all other impulses if they will let it. Bertrand Bussell says: *A sin g le desire is no better and no worse, considered in isolation, than any other; but a group of desires is better than another group if all of the first group can be satisfied, while in the second group some are inconsistent with o th e r!* n M orality i s th en © t r a f f i c cop to he op many desires going at the same time without collisions* through human experiences "men acquired their knowledge of the value of courage, honor, temperance, veracity, faithful­ ness, and love, because these qualities were necessary to

1* Steed, Wickham, "Watchdogs and Morals,n Outlook* May 7, 1S30. 2, lippman, falter, A Preface to Morals. p* lid* 0 survival and to the attainment of happiness,” It can easily be soon that "In a world whereno man desired what ho could not have* there wo aid he no need to regu- 4 late human conduct and therefore no mod for morality.”

fames TtubI ow Mams defines morality as "that por- tion of human thought that stew from and Is controlled by *1 ought" as opposed to either *1 want" or "I must*" He says man is not a creature of reason, but one of "im­ pulse, emotion, action*” therefore there are two codes of laws for morality* one—the oivii,—telling "you must;” 6 the other—the moral—telling "you ought*" the hipest aim of the moralist has always been "to procure the great* 6 eat happiness for the greatest number*” fhe church, in teaching morals from dogmatism that does not rest on ra­ tional grounds, causes its members either to stifle the conscience or to disregard it utterly* A stifled con­ science causes certain inhibitions which react unfavor­ ably upon the mental and physical man. fhe sexual appe- tits—even when it is lawfully gratified—has always been looted upon as a thing to be hidden from sight; "411 that is known under the names of decency and indecency, concur

0. Ibid* p* 227. 4 , fM S* p# 14b. § . I3S 5s, James fruslow , "Why Be Good?” Forum* Hay, 1920, p* 294. 6* lecky* William, History of Euroipean Morals* ¥ol*I, p* 0

to proving that we tow an innate* tofcuitiwe perception

that there is something iagtodtog. t o the sensual part of f ...... m r mtuxQ*1* something o t which one it* ashamed* mm&thing which one doesm t attribute to a perfectly holy totog* PessibXy toeamw of Ibis feeling* six great leaders of morel teaching—Xiice Socrates* ^ m -9 eat St# ?auX~~taught the raXao of asceticism to a good Xif#—and possibly the pr&ct ice of asceticism let to a prejudice ag&inet the habits of the heap* & content for its natural sad neces­ sary function, which in turn loft toa shame for bodily passions* In m age of moral confusion*-an age in which ■ a sort of indirectness end hfpooriof mao pmotieed—each a# the reigh of Queen fietorlo^iimm thought that they «•«** ooa

¥* Ibid* p* 5, S« ISf^ws*, Walter, on.cit* p* 165; the Deliverance* p* 381. 4

living today; its Influences w ill die only with tbs passing of ths present oldest living generatlon-relloe of tbe regime of tbe old aentiiBent&l South. the ehar- acterlsttos of morality in tbe Victorian period is tbe South were sot always tboee of direct affeotios and de­ ception; bat a ten&enoy to put tbe best foot foremost, to make tbe best of things—sometimes wben there was no best—to make tbe desired and expected Impression of g e n t ilit y . Victorian morality—tbe gentle art of hypocrisy practiced in tbe South daring the latter part of Queen Victoria's reign—affected every phase of tbe Souther­ ner’s life. Only a man of "blue blood" could aspire to high office in tbe state—no matter what his ability-, and on rare occasions, when a man of tbe lower classes did rise politically, be was put la by a ring who wished him 9 as a tool to further their own ends. Mo man whose family could not be traoed to an almost royal ancestry was held in esteem in the South. Be had no obanoe to show bis real worth, there was no Intercourse between tbe "good people" and tbe "best people", except in business affairs. There

9. fbe Volos of the People, p. 389; fbe Romance of a teialn Man. p. 190; One Man in Bis Time, -p .£82. 5

was no marrying between tbs two classes except on rare ant for bittern occasions; ant then the on# from the upper class became mi outcast from bis family. fbe Southerner was an idealistic ancestor worshipper*.' no matter what hind of morality the ancestor bat practiced. life ant XI loir# were sacrificed on the altar of tradition* It u s the traditional habit of the Southerners to attend church regularly* and to belter# the doctrines preached from its pulpits, fhetr system of society was patriarchal* and they were accustomed to obeying laws given by a recognised leader* tradition caused the family to conform to the religious beliefs of its ancestors* 12 the "best people* belonged to the Episcopal Church* and these reserved pews for themselves* excluding with tradi­ tional pride* their occupancy from the "encroachment of 10 _ aliens.w Hell-fire and damnation—to be meted out by the hand of inexorable justice—was the intolerant doctrine preached. In Virginia the church was a social order, there

Wm the Vo ice of the g#oole> p* H£i the Deliverance. ir xr.:^' - f one &an In gis f Sael n* M * XI. Virginia. pp. 3001 4BB. WM Mi& s^- febrlella, ' p i m 12. Phases of an Inferior Placets p. 20. Id* tiieM ilior of Old Chur oh. pp* lid* lid* 6

the gpiscopaiiaas "mad© meet ©f the bistory and all the mint jallp s—ple asare - bat lag has always been the favorite sport of those earnest Christiani.” Whatever a man's private sins* he conformed outwardly to the teachings of the established church* feasibly th ro at this influence there lingered the Idea of the submission of a woman to her husband and of her appointed place in the home* A woman was allowed to do any hind of tarorh atm m except fanning; ho oceupa- tlon was open to a wife except that of hooping her fcoulf, fho same was virtually true of the unmarried daughter; yet* if necessity arose* she lost no oast© by doing a stilted sentimental writing for money* or by teaching school, the chief business of the young girl was mar­ riage; It was her "open aesame^—and also her "shut sesame* —to life* Unless a girl had courage enough to brave tradi­ tion and the scorn of her living relations she stayed meeHy at home* sewing for her family* doing houseworfc, and grad* ually withering and drying up in the meantime*

15* fh© Eomantic Comedians, p* 22?. ISV ‘ 19* g u ild e rs * pp* 10* ?2» ftrg ia la * pp* 104* 110; th e Bomahoe' o f a P lain te n , pp* ITO* .' Bd.5* • 10* f be Peliveranee* g» 150; the Bomaaoe of a Plain life : : g*u,W sr~l^S«idla* »* 138*' 159, 150; life and G ab riella , pp. 25*. 27* 58* Once m rrlea—In the South of Victorian morality— meant always married, fbe idea of coveringup hard places and morning a brave face to the world made it impossible for a married woman to expose to her friends * and acquaintances that she was unhappily married—no If matter what the cause* divorce was not to he thought of* never to he whispered* While the women led beautiful and pure lives, there existed a double standard* It was considered very Indelicate for women to have a icnowl* m edge of men’s standards of morality; if they suspected a double standard* they would never have admitted it to themselves or breathed their suspicions to a souls If the Southern gentlemen had their fling and covered it up* all well and good; if their flings became known* society condoned their fall by realizing that every man is a son of Mam* the Southern gentlemen made the laws for their women*, but they did not necessarily abide by them themselves* as for the ruined woman, there was no redemption* She retired from the world as into a nunnery, to pray and repent the rest of her life in a third-story

19* fhe Ancient law* on* 190* 197. 419; life and dabrl- alia. tha Builders. p. £0. ftS "aoaapaa of a Plain ten, p. 131; They Stooped yoToiiy^pp. jpa. xggrr&.6 o, i 205. so&. Its, 2s». £1. TheWheel of life. pp. £2, £4; They Stooped to golly. p . "4 * a back roam, txom which she m s released only by death. Above a ll other conventions, the Southern men and woman practiced the tin* met of hiding unpleasant reality hy ignoring the truth and veiling unpleasant- neae »tth the illusion of reality, They lived a life of sham, as if they were puppets in a great show, dis­ covering to no one their real feelings* % so means would they intentionally break an established conven­ tion, even if it meant giving up the best and finest things life oould offer* women became so used to sham that they did not recognize a man’s love when they saw it* The writing of this period was insincere and in­ tensely romantic. "To take a true view was to believe what was pleasant against what was painful in spite of EE *# evidence." So they believed that a pretty sham has a more intimate relation to morality than has an ugly 26 truth,** and so lived a life of petty shams—of sham love, of sham hate, of sham religion, "nothing was

SB. Phases of an Inferior Planet, no* 12. 129. 147. are asTa»a ofYHeTwsrs?o. u k m o a iiie i of Oia'ifharch. to* led! 231; The Belivaranca. pp. 546, 23d; Virginia, p. 35; One Kan in Bis Time, pp, 116,157,162, 876, 316. 326; iarran (bound, pp* £7, 109, 162, 252; The Poni3atSo Com­ edian. pp. 13, 88, 63; they Stooged to " ^ p r s s s . 9

without all tha deceit, oil the anguish, all the futile hope end ineffectual endeavor, a ll tfc® pretense and par­ ade, a ll the artificial glamour and empty posturing of gg| the great Victorian tradition."

In the \fer between the States, a ll classes fought side by side; ana »hen the war was over, the old aris­ tocrat being as poor as the overseer, the fittest rose to the top first* Starting over in the old South was ll&s starting over in a new America* The aristocrats— unaccustomed to labor—in most instances, gave op and Med poor; the lower class—used to hardships—aconmu- lated land and goods and took a leading port is building a new South, 8y reason of their wealth, they obtained p olitical power, and began to intermarry with tbe poor bat highly desirable aristocrats. These founders of a new society had no culture, but they and their children prospered and made the first steps toward culture by ossns of their newly acquired wealth and the improved system of public education in the south. She Southern gentlemen before 1866 had been sent to &tglan& to finish their education; the Southern women were educated at home by tu to r s; meet o f th e members o f th e lower c la s s e s of the old South oauld neither read nor write. After the Southern arieteoraoy had been overthrown by the soolal revolution ending with the War between the States, through

S3* They Stooped to Folly, p. 331, the-' poverty o f th e aristocrats and the acquisitiono f education and wealth by the lower class* democracy had began to arrive, Then came the World War causing an upheaval in convention and creating moral chaos, There followed cynicism* smashing of idols* a questioning of a ll ex­ alted motives, the bobbing of hair, the shortening of skirts, the proved business ability of women, the sub­ stituting of sex for love, the loosening of the marriage bond through tria l marriages and birth control, the ac­ cepting of science for religion* It was an age of prag­ matism and materialism. With these changes came a serious but natural change in morality, for the new conditions affected every phase of life. The South of 1930 compared with the South of 1918 is very different! but it is totally different from the South of i860. Miss Bllen Glasgow, a Virginian by birth and tradition, in her sixteen novels, has given an epic of the change in manners and morals from the per­ iod Just before the War between the States up to 1929; and It is the purpose of this thesis to show that she is opposed to Victorian morality as it existed in the South, i&ea Glasgow writes of every form of convention related to the Southern people: those concerning the rise of COLLEGE O' mtUAM & MAffY , 8 , 4 . 7 he Milr Od hrh 8 i s n Vigi a: tmes tim 4 : ia in irg V in es tim 8 Church: Old f o iller in M 0 e th Ground: ttle a B e fh in 0 Peonies the f c Voice 6, o, 3* er h in words kindled s t i and rality o m uses Glasgow Miss l. n he eghen ok se ss aiy or s t i r o rality o m uses she books hteen eig er h In els. v o n 5. . 1 eliverance; D fhe in es tim 6 Poems: Other and an freem e th a: tme i h Rmne a Pl n Mn 3 tme In es tim 33 Man: in la P a f o Romance fhe in es tim 0 law: 5 i s n f he of tme i he Ancient e th in es tim 9 : e f i l f o Wheel e fh in es tim 35 ide wrs 1 tme; 1 i s n fe ecnal 0 Bescendanl; fhe in es tim 11 es; tim 317 words kindred i s i Pae of n nf i Plnt 4 i s i fhe in es' tim 4 lanets P r rio fe In an f o Phases .in es tim ii ad uies ol* he mkn o pr i e le b a tic c ra p of making e th world* business and l a litic o p d ito rc e laws* the gradual overthrow ing o f the doable doable the f o ing overthrow gradual the laws* e rc ito d e tb * cracy aristo e tb of l l a f tbe and people" "goo a tli© standard o f m orals, and th e gradual breaking down o f sham sham f o down breaking gradual e th and orals, m f o standard d is tr u s t o f th e church, the entrance of women in to the the to in women of widespread entrance the the , n itio d church, a tr e th f o f o t worship s u e tr tb is f d o g in ard isreg d n life, e f i l in 6 The M iller o f 014 Charoh. pp. 2 tim es 7, 41, 55, 110, 110, 55, 41, 7, es tim 2 pp. Charoh. 014 f o iller M The fh e anoient tew , pp. 95, 105, 117, 155, 211, 235, 298, 298, ,295. 235, 134; 211, 78. 61.* 155, on. 117, Han. in 105, la P 95, a f o pp. Romance , The tew anoient e fh 8, 402. 381, hss n nf i Pl , p 1, 8, 834. 388, 13, pp. t, e n la P r rio fe In an f o Phases ? e oc of h Peopl "n 30 84, 9, 399, 398, 894., 390, '.'' e ."on. io le p ra o e P liw lie the e fb f o 3?be Voice 9, tme o 28 29 33 35 30 350. 300, 345, 323, 299, 298, on es tim 2 297, The Wheel of lix e . . e lix of Wheel The fhe Descendants pp* 44, 64, 95, 137, 137, 95, 64, 44, pp* Descendants fhe 2, 5, 6, 8, 2, tme o 22 26 278, 256, 232, on es tim 2 220, 185, 167, 150, 125, ’4'2U, e f i f cbo. on es tim 266, 286, 286, 266, nt estng t i he feuny t which ith w frequency e th e tic o n to g tin s re te in s i t I ,1 ’, , , X, 2, 4, 4, 6, 6, 264, 260, 266, 249, 246, 226, 2X0, /, 6 1 i, 4 1 ----- 19$',and 19$',and SIX, " 0

...... 846 8 , , i s n 84. on es tim p XX, pp. 666 trg i g 5 , 396, 2 tim es on 394, 394, on es tim 2 396, , . . a 2, , 2a, 2a, 333 46 49 ad E and 479, 486, ^ 3 6 m , , 8 8 8 i s on es tim 9 , 112, 124, 124, 112, , 686 , , 4 68 V. 11 12

to Life sal Gabrlella: 10 times in The Builders; 6 times in One Han in Hia Tilnl; 10 times inThe Shadowy T hird; 10 14 10 times in Barren Ground; SI times inThe Semantic Comedians: IS and SB times in They Sttoneft to Folly* In all of her writ-* ings she uses the word moral 10? times, morals 23 times, Immorality B times, morality 4B times, immoral 16 times, m o ralist 8 times, moralize 2 tim es, m orale! 3 tim es, mor­ ally 7 times, moralities 1 time. Immoralities 3 times, moral­ ists 1 time, immorality 4 times, and moral!zed 1 tlme« It is natural that there should be a more frequent use of these words in The Bomantio Comedians and They Stooped to for these novels were written at the end of an era when Miss Glasgow was intensely interested In the radical change in morals that were being made to fit entirely new living conditions caused by good roads, automobiles, the

9. Virginia. pp. 35. 53, 54. 95. 139. 267, 273, 493. 10# Life and Gabriella. pp. 267, 360, 402, 414* 11. i&® Builders, pp. 81. 220. 2 times on 228. 272. 341. 12. 6na Man"in*1 j3 T im e.■on. 87, 130, 149, 216, 247, 341, 13. The Shadow Third, pp. 201, 2 time® on 202, 205, 201, 2 times on 212, 2 times on 216, 262. 14. Barren Ground, pp. 53. 80. 84, 93, 96, 315, 378. 410, m ; m , — 15. fhe Romantic Comedians, pp. 7, 2 times on 18, 2 times on 19, 48, 2 times on 83, 92, 93, 120, 130, 138, 140, 175, 193, 2 times on 218, 219, 2 times on 257, 2 times on 286, 4 times on 291, 300, 301, 311, 338. widespread use of electricity, the use of labour saving devices, the popularity of higher education, the short­ ened working day, higher, wages, and the extended time for leisure.

16. they Stoosed to Folly, pp. 8, IE, 19, 39, E times on 30, 31. 37, 29, H , 2 times on 49, 60, 64, S times on 69, 84. 85, 96, 98, 100, 101, 109, 120, 122, 123, 1E4, 127, 2 times on 131, 132, 146, 150, 2 times on 154, 160, 173, 181, 188, 190, 202, S12. 218, E times on 257, 2 times on £58, S73, E times on 282, 287, 293. It fa Interesting and unusual that Mss Glasgow —a Southerner and a Virginian of cult are, tenderly reared and nurturea— should he the first Southern nov­ elist to break from the traditional manner of sentimen­ tal isifig the Virginia of Victorian days* tut—strange though it may he—she is not bound by sex or by tradi­ tion or by environment * although she was born in Rich­ mond* Virginia, in the middle seventies and is. a product 1 of the very tradition and environment of which she writes. Her home at elc Vest Hlain Street in liohmond has always been strictly Southern; she never went to school* but learned to read by picking out letters from Scott’s nov­ els. Around her were negro cabins from which she got her realistic pictures of the negroes for her novels. Her home—a greystone Georgian mansion—is covered with ivy and wisteria, and is nearly hidden behind box and magnolia trees. Inside* Ellen Glasgow has lived in an old-world atmosphere* distinctly feminine* embodying* not only the characteristics of the gentle grace and dignity of Victorian women* but also in reality the pro­ gressive Ideals of America which are far removed from fhe sentimental shackles of the Victorian convention.

1 . Itarn* Dorothea laurence* r,E llen Glasgow-; - C itiz e n o f the W orld,n fh e Bookman, November 1926* p. 265. Although her writings are realistic and unorthodox. Miss Glasgow is perfectly conventional and charming. She has never been bold of speech; it is said that ahe has never raised her voice. She has always been feminine; her handwriting and her direct maimer of writing are her only masculine characteristics. Yet Miss Glasgow*$ tradition and environment have caused her to win her place among world novel­ ists.. She knows the Virginia and the Virginian of whom she w rites—not from the outside* but from the inside—for she is of the very aristocratic tradi­ tion that she chooses to treat with irony. It tn k m courage to smash one’s own Idols* but courage is a characteristic liiss Glasgow has never lacked. Uhen* too* born in a period just after the War between the States* she was able to get first hand information concerning the attitude of Virginians during the years from 1866 to 1900. She Is particularly fortunate to have lived* not only in this period and in the gay 90 fs"* but into and through the period of the World War. Vet changes caused by great events have not noticeably influenced her manner of thinking* for

2* Haardt* Sara* "Ellen Glasgow and the South", fhe Bookman. April* 1929* p* 133* n

Miss Glasgow had formed her opinions and worked out her philosophies as early as 1897, when her. first novel ms published. She h&f seen the rebuilding of the Old South; she has watohed the reaotion of women to the opening of thousands of doors, closed to them before; she has seen the suffragist movement from its beginning; she has seen the gradual break* ing of morality from the restraint of Victorian influ­ ence, and its chaotic upheaval through and after the World War* Although, by every reason. Miss Glasgow might be a s t r i c t s e n tim e n ta list, she was born a t a time when she could observe great happenings; and the meaning of these she proceeds to translate into actual £ expressions of life as it really is* fhis she faith­ fully does in her seven short stories, her slender brown volume of poems, and her sixteen novels.

Bm Mann, Dorothea Daurence, "E llen Glasgow1/ Doubleday, Doran & Co., 19S8, p* 1* fh e Pesceaffiapt . Ellen Glasgow’s first novel, printed anonymously when she was twenty-two, was „»»» .!«, I! « ! « »£ ,»*. »* «». tains a ’’fresh and disquieting note.” Grant Overton gives someone’s characterization of the novel as ”a rather ©orhid exposition of the development and life of an intellectual hybrid, the offspring of a 3 low woman and a highly intellectual man.” Michael Akershem, the descendant, an illeg iti­ mate child adopted by a poor family, is of a singular intelligence. He helling against life in the country, he goes to lew York, and finds work with a newspaper, 4 fhe Iconoclast. that had capital, hut wanted brains*

He is told that the purpose of the paper is Mto cor- § root abuses*****.and to throttle injustice?*»***«*«• to he independent and original. Michael becomes suc­ cessful § He influences not only through his editor­ ials, but through his lectures on socialistic themes, 6 such as reform of society, religion, and marriage# He

!• fhe descendant. Harper and Brothers, 1897. 2m caSrkT^^lyT” Bllem Glasgow, phamplet by Double- day, Horan and Co., 1929, p. 34* First appeared in fhe Virginia Quarterly Be view. University' of Virginia*"’ 3. Overton, Grant, fhe Women Who Make Our Hovela* Dodd, 4* fhe Descendants p. 34. Meade & Go., 1928, p. 3* I b i d , p * 33 • 6. p* 41* 7. p. 43* hstss urietocr&cy* H# M lisres that*m srietoorst I# a man who sits ism to thtme what Ms gran&fatMr Ms ' f dous *MX« ofc&or w s sim doing something tMsssl^ss*** Is agrsss slth tte m m «®*o tfctafcs "Sooistp stall sMtsr * Sta&l tottsr* stall sots# & M & sitt s ormolu ts sill srset s ass mis upon Its m f h M of M s old* fs M i l

ssls frssdoa tSs watchword sad equality t M M s * *s» as aors toms s& lty sat lajms&lo#*11 liotasl tsoomss entirely dlslllu- slotted* Is Ms triad Mrs# stag es o f I lf s * I s has tr ie d 9 c y n te is* -rat o p iis is s u s a t i s mm typing p aeaim im . i s h a tes sosam stemt* stem tie k m m nothing, until he meets 10 fisotsl Serin, » premising young American painter, MM Shea as' U ag st her studio Messes Me creed fortits Rachel lo re s fete deeply, feat Micbasl to s s mot lores her until too lots* la m f i t o f n anger be ehoote hi* friend. *111 not lie to save Ma­ ssif, and in spite of the aeeietasee of bis friend#, is IS sent to prison for ten pears, tat is freed after eight 14 be cease of eoneunptlon. Rachel, mho bad given 19 ta r be­ loved painting for love's sake, etarte again eitb a heavy i f

heart to pay for her daily Oread* Brged on by bar 16 master, she wise great fame at borne and abroad* When Michael is walking the streets of Sew fork# just from prison# shelterless# Bachel, beautiful and sad and brats# 16 meets him and takes him home# fhen Akershem realises for the first time that "the little things which he hat disregarded in his strength appealed to him la his weakness; Crushed by the great 'things of life# he i f saw that the little things were geoft** the now! ends with the pessimistic allusion to hie approaching death# "But upon hie lips was set the blood red seal of fate." the philosophy of the Descendant Is thus the phtl- 18 o sophy of Barren ground, written twenty-eight years later .-^nothing good lasts? we -don't know good when we see itf happiness is fleeting# But the themeT is the great social upheaval that is being felt all over the South after 1870* Both Bschei and Michael are South- 19 erners, who have migrated to lew fork to seek their fortunes* laeh gains happiness for a moment, then loses It* Michael, with his humble origin and marvelous in­ tellect# rises to an influential position in the city* this Is a theme Mss Glasgow treats again and again— id# ihidf pp* m , zm. 17# £• 276. IS* Haardt, Sara# on* op. o o it p* 163* It* the Descendant»► pp. pp. s. 70, 85. 20

tli© r is e of the lower c la s s e s . Once in th e Descendant she stops the story, and, speaking directly to the read* er, describes the period in which she is writing, and predicts changes that will occur.

"tor woman will hare turned upon her real foe, and hare rent the mask apart, and, lol shew ill have looked into the face and have seen her own* "From that moment the victory w ill be gained* lien, manners and morals will have a rest, and only change fashion in due season, as is highly respectable* And woman w ill have triumphed. "Bat that w ill be t omorrow, and it is of no to-morrow that I write, but of the nineteenth century, somewhere between the years of our lord n in e ty and n in e ty -fiv e , —A p erio d when we stan d with one foot firmly advanced into the twentieth 20 century and our backs turned broadly upon the past*"

Rachel Gavin, sprung from the best Southern an­ cestry, is the really fine character In the book* Hiss Glasgow must mean her to represent the many long-suffer­ ing Southern women, who, emancipated from household drudg- 21 cry, find work and sorrow and life and love*

20. Ibid* pp. 83, 84. 2 1 * THE. p* 85* In Phases of m Inferior flanet. Miss Glasgow*e second novel, isth e m m fresh and disquieting mots we find iii fits Pes pendant. l a i t t l e intensified* It 1 Is filled with soQlaXistlQ illusions* Mariana Musto, th e mem type of woman who must he something and do 2 S something, leaves the south for Ifew York for voice training* fhere, adored by all themen to her apart­ ment house, she falls to love with and marries Alg&r- 4 elfe after she realises that she will not have a musi- § sal career. Mariana Is sure that as long as they love 6 each other nothing w ill happen! so they live to a very modest way, Algsrclfe earning his little money by writ­ ing articles and by lea taring at a university* A baby ¥ comes, and life is further complicated by Algarclfe’s losing his fositi

1* Haardt, Sara, g&. «!!.• P* M7* S. Biases of an Inferior Bl&nefc tm. 20. 21. Z. _ Ibid. _ — n* ,- 23 «« - 4 . TblflT. ,.1 0 7 5. Ibid. p. 44 S. Ibid. p.112 7. Ibid. p.129 8. tbld. p.147 BB

AXg&rcife objects. Finally, because she wants to escape a life of bare poverty, she applies to Signor Mo rani for work. He receives her gladly, and takes her with bis company to- lurope, Algarcife lire# on, a broken hearted man. One day be meets Father Speares, oneo his guardian, who takes hlxnhome* Algarclfe succeeds Mm as priest of the Church

Of tbs Immaculate Conception, and becomes very pOJBXlOT. In.. tbs meantime, feriana marries an English lord, comes t x West for a divorce, then returns toMm fork, a beauti- IB ful and exceedingly wealthy woman* One night as Algar- 13 eife saws a woman's life at the risk of bis own, Mar­ iana passes, picks him up, diswy from the shock, takes him to his home*- ’ilgaroife does not show that he Wmws who she is* later she tells him she has tried to buy happiness as she bought diamonds, but she never' found 14 It# How she knows the la c k was w ith in h e r sWSJT. i l f . Although she begs him to come to her Algarcife will not go until he reads in a paper that she has been dangerously ill. He goes immediately; they become reconciled; he plans to give up Ms priesthood, and start life again with

Ibid. pp. 187, 188. xo. T ill. $. m * lli Ibid. p. 823. 12i T®. »* *»• 13. IHd. p. 846. 14. ® p. 274. 16. Ibid. p. 300. 16. Ibid? p. 304. Uliana in the South* Ml too late—the same fatality we find at the end o f the Peacenaant*» Mariana, whose heart has teen made very weak by her Illness* dies in I f Ills arias. fh& question of the rise of the lower alas sea toes not 0 0 ear in this book, although Alg&reife is a foundling reared by father Speares. He becomes an intellectual, a sponsor of all reform at college; he denounces the IS church* calling himself a scientist* an agnostic* a man* Me thinks no man who haa ever ounceived. the magnitude I t of the universe can bow his head to a creed* When Mar­ iana leaves him* he enters the church to forget; < but, not baliev&hg,, he hates the sham* and lorga to throw 2 0 a sid e h is o ffic e * M ien Glasgow voices* here* the mm* lug general distrust in the- church* the earnest, locking for something tangible to believe* folit ical emanoipa- HI tion for women is touched lightly* but the real theme of Phases of an Inferior Flanet is woman’s revolt against the drudgery o f the home* .Mariana leaves for Slew York to 22 be rid of drudgery; when her- father* financially unable to support her longer* writes her to come home to help her step-mother* she does not go because she knows return- £3 ing means ^drudgery and hideous mo no tony;w when herbaby 17* Ibid. p. 32£. 18. p . 6 8 . P . 299. M p . 61. ae ISSd pp. 21 p . 90 Mas and dlgarelfe is without money, she leaves because she wants "to flee from poverty ant ugliness to beauty £4 ant bright colors*” then the author illustrates on© of her favorite themes: soman can stand alone; for Mari­ ana is successful in her work* although most of her wealth is left her by her divorced husband* But Mss Glasgow1 s prediction inTim Descendant concerning woman* e 2 § coming into her own* is beginning to he fulfilled* In her novels Mies Glasgow often treats the theme

• 1 of unequal marriages, but only in fhe Vole© of the People £ find th e Bomanoe o f a P la in Man does- she make i t h e r cen­ tral thought* In the first half of each, the plots are about the same* l a th e Yolo© o f th e People t i c k Burr* a dirty* barefoot boy of Mngsboroupt {Williamsburg}* loves little Eugenia Battle* m aristocrat, who calls him common* Immediately his ambition is awakened* Judge Bassett helps him as he becomes first a lawyer and then the Governor of Virginia* In the meantime, Eugenia, who has promised to wait for Wick, marries a man of her class because Che has been estranged from Hick by a bit of scan­ dal* th e same vole© o f th e people Which gave him m • ibid* p . u s . £5* fhebesoendant* pp* 83* 85* 1* fhe Voice of the People, Double day, Page & Co* 1900 8 . Tim Bomanoe of a Plain ten. Boubleday.Page & Co*, second edition, 1910* m

gcycymcrablp, which through a scandalous report took from him th© chance for married happiness, mow rot© him ©f life ae h© rushes from the capital to Kings- borough to prevent the lynching of a negro to whom he has sworn Justice ©hall he given# Bugeaia, cognisant too late of Ms industry courage, honour, real worth; ant usarriet to a m n eh© respects hat cannot love, "live© on in a marriage that ha© brought neither Joy nor sorrow, finding her only real emotion in the cares a of motherhood*" lick Burr, a iinooln-like mm o f th e people, a sturdy and gigantic hero, is involved with the rigidly exclusive, aristocratic prejudices of Ms neighbors, and falls a victim to Ma own indomitable lo v e of Ju stic e and Bens© o f duty* from the first to the last Hick fights against tra­ dition of family. In the school at fudge Bassett’s, where he first knows Eugenia, Dudley Webb, who later marries Virginia, calls him common# "He’s as common 4 a©—as dirt* I heard mother ©ay so*,*.*" As th e two boys are about to fight, Bugenia interrupts with, "I reckon I know what’s common as well as you de­ li an* to ain't—-he a in ’t common." later on the way home

3. Cooper, Frederic Saber* "Ellen Glasgow", She Bookman August, 1909* p . 613. 4 . She Yoloe of the People . p. 46. 5. *" Ibid. P. 47. a§

she divests this defense of its sweetness as Hiok tries to take tier hands "Ion mnsnH do th a t,11 she responded severely# "When I salt yon weren't common I dite*t mem that yon really weren't* you know; because* of course yon are* 6 1 jest meant that I wouldn’t let them say so#*1 ?et# common though he is, **$he intern Anglo-Saxon v love of "the man who dares” was with him.” Hicholas sees the vision* and does what he th lines is right to follow his Ideals. He wants Eugenia though he knows #he 8 is not in her class; hut he knows that he will he proud of his obscure origin when he has risen far enough above it to claim her as hie wife. ”1% is no small thing to 9 he a self-made man.w M one of his political speeches he declares "Fair means are the only means* honest ends m are the only ends;" and* in speaking of his party, "if 10 a lie could save it, 1 would not speak it," So extreme is Ms idealism of right, 3mdge Bassett tells him he 11 should have stuck to law, that he was not horn to he a IB politician. Tet, after *fhe Han With A Coast hence” has

6 . JM&, £. 40. ?• IfSS p.396* 3, IS fC P.B40*

p,317. p .346* Zf

been told by Eugenia that ttfhe first lesson in politics 13 is to lie and live itf* that since he tells the truth so easily, she*s afraid he’s not "much of a politician; " after he hears that the met ho as in politics aren't ’•exactly 14 such as you can see your face inTf«~he s till resolves ••all the more need for dean men” and determines to do right or die if the people are with n il And it is through this keen sense of honour that he loses Eugenia when she believes the report of the soandal about him* for he does not sue for her love again# Because shefs & Battle of Virginia* she gives him up although wshe has loved him for his strength* his vigour* his gentleness--and she still loves him." Ellen Glasgow cannot reconcile herself to a happy married life between a Battle of Virginia and a oian of the people* So far, she does not realize that money and family do not make happiness; that only the finer qualities in the natures of man and wife make a perfect union*

I®* gfeld* p* 330* 14. IE?, p. 328. 15. TUI* P« 392. 16. Ibll. p. 259. 17. T S m , p. 258. 18. 'jfae koaanog of a Plata Han, p. 316* fh# Battle-Qroahd* written In 1902* and Mss Olas- z gowt s next novel* The D eliverance. w ritte n in 1904* might have teen published an one book* For one ie a sequel to the other—The Battle-Ground giving a charming picture of life in Virginia Just before the Wm between States ant at its outbreak* The Deliverance giving a picture of the period of reconstruct ion. The Battle-Ground is so If&t a picture of conditions in Virginiaat that time* that an English General suggested it to M s men as a reliable hook a for study of that period* loth of these hooks are novels of manners that will he read by later generations with interest because they are a picture of social conditions 4 which are fast passing away* the Battle-Ground is the intimate history of Ban Mont Joy* whose mother—Major Bight foot fe only daughter—had run away with a man who filled her life with misery* Eis parent© dead* Ban come© 5 to live with the Major* goes to college, gets Into trouble at the school# infuriates hi© grandfather * and* leaving after hot words have been exohanged# goes out into the world* penniless said alone* Dan secedes from the family of Bight foots

1* fhe Bat tie-ground. Bouble&ay, Bags and 0o*t 1902# 2* fhe Deliverance. Double day, Page and Go** 1904* 3 . Mabie* Hamilton Bright * "The f ic tio n o f th e Season*1* fhe Outlook, May 24* 1902* p. B12* 4* Main7'"Borothea laurence* ou* eit* p* 267, 3* fhe Battle-Ground p* 72, 6 * p*205. f* p#209. at

as Virginia secedes from ilia Union; ana as the South is brou^it to accent defeat and reborn to tlie Union, so Ban returnssfter the war—happier, wiser, odder— to those who hare never sensed to long for his coming* fhe novel is a narrative with a doable theme* In this story, more romantic than any other one of her six­ teen, she is Intensely interested in Southern home life; in the old negroes, the lovely Southern belles, the cour­ teous beaux, the old firginia gent leapt, and his wife, the patient head of the household, busy early and late, housekeeping, "managing, supervising, doctoring, disc ip- 8 lilting, and nursing the large number of negroes* w At the end of the story, the lightfoots and Amblers have lost all they possessed, and fhe Deliverance starts just as fhe Battle-ground ends* "Christopher is only an example of the widespread injustice practiced during and after the reconstruct ion period. So sees his father die heartbroken because he. has lost everything, he sees hie home—-a vast estate— sold at auction and bought for a song by his father’s thieving overseer, who has seen that all account boohs were destroyed by fire to prevent legal proceedings against him* Christopher, with his orippjed mother and two sisters, lives in the overseer* a former cabin, and supports the family by working a few acres of tobacco*

8 * Haim, Borothea haurenoo, oj>. e it* p* 869, 30

The mother, bltnd, not knowing of the reverses of the South* lives in a world of t o own, thinking that the Confederacy s till exists* **An elaborate tissue of lies” is preserved between her and the truth while she Issues criers as if to a hundred shnvants, and lives on the best Of the laa&***her children existing onbsconandhoe-oake. Mss Olasgow gives us in this novel a tragic picture of the contrast between the hopes sad the humiliations of the South, for the novel Is act the story of the Blakea, but of all the impoverished Southern families* Fletcher, the one time overseer, now a very wealthy man. living in the old Blake mansion, has two grandchil­ dren—a boy and s girl* frying to pay back Fletcher— whom he once determined to k ill—by making his grandson a liar, coward, and drunkard, Christopher does not real­ ise hew unworthy is his conduct until he fails in love w ith w i n1 s sister Maria, who is cultured and beautiful* Ser brother Will, in a drunken frenzy# killed his grandfather, and, Christopher, realizing all he has done to rmin WiU, helps Will to escape and gives himself up as the murderer* After Christopher has spent three years in prison, Will confesses to a priest that he killed his grandfather; so deliverance comes—deliverance of a man like Christopher from the curse of evil deeds, and deliverance of the land from scalawags like old Fletcher, and the deliverance of the South from the binding tradition of class dist inct ion*

9* Cooper, Frederic Taber, op. c l t . p. 615. 31

In fhe Bsfrtle-&round we get glimpses of Hiss Olss- gow's delicious satire as she pricks "every part of the old romantic, sentimental, gallant-gentleman and lovely- lady tradition of the South*n M isslydia, Virginia Ambler's maiden aunt, ''regarded heaven with something of the respectful fervor with which she regarded the world—that great world she had never seen; for the proper place for a spinster is her father*# home, she would say with her conventional primness, and send, des­ pite herself, a mild imagination in pursuit of the follies from which she so earnestly prayed to he delivered—she, to whom Hew fork was as a tower of a modern Babylon, and a Jezebel hat a woman with paint upon her cheeks," M>&& lydia, when reading romances, "forever held the sinner above the saint, unless, indeed, the sinner chanced to be one of her own sex, when, probably, the booh would never have reached her hands, ” She fears men are very 13 m wicked “but they are very a—a—engaging, too,* fhis same Miss Xy&ia is “fond of apple toddy, but she regarded the taste as an indelicate one, and would as soon have ad- 13 mltted, before gentlemen, a liking for cabbage." Mrs* Ambler, the, as a girl, had never walked off her father's

10. Menu, Dorothea lau ren ce, op* o it* p* 10. 11. fhe Battle-ground, p. 61. 10* Ibid. p* 62. 13. Ibid. p. 36. SB

I4r place, was brought up very carefully, so carefully that at table she was never allowed to ask for a leg of chicken because it ms considered indelicate for a lady to ask for and taste any part but the wing* She tells her girls, nA girl is like a—flower—. If a rough wind blows near 15 her, her bloom Is faded# let llkrs* Ambler had more to do# with fewer convenien­ ces, than the business woman or home woman of to-day# fhe master of the house might receive the guests, eat delicious foods, drink old wine, and rids over his many acres; but Ifrs, Ambler had her homo and children and all the black people in her care* She was wife* mother, housekeeper, doctor, nurse, accepting all her responsibility In an hum­ ble, self-effacing manner* Miss Glasgow pictures for us a world of make-believe in which by excessive flattery and courtesy, the men have the easier part* fhe subject of woman* s rights Is not mentioned in the novel, but the help­ lessness and uselessness of man are deliciously hinted 4t. Mias Glasgow makes Betty* a father say at Christmas, that having been Governor of Virginia, surely he can fill a few stockings^ Yet she makes these dear old men—a type nearly extinct— very lovable* We know Miss Glasgow understands human nature because she shows us that no one class has all the virtues and vices* fhis she Illustrates clearly in fhe Beiiterance, Christopher

Id# Ibid, f.lbl. 1 5 . IM d, p. 452. m

is chivalrous to his family, yet ho ruins tho life of young Fletcher; the Bla&ea are refined in theirpoverty, while the fleiohers are crude end vulgar in their wealth. With the marriage of Christopher1 a sister to a man of the lower class and the coming marriage of Christopher and Maris —the first happy unequal marriages to Biss Glasgow’s novels so far—class harriers are hrofeen down, the host man wins. Class harriers are down, but class distinctions have not a ltere d * nM m Glasgow distinguishes clearly between equal­ ity of economic importunity* which she welcomes, and social 16 equality, which cannot exist *n Christopher is the symbol i f of the Mew South** Saving Just w ritte n two of her most typically virgin- ia n novels, Mien Glasgow turns to Sew ¥or&—as she did in her first two narratives—for the setting of her sixth novel, 1 fh e Wheel o f „M fer wa study of several types of men in lew g 1for& and their ideals, with one flame-lilce woman*n Mien Glasgow is interested,not so much in the narrative as she is in the themes she presents* She touches very definitely

16* Overton, Grant M*, op* e it* p* 160. 17* Cooper, Frederic $aber,^fhe Bpio Hovel and Some Beoent loohs*" fhe Bookman, Iferch 1004, p*46. 1 , fh e Wheel o f l i f e , XKmble&sy, Page & Co*, 1906, 2m Shermap StuaiT iVt ,ffhe Fighting Bdge of Bomanee*, in Bllen Glasgow, a pamphlet hy Bottbleday, Page & Co*, 19B9, p* 3* m

upon themes that aha tm m to her latest book, fhey Stooped to Folly# Briefly the story la this: toura Wilde, a lew lork poetess, and Arnold Eessfer fall to love, they are devoted, aha to him because of his vi­ tality and physical fascination, ho to her because of bar pure beauty of person# When the marriage is three 4 days off, she suddenly realizes her mistake. Arnold becomes furious about her burning an unread letter from Hadame Alta with whom he has had an affair, accuses haute of Jealousy, and she, overcome by physical revulsion, breaks the engagement. She flees for solitude to a stranger,s home on the outskirts of lew fork. On the third day of her flight. Soger Adams, a chivalrous, schol­ arly gentleman, who for a long time has been true to his wife—a drug addict, now dead—receives a letter from toura asking him to come to her because she needs a friend* He goes immediately, toura is a broken woman--tot er, as her old self comes back, she realizes that Eeger is the real mate for her. the other characters to the Wheel

3* fhey Stooned to Folly, Double day, Doran and Co* 1929. 4« fhe wheel of M'i»Z~ n. 442. BB

of Mfe sis© Illustrate lies 0 1 acgow*s theories* Certy adores tier husband, who* she taowe, ismtwm to tier; a© ©to feigns ignorance of U s life * and trio© to vis him by dashing beauty and fine clothes—tor only weapons, ttffceref# n o t s moment when I*® n o t doing ©omebhiiig fo r § ®y toaaty, or planning of foots or undergoing s treatment ^ oho tell© tonra* "Imagine terry*o going upon a diet for any sentimental reasons* or eacrificing terrapin in order f» to retain my affection*1* Upon tonra*® suggestion ttet ©to try to told him by something higher, she retorts* *¥©0 ©an, t to ld a person by what to to s n ftgof*® th e n ©to roloss tto ttome of the novel "I’m bound to the sheet* BUmn Glasgow i n s i s ts a t t h i s p o in t in f h e Wheel o f l i f e

—as © to continues to Insist for twenty-five years—that there ought to be something more permanent than love to live by, "that tto average woman* s life is founded on a lie* a vital illusion, namely* that tto sevual attract ion which draws her to her m n in the mating season is enough, IS is her supreme and suffioisnt affair in life*” Perry and

6 . Ibid. p. 108. 6» sEersmn, Stuart 2 . op» eit. p. 9. forty, whos® carriage was based on the attraction of sex, do not find happiness; Arnold and laura do not find happiness; Arnold and Madame Alta do not find happiness; nor do Roger Admas and his first wife— a ll of whom married became® of the attraction of phys- leal love, As laura flees from Mew fork, she comments meat ally on the people she sees; "fhe man in the red neck-tie is happy because he has made money; the pretty woman is happy because she Is loved—but the pale girl and the bent clerk are wretched, they have neither love nob money, and they have not found out how little either 7 I s worth*" Bat Christina Coles* and St* George front—both young Virginians writing in lew fork—marry and are happy; Roger Adams and laura are supremely happy in their marriage of love and intellect* Basra sees that she has always lived on petty lies; even her poetry 8 was insincere* Angela, lamrafs amnt, sixty years old, "brom^it 9 lasting disgrace upon her family" by an indiscretion committed f o r ty years ago* Overcome by h er m istake, she exhibits that Miss Glasgow would call Victorian

7* fhe Whee l o f l i f e , p* 441* 8* P* 464* 9* p* 23* modesty by met showing herself to anyone hut her fam­ ily for forty year e-most of whom were "waiting anx­ iously for her to die*" this novel anticipates the point of view in rifhey Stooped to ffolly*$f w ritte n twenty-three years Inter* In 1939 the lady who slipped is sore a women Is not rutaed unless she knows it* and ~ * m t one seems to know it I fet the men, who are as much to blame, go free from oritioism, and do as they p le a se , i&mper has fo r h is fa v o rite cynicism , “Hen were 11 not horn monogamous*" M ss Glasgow th in k smm a re o f "flexible morals*" Isura sums the Whole situation with "that*# because him have ruled the world in two ways— they have made the laws and they have made the Jokes*1 f here is a wit and cleverness in fhe Wheel of Mfe that approaches that of both her latest novels*

* P* 8 8 , p . f i e X I f m s m tbat flit m & i#m law. tn* story of a released gentlemen eomriof i t a Virginia tobacco town* should have been writ bet next after fhe Deliverance instead of it 1008, after fhs ihael of Ilfs. for it it intensely romantic, Mice 01s ©gow it interested* not only It the Southern background, tut It tbs conventions of tbe Southern families* She It interested It ib* to* dastrtol revolution end the' social revolution ^hiob be- gat between 1865 and 1805 and which ore having great effect upon the south today; eh#1 © tot crest ©d it %1 # social upstart's att liude toward the fading aristocrats; In class distinction. In marriage, in divorce, in tbs double standard of morals for sum—all these holt her attention in The Ancient law* fhe Ancient law contains thef ir s t description of a strike found In Miss Glasgow’s novels, fhe second ant. last strike she describes Is found in On© Man lul l s f i n s , published fourteen years later* in her description of tto strike in, She Ancient Iawf. Miss Glasgow draws a touching picture of the hard, sharpened* pinched faces of the strik­ ing m n 9 women* and children—all sallow from working in an unsanitary atmosphere* and th in * from took of food*

b !fea»nt>j.fPt % r, 3oobl«4ay Pag© & Co., 1908. 5* —bid. pp* 403-466 • 8 . Ona tea in e ia ? la & . Boubladay, Sage ft Co., 1928. Barter, the wealthy owner of the cot ton mills in fappa- tonmoek, Virginia, pays his workers just enough to keep their souls and bodies together; so they quit tto fac­ tory, demand more money and shorter hours, and threaten to hum th e fa c to ry u n less he com plies w ith th e ir deammda. Ordway, who represents fair thinking and justice, buys the mills, and stops the strike by promising the frenzied mob fair wages, shorter tours and totter houses, this strike in fhe Ancient law represents the beginning of the great industrial resolution which has swept tto South and which is one of the causes of tto rise of Ellen Glas­ gow’s "good people” whom she describes so realistically 4 in Barren Ground, in her picture of the strikers, Miss Glasgow stows to tto reader very clearly tto moral jus­ tice of tto striker’s demands, fraly, the old order is changing* Man w ill no more submit blindly to a leader seen though to be one of the old families, fto newly made mail conscious of tto power his money and po sition in tto business world give him, laughs la his sleeve at tto aristocrat who, although poor, is too proud to work—

4. Barren Ground. Boubleday, fags and Co., 102b. 40

¥#t there is an air, a sorb of majesty about the poverty stricken aristocrat, that* In seme ■ cases, gives Mm back* bona m&ugh to lord it over a social upstart like Baxter, the owner of the mills* Baxter accepts 10?* Beverley*s superiority as a natter of course—even if he doss lord § it over him as if he were George Washington. Begroea are lik e Baxter—they auffer humbly indignities heaped upon then hy "the quality, * hut never do they submit to indig­ nities from ’•pore white brash**1 In Rappahannock since class distinctions are maltingaway. many a heartache is caused those of the lower olaaoes who look longingly and lovingly above them for their mates* Milly, of humble family, looking above her station for love* says every** thing would have been all right if she had been horn where a she belonged* disc* Miss Olasgow is interested in class distinctions within a ©lass* For instance Blchard Ordway* who has cow* edited a crime, is sent to prison* Be serves his term then goes to Rappahannock, where he knows no one* to s t a r t a g a in , at the death of Ordway’e father, his uncle sends fo r him; so Ordway re tu rn s hone to h is w ife and children, only to find that his crime would stand eternally between him and his kin. The shrinking of hisw ife , th e

8 * fhe dneient law, p. TO* 6 . Ibid. p. 6 i . prying eyes of M s servants, the unspoken Judgments of M s associates make him see the thing that stands be­ tween them* this thing, the ancient law, is not of Ms making or of their making; bat it Is a fibre of their very natural, growing and developing since man has grown ant developed, tradition and inheritance ant instinct are the barriers Oy&wsy has broken through* Once out, although he lives the life of a saint, he can never make his family forget* Overcome with terror ext account of their silent condemnation, Or&wsy longs to flee, shaken by the idea that he might become as bad as the family thinks Mm* Eis lack had deserted him as he gambled on the market with the fends of the great banking house o f which he was a young member—w hile o th e r mm made m il­ lions with the money they held In trust, he had become dishonored by a stroke of luck. At the end it is to lally, the daughter of a poor but aristocratic house in fappahanno ok—no t to his wife—that he goes for love and sympathy. Mias Olasgow is opposed to such self-sufficient

***** P* 209. intolerance. for she clearly tells m in fhe Ancient law that the sin €f teiwey*® fam ily ie greater then hie etui Or away *e is only an outward sin. while the self* righteousness of hie family i« of the very soul* Ordway' 3 father weald have suffered a life of sham and fled with hie wife* for the old generation thought it *a terrible thing for a husband and wife to Hire apart." da for diiroroe—Ordway’e wife remonstrates with her dangh- ter Alice. and tries to persuade her to go back to her husband Oeoffrejr to keep up appearances—because divorce ' la such a horrible thing* But Alio* insists and knows 9 that divorce Is not so horrible " as her husband. * then ly&ie finds thather daughter has run away with §eof* fTey. h e r f i r s t thought i s th e y want be married* Ordway is horrified at this skeleton upon which a living oonrea* tlon assumes a semblance of truth. He hopes to God his daughter has not serried the oat* Hash character is bent upon keeping up appearances* Bren Bella, who wishes to wear a string of coral beads with her motmillS. finds that other people have something to do with everything that concerns her* fhe shallow ref insurant of Or away* a 43

past life in Botetourt makes the unpleasant poverty at Eappahannoek pleasant to hto* because it seems to ho 1 1 something real and true# Hiee Glasgow pricks with her rapier the limitations of the Virginia gentlemanm she attacked the Governor In the Battle-around* Beverley owes hie grocer for months* hut he insists that he ie ashamed to heg and tmable to work the garden. & telle hie to tte r not to worry about IS paying the bills, for worry makes wrinkles. Beverley's uncle* after selling everything be had for debt* never worried a bit and died with a smooth forehead—but— Beverley* In telling the story to lydia, forgets that his uncle's wife was compelled to take up dressmaking to sup­ port the family* and that his children grew up uneducated* Miss Glasgow blames the women for spoiling the men. Amelia sits shivering without a fire because she is saving the light wood knots for Beverley* who loves a bright fire so; she takes dark meat of the fowl because Beverley pre­ fers light* Beligion must have played a great part In Amelia's life, for it is the only thing that could have made her "accept with meekness the wing of a chicken and the double IB standard of morals." Virginia Women7-it was true of the Dfcole South— "believed then that to be physically chaste

11* Ibid* p. * 8 . 1 2 . 1CT5. p.104 . 1 2 . Haar&t, Sara, oj>. a l t , p . 19 • 44

if uM srrisi ant faithful If married was a Virginia 14 lady’s whole sxistenca,1* IHm Glasgow wonders if anything is too great a strain far a woman, now the virtue of a wan con stan di f f for underneath their Skinmm are all purs natull, Shelr physical bodies must be satisflll. She pro* diets a change—one way or another—in marriage, and She thirties* it * a as well to have a change for the Does a woman live who loves eternally washing mlifc pans and eternally planning and preparing three meals each day? And yet* ifir, Beverley* who has done nothing all day* can send his tired little wife downstairs a do sen times Before night to mate him lennnades* 4 woman was permitted to do anything on the plane except farmw ori? the only money Bmily earns to support the family is earned By teaching In the public school* Beverley objects violently to the teaching, but he does not hesitate to say how the slender salary paid her each month is to ben a il* Tet with all their shams* there is real happiness in this world of sacrifice and aa&e^believe* fbe only nay to get happiness* says Miss Slasgow* is to give it up, to loss one** self in the lives of others, to find happiness

14, Vsehten, QfcrX T«n$. *4 Virginia lady Dissects a Virginia QeatXeman", m ien Slaggow. Pasaphlet* Doubleday, Borax*, 198B, p, 4£ • 15, fht Ancient Daw, p, XXV. IS . Ib id . p . US* Ib id * Ib id , m

through the Joy of service* fhe old Virginia lady most have been a very happy wo mall, fo r g iv in g up happiness was her whole existence, fh e Romance of a Plain ten gives a picture of the changing conventions in the South ten year© after the far hot ween the States* As the author shows the sentimental South changing into a realistic South, she is interested In the possibilities of a plain man— even when she ©hows Z hi© weakness ant defects# the Bournes of a Plain Man. w ritte n in 1909* and fh e Voice o f th e Weenie, w ritte n in 1900* hat© plots that are almost parallel through the first half* and both novel© have the same central theme punctual marriages* Ben Starr, the plainm m , i s poor* his ambition is fired because a g irl calls him common; and his education and his steps toward his future business are oared for and guided by General Bolingbroke, who ha© become interested in him* Before Ben can marry Sally* he must overcome the con- veutioatbf traditional pride of family; this he overcomes through education* success in the business world* love and strength of character—As he sits at tea in her home* Ben1© sense of Justice is enraged by Miss Matoaca*© treatment of him* her instinctive aversion of him* Ee immediately deter-

1 * Romance o f a P la in l&an» Boubleday, Page and do** 1909* Rote; All references to this booh In this thesis will be made to the 1 9 1 0 e d itio n by th e seme publishers* 2m O verton, © rant, on* o i t * p* US* 4#

~ mines to break downbest , aristocratic standard which al­ lows the Sbneral to bo accepted and himself to be rejec­ ted* He mates up Ms mind that if wealth is the only weapon against social tradition* he will use it* Sen doesn’t want money fo r money’ s sake; he doesn’t want money for what money can buy; hut he wants money because it stands for what a man does* it stands for mettle* spirit* ambition* character* success* is a boy he mates up his mind he wants to be £od* because Sod is greater even than 4 the President* He has the true American spirit# Although Best's brother can help him materially in no way* he advises Ben to get an education* because he him­ self has been outstripped by mm who had nothing in thorn £ but educat ion; so Ben bates the dollar* given him by his brother, and buys at a second-hand book store Sir Charles Sr anal son and dohnson’s Dictionary^ from both of which he memorises page after page* With nothing to lose and every­ thing to gain* Ben keeps his eye on his goal—wealth— which means S&Ily. Sally’s aunt is opposed to Ben's marry­ ing Sally* for she is steadfast in her belief that not even ’'character can atone for the absence of family inheritanel*" But when she reproves Sally for not wanting to marry her

$* Bomaree of a Plato Han, p* 178. 4# Ibid, p» 28. 5* 6 . 47

cousin George, whose worth "was proved centuries before Sally asks for something more* She doesn't oars fo r a dead a m that fought for a dead Icing; fo r both are d u st, and she is alive* What she wants is honour, lo y a lty , bru th , courage* "not c h iv a lric phrases that a re mere empty sound hut honesty and a strong arm th a t 1 can

As Ben fights against tradition* he becomes more and more absorbed In his business* thinking the" more wealth and power he g e ts, the happier h is w ife w ill be* He has no time to think of his wife; no time for her service* Sally pines, and looks for p leasu re with George, still her devoted lover, because Ben is absorbed in his work. Ben has to lose all his wealth before he realizes that Sally wants him, not what he bag g&imd by labour * "As long as 1 have you and you love me* Ben," Sally tells him, "nothing can break my spirit, because the thing 9 that makes l i f e o f vain© to m will still be mine*" As they struggle to rise again from their poverty, when the baby dies, when the great specialist tells Sally she can never have ■another' c h ild , .-and that she. may never recover from a diseased spine, Ben Slowly realizes what he is about to lose by absorption in business* Always whenhe

IM §* p* 203, 8* f l f f . pm 204, «• Ibid* p. 3 1 8 . 4a

is succeeding in Business, Sailer thinks she is losing him* It is hard for Ben to understand, for his nature is not made up of the finer feelings of men of gentle birth} he tries to explain himself to sally with, "Slain I shall always be—plain and rough sometimes, and forget* ful to the end of little things—hut the Mg things are H IC there as you know, Sally **1 hud Sally tM ls him that It is the Mg things after all that she has always wanted* Had Mm Been less plain, he would hare realised that Sally loved him, not for what he has, nor for his position in the business world, but for the qualities of Ms charac­ ter that enable Mm to win* One can easily see that from the happy readjustment of the life of these twe people from such entirely different planes of society that Mss Glasgow has become reconciled to the rise of the lower classes* Mm and Sally are happy in the end# Bach is sufficient for the other* When Sally*s two aunts—Pho stand for tradition—die, there is nothing to remind Ben of Ms social inferiority to Sally# So democracy begins to triuuph# Besides Miss Glasgow’s interest in tradition of fam­ ily and the rise of the lower classes, there is shown in fhe Bomance of a Plain ten her interest in the beginning of woman’s suffrage, in woman’s subservience to men and

10. Ibid* p, 464 her self-sacr If ice to her husband, and her interest fn the desire of the new generation for truth, Sally* $ aunt talks of "taxes without representation e^aatly as if she 11 were a man and had right si" dud the men of hsr acquain- taace think she has no ri$ib to anything hut a husband. When she tells a friend she thinks a certain candidate for governor will not be elected because he has lead an impure life, the men are scandalised and think she aught IB to be "ashamed to know that a man leads an Impure life*" Hiss i&toaca is a contradiction, a woman standing at the beginning of a new era; she works for the emancipation of woman while she herself remains a slave to tradition* Harrow as she is* she goes to the legislature and tries to get a measure pissed, she marches in a suffragist par­ ade—very extreme and unladylike measures for that period of Victorian convent ions—yet the same woman wishes to have only ladles "permitted to vote" and the franchise restricted to fhe General thinks a woman who can make delicious mince pies should not worry about her rights, Benfs father offers, as an excuse for his second marriage, that the only way to get a woman to wash free for you is to IB marry her* When it comes to the choice between a vote and the respect of men* lirs* Chitling thinks the respect

1 1 . Ibid* p, 1 3 0 . 12. Ibid, p* 1 3 1 . s o

•f a n Should fiH "any honest female'e life." Says fee. C h itlin g , fchl<B S91BB 8 imtitoeS pleftSttT# But* side her o n door? Ain't she sot everything already that the asen don't wantf Ain't sweetness and virtu*, an* patience an' long-suffering an* child-bear in anosgh for ban without her iopodently etandin' up in the faoe o f nm and axis' for so*?" fhere to also a delicious account of Bessy and her husband Bndhrod. When Bessyds child was ooalng into the world, fiuahrod was os his knees yraying a ll the tias. Whan a ll was over ha got as drunk as a loci. Os being told about hie behaviour Bessy re** piled, "Boor fellow, Z know he seeds it." Miss Mato&as, engaged to the General, gives hist up beoasse she finds he should, because of honour, oartty another woman; and yet Matoses*s sister thi&ks Matoaoa should have borne her wrongs is eilaaoe instead of shrieking then But Sally, of a later generation, think® Mies Matoaoa did sot shriek as loud as the General acted. Hiss Mat­ oses sanggles into her hose s daily newspaper; scandal­ ised, her sister protests that reading the Bible and the 000k book is a ll the literary work that a woman is good for, and that the best opinion a wosan can have is the OOLLESEOr WltUAM&MAfft through th e sto ry o f Benfs stru g g le th e re i s e a s ily seen seen ily s a e s i re e th le g g stru Benfs f o ry sto e th through man o f a fin e lin e a g e , and she knows th a t th e re are are re e th t a th knows she and , e g a e lin e fin a f o man re Gon, it ouree s at * While r* te la rs a e y en rte u fo n ritte w Ground, arren B hat ass Gagw hi t e ar i t i o t e th to s n tio ita lim re a re e th s k in th Glasgow s s la t a th t e r to marry a a marry to r e t rne t all mn e hm fee ad qual. a u eq and e fre hem re a men l l a t a th e trin c o d c r ip tio n o f ”rlo h p la n te rs* poor w hites, and obeiaant obeiaant and hites, w poor rs* te n la p h ”rlo f o n tio ip r c count t a th s g in th enduring many men s i l l y , she knows fam ily tr a d itio n i s not not s i n itio d a tr ily fam knows she , y l l i s men , n tio 24* Beeper# F red e ric f a h s r , , r s h a f ric e red F Beeper# 24* hri a nvl ri ocal or c ani des­ g in tain n co r, lo o c l a c lo h ic r f o novel a OharoiL £2* 1 2 hot­ s i t i t a th knows she orld, w hard the s a school a ques­ e th ith w husband r e h to ed rn tu ached, th o to er h f i 3 Il p 224. p* * IhlY S3, freedmen*” fhe s e ttin g reminds one o f the s e ttin g o f f o g ttin e s the f o one reminds g ttin e s fhe freedmen*” S a la d s great-grandm other who, when ashed by th e doctor doctor e th by ashed when who, other great-grandm s d la a S "opinion 1# B* ii* * 1?1* p* ibid* # Van Boren, Carl* Carl* Boren, Van 204. p* fold* fhe H ille r o f Old Churchy Boubleday, Boubleday, Churchy Old f o r ille H fhe nIn ly t nks oe s entr eedne pn he th upon dependence tire n e women fs s k in th ally S 13008 ” 2 a 1 1 9 1 o f th e gentlem en o f h er fa m ily .” f t use use t f .” ily m fa er h f o en gentlem e th f o ce Bolvar?” liv o B ache, t i

tm M mm n cn rust hn n nrsworthy untrustw an than t s u tr can one Glasgow wrote fh e M iller o f Old Old f o iller M e fh wrote Glasgow 23 0 * i* * a 3 1 p* ei£* £* m cot p* more c l t , August August , t l c 8 1 6 than mere wealth* wealth* mere than 20 gs ag B m m A Co*, Co*, A good , 9 0 9 1 1911* 1911* 31 m

Itoraii Orotmd is treated with dramatic reality—for the mors l&ss Glasgow writes, the mors she tends toward real­ ism—fhe toiler of Old Churoh is written with a softness whioh is its peculiar charm* fhe these of each novel is the all sufficient power of lore* In Barren Ground. Bo* rinda who thinks she can lire for lore alone—-because she lacks It, finds herself all the freer to pat her whole at­ tention on her work; Abel, the hero of fhe Hiller of Sid Church, burned by lorn, keeps the flame alive until the end of the hovel* He marries tolly as the narrative ends, whereas Borinda* s love affair is over before Barren ground or her life is half finished* Bach woman in the Miller of Old Church who makes love her whole existence has her life ruined, only tolly, who fights for her individuality, is saved; in Barren Ground Borlnds rises above her dependence upon mere love, and finds a complete life long after love is gone#

Mias/si.AR-gmg.fmw fhe Miller of Old Churoh. is interested in the effect on youth of the new freedom from convention, in tradition and the rise of the lower classes, in the new woman as opposed to the Victorian woman, and in the double

3« Van Boren, Carl, ^Barren Ground, n fhe jj^topumic* April E9, 1935, p. ST'l* standard of morals. Visa Glasgow voices significantly the growing widespread distrust in the chttroh and Its work, Abel’s fattier, struggling against economic condi­ tions daring the gnarter of a century that oeoss after the «ar between the States, finds it hard to get ahead financially because of competition with negro labour; he gets out of the habit of trying. Be la conscious of being bound to subservience by tradition: hie son is conscious of a freed Intelligence, and he ie anxious A to test the extent of hie freedom, fhe truth of the phil­ osophy of fhe Eomanee of a Ktain Me» becomes evident in fhe Miller of 014 Church* that is that the lover eiasees ore learning that getting wealth ie the real secret of power, f heystr ive for wealth; they strive for culture, end getting those, they control the State financially end 5 politically, fhe South of the Victorian period was con­ trolled politically mad financially by men o f gentle birth. B 10 pure pluck of these rising lower classes is what delights Kiss Olasgow. to the lower classes break the bond of tradition* th e mm woman is earning her right to lire# She is charming long after she especially desires to be so; 6 she is happy* not miserable because she is pining for love# Kesiah and the grandmother represent tradition in the Miller of Old Church as the two aunts did in fhe Romance of a Plain Man* Hasiah is of the type whose feelings will not be repressed* but at the same time they most conform outwardly to tradition* She desires to be an artist, but she is not allowed because she will 7 have to paint node figures ina strange city* It is her misfortune to have been bora a woman* Had she been a man* she would have become a great artist* Toting Say shows th e a n tip a th y th e men ham fo r th e changing one-time submissive* clinging Victorian woman* 8 to him a woman’s showing resentment appears Indelicate* He believes a woman should appeal to the emotions* that she should dominate by sentiment* not by force; she should 9 hear m indelicate hints as to Who was the father of Beuben

6# Ibid* pi 80* 7. ISrat. p. 70* B5

Merri weat her * s granddaughter*. Gay loves woman for M r power* of self sacrifice, and for his ability to 10 make of her nan Incentive, an Ideal, an Inspiration*" But the now woman of fhe Miller of Old Oburoh is n ■ not a caged thing; she is a thing offreedom— with IB a cropped head if she wishes—a woman who doesh't tie herself to marriage at twenty-one, even if her mother did marry at sixteen; she is without class instinolf and she believes with a ll her heart that the govern­ ment of nature and the universe rests solely upon the IB consent of the governed* A clinging Victorian woman causes d ll the suffer* ing in fhe Miller of Old Church, Afraid to look truth squarely in the face, lhrs» Gay, of the submissive type, makes her husband's brother promise not to marry the girl he ruined as long as she livit; she causes her own s o n 's death by not allow ing him to make known h is m arriage to Blossom* Young Gay, s e c re tly m arried to Blossom, is shot, because her father thinks Gay is trif­ ling with his daughter* fhe unde dies, preying for the

10* Ib id p. 130- 11* f g i f p* BBS* p* 183. IS* Ib id p* 254* 14* ISIS p* 327. 15*i>V« 1511 AUAU* P* 231* 16* li>id. p. 83. 17. Ibid. Chapter XT. 66

salvation of Mo soul; the father is shot by the kins- ■an ef tits girl he rcnied; the see is Shat is the m m pises ty the father of the gkvX to shea he is secretly ■arrisd. It is s far cry- froa fhe Siller of old Church to fhar Stooped to foliar, written eighteen years la ; te r and. representing the convention of 1929. fhe change is conventions at Old Church affects the religious life of the inhabitants of the eoannnity. She congregation of the church resents any changes is the olA belief, and accostoasd to iaaereios, it thinks tar* Mullen, the sea rector who sprinkles, capable of any sin since he 18 has "gone wrong on ianereion.* Such a aan couldn't be trusted to keep his hands off the soaen. Some aeabere of MT. Mullen'e church-willing to concede an unpleasant point—decide they had rather give up eternal dasnation than insertion, xr. Malian's belief in the devil ie all that keeps M s congregation froa thinking him a heathen, fhe eld ainleter before Mr. Mullen, had not wanted Janet Merriweather’s aotber buried in the graveyard beoauee of her illegitinate child; bat. although Mr. Italian, the new adulator, coaid sake a sacrifice in such large act* tore, be ie intolerant of snail weaknesses, fhe oongre-

18. Ibid. p. f. m

gabion feels and resents the passing of hell** fire ant damnation sermons, ant the conviction of unpardonable I f sin "even when yon hadn’t committed it,"A negro voices the coming trust in materialism when he tells Abel that the lord hat tithing to to with raising his com* that he himself raised the corn, and, moreover, in the drought BO pumped th e w ater to make i t grow. Added to h er b e lie f that the growth of faith in materialism is weakening the appeal of the church, that Mies Glasgow is opposed to foreign missions is easily m m by her wondering why the minister sends money for the conversion of the Chi­ nese when little Ifirs. Meadows at tiptag free is starv- &L tag for bread, fhe author shows the same inconsistency in the double standard of morals set up by the men of the South in the Victorian period, touag Say, insistent that his mother and aunt be shove suspicion, easily loses his £B heart where he refuses to lift his hats his uncle, doing nothing to help the girl he has ruined because he is afraid of hurting Mrs. §syfs delicate feelings, has a terrible kind of religion—the kind that allows him to do wrong all his life and yet mhos him want to save his

I t* ib id . p , 11§. p . 171. p, B3B. f t td* m

soul when he ties, the people of Old Ohureh bhlnklt 24 Is & shams that a girt ’’horn of a mischance" acts as if a man were responsible for hors young Say is accus­ tomed to calling a woman emotional, hut he is indignant­ l y surprised when & woman In whom ho is interested 11- 2B lust rat os his general i sat ion ? he tolerates m walking by the women from the straight path of duty, hut he 26 thinks, well—men w ill be m m when he is ashed by I r t l y why he loves Blossom one year and her the newt, he re­ sponds that he can’t explain it to a woman, that ’’they’re 27 not made of flesh and blood as men are,1’ But Kolly, with eyes that see truly, knows that women have had to 27 ’’d rill their flesh and blood* to stand this double stan­ dard, that "vleiousness is viciousnees whether it be male 28 or female,* and not even the church can convince her m that it domsaaH "take two to make an impropriety, ” Hrs, Bolton thinks if women play fast and loose with the men, 29 i t i s no more than, the men deserve, Her listeners—all men—agree that if more women spoke the truth, "sin would

23, Ib id , p . 174. 24, Ib id , p* 297. 25, f ¥ H , P« 386. 26, ib id . P* 389* 27, f f H , P* 410. 28, £¥£d.P* 300* 29, u s . P* 301- 59

be scarce then an* life earnest/' and that men would abide by the "letter and net by the spirit as they do now* In 1913 Miss Glasgow decided to write the Mog* raphy of a women of the old chim lrlo system* showing her in relation to that system and the order that was 1 3 changing* Bo she 'wrote Virginia^ and gently extingu­ ished the heroine of the Victorian period; and in #s- 5 tingalshing Virginia she meant to extinguish the type* fhe narrative is so filled with real life ana so filled with one personality that It could almost have been named for Henry lames* s novel fhe Her tra it of a ladsr* Virginia* the heroine of the novel* Is an example of the old fashioned Southern lady who lives on into the era of feminine self assertion; a specimen of a vanishing social order who lives on into the time of aggressive womanhood* As she grows older* V irginia's loveliness fades* and her innocence becomes a nuisance because mentality is lacking* Miss 01aegow has empha­ sised this point of Intellectual equality of mates In fhe Wheel of life* written several years before Virginia*

30. Ib id * p* SOB. 1* Overton* Orant II.* on. clt* p* ISO. B. V irg in ia . Doubleday* Page and Co.* 1910* 3. "literature and Art”. Current Opinion. July* W* 1913. pp. 50* 51* 4. Van Boren. Carl, Contemporary American n o v e lists , th e MacMillan Company, 1938, p . 133. 60

111# heroine of Virginia is mentally unable to understand her husband; she gives herself entirely to her children, and, "to the end she has nothing left for herself and Is tragically dispensable to them”, Carl fan Doran thinks rt that Virginia is the most thorough and the most pathetic picture extant of the American woman as fictorianism eon- 5 solved and shaped and m isfitted her Virginia, like both G ab riella in life andG ab riella and Dorinda to Bar rial* Oromd, is throughnwith tote long before the novel ends, bat there is nothing left after but emptiness* Gabriella and Borlada both fill their lives after love has gone* At this point Virginia ceases to attract her husband, who 6 thinks it is hell to live as they live, although he real­ ises that Virginia has been too good to him from the be­ ginning* After their separation, Virginia becomes aware th a t men have been Row ing away from th e ir wives a l l h er life and before she was born, and that if Oliver wishes a divorce, it is not law but life that will give it to him* What gout does it do to hold him If he wishes to be freef At that point it is not that Virginia loves her husband*

5« Ion Boren, Carl, Q£, clt, 1922, p, 134, that she wishes to hold him--for she realizes love is dead—but she wishes to bold blot simply because of that bar aether sad otber people w ill tbink. She knows that tbe Southern m a a 'i borror of scandal ie stronger than the horror of illaeel. She ie willing to live a Ufe of sham rather then go againet an oetabliebed convention* Zt ie with sorrow that 10.8a Glasgow pokes holes in the tradition of tbe Virginia lady* ironically she writes that Virginia's whole ednoatlon was "founded on the simple theory that the lews a girl knew about life the better prepared she would be to contend with It." And on: "Virginia's education, like that of every well-bred Southern woaan of her day, was designed to paralyze her reasoning faculties and to eliminate a ll danger of mental upsetting* She was the passive and helpless victim of the ideal of feminine eelf-saorifilS.* fhe motto of Virginia's household is, "Virginia must be spared." And for what? Marriage! It is like preparing the lamb for the sacrifice. Before marriage she is taught to do nothing but to be desirable to men; after her aarriage she endures m

s a c r ific e and gives up everything for others* Being a woman* ah© never complainis: being her motherfe child she take© no exercise to heap her beauty and health be~ cause her soother did not b elieve in exercise for ladies* Her mother and grandmother believed that the difference between the liver Of a woman and the liver of a lady was 11 that the liver of a lady did not need exercise* „ Of course* as Virginia grow© older and her youth and bloom disappear* her sola attractions are gone* then she cannot interest either her husband or her children, ah# begins to wonder shat is wrong with her lot in life* Her mind has not bean developed enough to allow her tobecome interested in any* thing besides her own family; so there ism resource for her* In those days the m m n waited* fhey waited for lovers* they waited for children, and they waited, oht so patiently* for death throughout u lonely old age* All had their dream of lore that was supposed to change end glorify the reality* But women need somethingt*me ♦ban * husband and children In their lives* Miss Olasgow feels that in the p ast woman hare tried to live by their emotions* but she b eliev es it is-safer to hold bach the emotions unlesswomen want to spendempty liv e s* km Oliver* her husband*

H* fhe Hiller of old Church* p* V4* m

w rite s him plays, Virginia ie powerless to help him because she is unable to give an intelligent Justifica­ tion of his work ant her lim itations appear unaur mount - IS able to hefr At the very moment Oliver needs an intel- leotual outlet for the torrent of his Imagination, Vir­ ginia, a perfect wife, hardly assists at all as a mental ooi^iMk mpanion. ^Kii. d' .S&.’tiMk a woman of this type is the result of southern Vic­ torian conventions. Whom a woman was not taught to take a true view of life, for that meant shattering the elabor­ ate tissue of illusion she wreathed around the world she inhabited, Just as in fhe Deliverance real conditions were veiled for the sake of the blind mother* So the Southern woman lived on, looking "gently down on the Iroblem of the South as the Southern wo nan had looked tom on it for generations and would eont inue to look down on it for generations s till to some—without seeing that it 14 was still a problem." fhe mother slaved in secret while Virginia was ©pared, and while Gabriel, her husband, was kept from doing anything undignified.

IB. Virginia. p. S6d. 13. M ir p. 307. 14. Ibid. p. 47. 64

In contrast to this type ie Susan, *ho, in spite ef her Southern education, thinks clearly and precisely teoftuse of her natural intelligence. Instead ef her grow­ ing old and useless at forty, Susan grows younger end aore interesting, turning her tack forever on old age at fifty* She doesn’t care for shat her father or grand­ father thinks, ehile Virginia never thinks of looking at a aan without first asking her wether ’ 3 opinion# Susan's spirit la expressed through character; Virginia's through eaotlon; Susan adults that her happiness does not depend upon how wany tiaee a aan looks at her, while Virginia's greatest dread is the spectra of spinaterbood. In 1916 Kiss Glasgow wrote U f a and Gabriella. her only novel written in Hew fori# She m m eystea of conven­ tion— tbs Victorian eyefcea— which produced Virginia, pro­ duced Gabriella in life and Gabriella: hut, instead of neekly eubaitting to eiroumstenoes a* Virginia did, Gabri­ ella, like Susan in Virginia, nates her own destiny by using her intelligence# Virginia wants happiness, hut Sebriella insist! upon it# U f a and Gabriella marks the entrance of the SQuthernKViotorlsn wonsn into the business world# Before this tine, held dawn by tradition# she has

1,, life end Gabriella. Soubleday, Sage & Co., 1916. G• Haardt. .Sara.'' o p . clt#. p. 106. 3, Overton, Grant V., op. cit. p. 160. been afraid to venture forth* She has been kept baek not m l y by custom, but by education* Imagine Virginia1 a trying he earn her own living in a city;I Gabriella wiahea to help support her family by trim­ ming lata in a store* *0h» Gabriella* not in a sterol It would kill mother! # cries sister fane* while her mother supplements her exclamation with the suggestion that Gabriella work in her home if she wants to work, forgetting that she wants money* ant that housework in her own home w ill not bring her money* Her uncle sug­ gests that she teaoh school* Preparation doesn't mat­ ter; "fou don’t hare to know much* to teach them (little children) * and you write a very good bant, * adds Ups* Carr* fussy suggests plain sewing--Pussy* who is afraid that store work will inter fere, with Gabriella’s social position* her going to germane* ant her haring attentions from young men* Making lampshades is suggested—only there ie no sale for lamp shade s #—ere ohet ing, making e&kee for the -Woman* a Exchange* But Gabriella isn’t trying to m m church money; ©he wants to earn a living* as her uncle knows* A rthur, to whom G ab riella ie engaged* has m M s ideal the Virginia type of woman who had rather die than work in a shop* But Gabriella Is insistent that 66

*1*4 ratter die than tie dependent all my life, and X*» going to earn a y living if 1 have to treat roots to do 6 it." S’allingrin leva, Gabriella marries and goes to slew fort to live. Her baby eases, and though ate had thought ter husband aomfortsbl? wealthy, she has to uo* her wel- ting elothsa for her baby’s first outfit, Seorge having married Virginia because he could not bo happy without V ter, toes not mean to give up anything. As did terry in the Steel a t Ufa. George lives as he did before Marri­ age, drinks as he did before Marriage, and satisfies bis phyeioal appetites as he did before marriage. Carriage, instead of steadying hia as his mother wished, gave him perfect liberty and two children for Gabriellato oare for. She sells her jewels,works in a Saw fork store, divorcee her husband, and— by truthful, straightforward business methods— buys stock in the business, and finally owns the store, When all is going easily, when ter almost grown children are in school, and comfortable and saooseeftol middle age has come. Gabriella feels the need of a com­ panion for ter hours of relaxation and play, and ter mind

6. Ibid. p. 29. 7. TSSf. p. m

naturally turns to Arthur—her old-time fiance* I®* gelled by a feeling of sentiment, she goes borne to Bichmond, and finds ikrtlmr mentally and financially lost where she left him years ago. ffeea she realises that it would ma&e an old woman of her to marry Arthur, who seems to hare the habit of missing things, of Xet- m ting things slip by him# Because of fear of a misstep, ted not dared to go forward; from dread of pain, he a had refused the opportunity of happiness. * fhen in a flash iabriella km w s what counts: truth, generosity, bravery, Mndness, tolerance, sincerity—not balance, 9 moderation, restraint, breeding, taste. From these latter attributes, which she recognizes as belonging to Arthur, she revolts; for she wants—-not a ©an who will lie to her for her own good—but one who will te ll her the truth at any cost. Character is more effective 10 and more ant than culture and circumstances. low a peculiar thing happens, Virginia would never have told a ©an that she loved him; certainly she would not have chased him to a railroad station to tell him. But when Gabriella, the new type of woman, realizes it is

&. Ibid, p. 51§. 9. H H . pp. 479-480 . 10. TEH, p. 62* m

0*Sara not Arth«r whom ah© loves* she takes the first train to Sow fork ant stops 0*Hara at the train Just in time to keep him ffcom going West ant out of her life for- ever* "tradition* she knew# hade her sit still and wait on destiny until she withered* like Arthur* to the vital sore of her natures hut something mightier than tradition* something which she shared with the swarming multitude of children in the streets—the will to live* to strive* to conquer—this had risen superior to the empty rules 11 of the past*11 fruly the Southern woman has come into her inheritance. In 1919 Miss Glasgow wrote the Builders, the story of a trained nurse* in which she viewed Virginia politics from a modern angle# In this novel is the parasite type of woman* Angelica* who gets what she wants from life without oaring how many people are sacrificed for her sake# She is like Boger Ate**s wife* Connie* in ffhe ffheel of life # loth women are fascinatingly lovely to look upon, yet with­ out intellectual quality# Both are attractive to men, hut Angelica is more selfish and deceitful than Connie# Singu­ larly* both women have husbands who are alike# Both Boger and David have the idealistic Southern chivalry for women*

11# Ijbid* p* 5B? 1# tghe B u i l d e r Doubleday* Page & Co.* 1919# m

which mates them sacrifice their lives for Connie ana A m o tio n In %he Wheal of life. Copal e alee oftor her operation, and Hoger finds happiness with laura; hut in fh e B uilders Angelica comesf t am the hospital to llva—possibly for years—*wlth David, who is deeply in lore with another woman. In £he Builders Miss Glasgow wipes out sectional feeling between the Horth and the South* fhe traditional Idea—that if your father was a democrat you should he a Democrat, or if you vote a Hepublioan ticket, you are going over to the Hegroes—»cliangee for the new Idea of % breaking the solid South.fl fhis is the last novel In which llhss Glasgow mentions these sectional differences, for the World War, which has been going on for two years* has liberated Virginians from the old sectional bondage. Virginia in thinking, not only in terms of America, hut in terms of the world. David Blackburn represents the broadminded and patriotic eifclsen of his day who sees what America’s entrance into the great war means for the future—*be is the builder for tomorrow. David believes: "Ho man mm do g re a t cons tra c tiv e work who is not seeking to express an imperishable idea in

Ibid* p* 20. 70

material substance. "Ho man can build for tomorrow who 3 build© only with bricks and mortar*" He thinks that Virginians are nationalists end idealists in theory, but that they wish to maintain the solid South as If it were no part of the United States. 'Thus in 1919 Miss Glasgow was writing what men a ll over the country were saying nearly ten years later in the campaign of Hoover for Ires- ident. Davis is not a politician, but a statesman who is looking forward and building for the future, fo him, 4 nothing but his love, his faith, and his country mat­ ters. He believes that, without unselfish consideration for others, there can be no morality; therefore, in order that a man may cast hie vote right, he must first live . right. He believes that unless America wins the World War, "th e re can be no freedom from either individual or 5 national development." like the Governor in One Man in His fime. he believes that civilization, humanity, and democracy are both finer and nobler than barbarism, sav­ agery, and autocracy; that if America does not keep faith with the men who have died in franco, she must suffer both phys­ i c a l and s p ir itu a l d e fe a t• He knows no p resid en t could cause

3# Ibid. p. 108. 4. Ibid. p. BEE. 6# fehe" G uilder s> p. 337 71

a spiritual victory, for that l i e s with the Individual American, He believes in sacrifice—a willing sacrifice for the general goof. And this idealistic statesman has Ms political ca­ reer and Me peace of mind destroyed by a selfish* eling- ing-vine wife,- On the outside she appears beautiful and soft- and sweet—but earsMaasa& Blah, *Dar mtn9 nobody gwine ter teow what she’s a-fisMn* far tm tl she’s done 7 eotehed h i t . " She’s nMealy-xr0 uthed,*f end ’’she’s got eoff soap about * w * n She lo se s m opportunity to puttevid at a disadvantage* to make him appear to others thought­ less* selfish, ridiculous, and even cruel# She spreads a rumor which starts a scandal concerning her husband* She leav es Mm f o r a w ealthy man, and, a s soona ® he d ie s, goes bach to David to be taken care of. She cares noth­ ing for her daughter* who has to depend entirely upon David for love and sympathy; she ruins the life of David’s sister Itay by trifling with the affections of her lover# Davit and Angelica are exaspies of those who do not marry for something deeper than love; and as Mss Glasgow con­ tinually shows, unless there is some deeper attraction

6. Ibid# p# 076. 7 • JpBlycC* p» B9S • when love goes* there is nothing tat unhappiness# David might have been a groat leader in his state and his ootrn- try tat for the'paralyzing effect of Angeltef •« Appealing th reat their child, she causes David to sacrifice his ea- rear, M s happiness* and M s love* Carolinelleade, themm se for David's child, is the woman whose tore he has to sacrifice* Dong before she goes from her home to the Blacthnm* s# she had lost her first level then she watches and waits for"something different" to come into her life* IllsBorinda and Sabri- e lla she doesn't give up. Her h ea rt is broken, t a t h er 9 head and her hands are whole; and again she reiterates the refr&in of Miss Glasgow’s later heroines* "fhere mast 10 he something one can live on besides love*" S ard in e has intelligence, wisdom* energy* andcourage; so* confident th a t, "Hove is that greatest good in the world, hut it is 11 not the only good," she looks forward to the time when love w ill come,. not as a transient passion, hot asIn te l- 10 leetuaX sympathy. Courage is her watchword, the only IS legacy left her by her father; mud it is courage—Which

S# Mann, Dorothea lanrance, op. eit. p. 03 • 9* fhe Builders. p, S. 10#10, TJirircn y ^ U. pp. 340*34¥. 10# p. 34$. 13. p. » • m

a generation ago, because o£ prlte,muia hare Mlled a g irl—that make© Mar take up gorging, as tier life*® work* When Mrs* Blackburn spitefully seals her from tier home* Caroline resolves that people cannot hurt 14 her antes® she lets them* that her life is her ora. When she te lls David good-bye* and her heart is about to break* she again remembers that life cannot hart her unless she lets tf* When she reaches home, she realises that it M il take^eoorage to be happy1* and feterminatlou tod inteHlgenee; hot she determines that* because her life is her own* she can make of it anything she chooses* With her high ideals and her courageous spirit* she; like laura in tee 18an in His fime^ is doomed to disappoint­ ment. fhosd people who are selfish get what they want, while the unselfish ones pay the price* fhe novel ends, leaving Angelica with David—a broken* unhappy man,— and Caroline about to sail to France as a nurse, fhla is the fatal reward of virtue.

14* .Ibid* p* 10* lb* flit* p* 309. 74

SisluneM Booiety sfflBfc iiave Seen distressed wben 1 I&ssG&asgcw wrote On# Man in Sis fime. thereby making

£ ^ ^ a man from the circus tents governor of Virginia! Bat as long as the Governor doesn*t remain to the cireae teat, Miss Glasgow d o e sn 't care* Hiohmond had n e t been shocked when, in ffhe Voice of the People* her third novel, the poor Williamsburg waif becomes Governor of the state, hs- cause no one was reading Mss Glasgow then, and if people did read her, they did not take her seriously* In One Man in His fime M ae '-Glasgow- weighs and con­ siders in a contradictory* modern period, when the old things jirumblBfflbling and the new things seem hardly worth the havings when good breeding and self-respect are looked upon askance, mad the * flapper" with lots of npep” is the accepted lady in society* ffcree years have passed since f he M ilters was published, six "since life scat Gabr iella* But during the period that elapsed between the two, the earth has been shaken by the greatest war it has ever known, and there has been a social upheaval in America such as America has never known* It is the young people of this p erio d Whom Mr. Ganby i s d escrib in g when he w rites? wat

!• One Man in His f Ime^ Double day. Page and Co., !$££. 2m Kichardson, Endora Hamsey, Biohmond and I t s W riters. The Bookman. December, 1928, p*"JW£m ? 5

til# age of seventhey mw through their parents ant characterized them in & phrase. At fourteen they saw through education ant dodged it. At eighteen they saw through morality and stepped over it-. A t twenty they lost respect for their home toms, and at twenty-one a they discovered that our social system is ridiculous.1’ In this period of upheaval—the results of which are yet being f e lt in the South—M ss Glasgow does not condemn# she weighs* Gideon fetoht: the ’’one man*" of the "poor white 4 trash. * demagogue of the demagogues—so the aristo­ cratic group to which Stephen Culpepper belongs thinks— Is the new Governor of Virginia. Bobbed-haired* crimson- lipped* short-skirted Patty Vetch, intensely alive, is his adopted daughter* fhe sadness of the novel is caused by no one’s understanding Vetch except the lovely and aris­ tocratic Corirma Page, who sees him as being of "Ignoble 6 circumstances and in fin ite magnanimity." fhe man has a power born of Ms love for humanity and his b elief in people, the power of "Human sympathy—the sympathy that means imagination and in sigh t...... It is the spirit

£• Mppman, falter* op>* c i t . p* 17* 4* One Man in His fim e. p* 4* 5* Ibid* p# 572* 6. M l* p* 3H1* ?6

that comprehends, that reconciles, and recreates,n fhe Governor is many aided: we see himme he appears to tfr- bam Judge £sge; we see him as hi appears to Stephen Culpepper, heme from France* nervous, weak-willed, d is ­ illusioned and afraid of life; and we see him as he ap­ pears to *?hXius Gershorn, the practical politician* Bvery- th in g he does, everyone he knows shows u s glim pses o f th e man who is standing between two extremes and is doomed ¥ to be crushed to pieces beneath them* to the novel there Is a suggestion of a new humaneness In industry, shorn to Vetch*s attitude toward the strike. It is a vague sug­ gest ion, but the impression given is that he doesn't sit# with either extreme of the party; he advocates the old age pension, the maximum wage, end he hints at the govern­ ment ownership's of railroads# fetch believes to democracy as a live, wans, and fluid g thing. He preaches a "political pragmatism,” He believes he stands "for the indestructible common sense of the Amer- 9 loan mind,.91 and he believes that there is coming a spirit of liberalism, that in order to have a good democracy the better people w ill have to mix with the common people—tor

7 , Ib id , p* 2BB. 8. I M S . p. 119. 9« X^^Li p* 178 • f t

leavwa w ill have bo put into the bread before the bread w ill jfiiS—that the leader of a deaoeraoy oust at aaoft bring tradition and programs together, reoon- olle the roaantle end roallstle, the progressive and oonaervatliPo, fetch has to face the problems of low wages, high rests, uKpioyaent,—a ll of whioh calmia&te is the etrilce that ends his life* Seithor the aristocrats nor the eom» men pesple—aho gat him into power^-understand him, and he understands, so well, that selfishness is censing a ll the trouble, that the oppressed are sot looting far free* dent but for a chance to become opgrsseore, Gideon Vetch’s South is a new South. Slectrloitjr, concrete, high and fiiaaily built buildings, the belief that the symbol of material auooees is else, the disap­ pearance of the hospitable old hones, a modern spirit full of breathless vitality, the realistic spirit over­ coming the romantio spirit—a il characterise the new the watchword of the new generation is "pep." In Corinaa Bags tradition and progress aro blended. She is a mixture of roacntiolsa and realism; she Is a woman who has given a ll, and yet she is able to live on fa

sat be assful • She Is like Gabrielis in her ability to over coma obstacles sat be happy. She, Ills the Governor, is standing between two extremes, bat getting complete happiness from neither, the Victorian unman in her sacrifices her lover for Alice Bokeby, who has divorced her husband to marry him—Alice* who mopes at home because of unsatisfied love. Mhe Virginia* love is AHeefe whole existence* for she has no Intelligence with which to fill her life. It is Alice who repeats the thought of laura in fhe gheel of life. nthere ought to he something more permanent than love for one to live I f . n She forgets that there Is courage, Corinna recom­ mends it* and* loving the larks of life* gives them to Alice—the weak* clinging woman—and gets the sparrows h e r s e lf . the flappers* fatty Vetch and Mary Byrd, are typical of the new woman, fkey are desirable* elusive, genuine, hungry to know things, able to "play the game* * and be a 11 good sport,w without affectation and pretense* truth* fol, and willing to do and to dare—characteristics sup- plying the place of Victorian moralily. Styles have changed

*»• Ibid. p. 296. 14. M . p. 341. f t

slue# Gabrielis opened her fashionable Hew York shop. Women wear higb*heelea low shoes a ll She year round, and very short and very thin dresses*** so short and thin that Mary Byrd’s father, seeing her dressed for a dance, won* ders if she is going in swimmilf* to an excuse for her dress she says a ll the popular girts dress as she dress­ es* fhen her father utters a 1930 platitude when he says, "Well, I suppose If everybody does it, it is all right"** the whole philosophy of oonduot today* In sharp contrast to Mary Byrd is Margaret Blair, a sweet and beautiful left*over from the Victorian age. fen years before her time, Margaret would have been a raging belle; but beside the blatant, flaming damsels of the lew South she is as insignificant asm ftar of Bethlehem in a bed of crimson peonies* Stephen, who is supposed to marry her, knows her worth, but feels that a marriage with her would suffocate him* He has felt the charm of the un* known, or he might have accepted convention for romance* It is Patty Vetch, eOLastic and variable, resourceful and intelligent, who fills his life in the end, maiding him break a ll tradition and have the will to be and to dare* Courage Is the keynote of the novel**courage to do lb* Ibid* p* 63 80

and dare. Marmot hasm courage, Alice leteehy has 33» courage* and oven Stolon feels that after the war hie courage is gone* Cortona has the courage to give up her le v e r to Alice Hoteeby, to ohsapioia ta tty Vetch when th e re was no one else* andthe courage to begin over again when the governor is shot, fat tv Vetch is d iv e with courage* She faces all Bicbmond society with it* fhe Oovernar has the courage of a brave mazt who tenows he Is r ig h t, who i s not to be hrow~beaten by- cheap politicians* Stephen represents the courage of being able to begin again, to breate all traditions, and to marry the girl he loves regardless of convention* "Courageously to mates the best of things as they are, without pessimism or "evasive idealism ,,f while energet~ I f ically striving: to improve them'v~th is may be called the mental attitude o f One Man in His ftme***

16, Ffild, Ionise Maims© 11, ^Bllen Olasgow on the m fo m Spirit" fhejew 1^rte„limes ..Boote ,Bevlw and Magazine,Mtfy H,^;p* ^ • ^otoitj^io copy* 17. 91Q1&, Ionise Jfeansell, op. cit. p. 8 6 . SI

Mis a Glasgow’ * eoven abort stories, published be­ tween 1899 and 1983 separately is aagaeinea, were col­ le c te d under tho t i t l e o f th e Shadowy T h ir l, ana were-pub­ lished is 1923, between One hfen in His flaa and Barges Ground. they are in no way eonneeted with the social oraor of the South, although the aoeneo of nost ore laia in Virginia, they verge on the pseudo-scientific, dealing with psychology and psyohoanalysla. They deal with mystery, with the unknown which Is reached only through the tnagination, Bellying that "it la the high assente that oaks a life, and the flat ones that f ill the years," Ilea Glasgow writes e&oh story around the pinnacle aaaent In the life of each of the actors. Psychologists would he interested especially in the Shadowy third. A Point in Borala. ana the taatt The Shadowy third. Jordan’s Sad end Whispering leaves wight interest a psychopath!St. In the first story, the Shadowy third, a woman loses her young daughter, for whose death she hints that her husband, a noted surgeon, is responsible. Is her hallu-

1. the Shadowy Chird. Boableday, Page and Co., 1923. 2. ^buff's Sift.*' the 5naaowy third, p. 104. oinatioix, she and the negro butler see the child and play with her dally, fhe mother la finally sent to m asylum* As the husband is about to be married again, he comes hurriedly down the hall stairs, is caught by the mysteriously appearing skipping rope of his dead daughter, and crashes headlong downstairs to his death. A case for Sir Arthur Conan BoyleJ the word moral oc­ curs once In the story. Is there a moral to it? In Bare1 a S ift, the second story. Miss Glasgow states that there are no more haunted houses, that for ghosts hairs been substituted "hallucinatIona, neurotic 3 symptoms, and optical illusions, " A young married couple from Washington rents "Bare*s Sift,* a haunted Virginia mansion, for the summer. Mildred, propelled by she knows not what, believes it is morally necessary that she disclose certain business secrets of her hus­ band1 e. A deplorable scandal, 'Concerning the Atlantic and Eastern Bailroad, is disclosed, and her husband, a lawyer, loses his case, later the husband finds that in the same house a Southern g irl gave up to the Confederate soldiers, her f iance, a Yankee soldier, whom she had hid­ den and promised to care for. Boos Miss Glasgow mean that each house has a soul created by the first people who lived there?

3» fhe Shadowy f h ir d . p.47. 83

Bast a second wife lias the hallucination that the dead wife appears visibly at times between herself and the living husband* tot 11 she decides that she w ill give up her husband to the dead woman, that she wants nothing that belongs to someone else, until she has triumphed over the past, she does not win* Whispering leaves Is of the same general character as th e Shadowy t h i r d * A visitor to the home of his Southern ancestors is able to see the phantom of the dead Hegro mammy flho, even in death, cares for the son of her mistress* Her mistress, on her death bed, made the togro swear never to let the. boy out of her sight* fhe legro in the story saves the boy from burning alive* in A Point in Morals* the question is whether ”sav- 4 tag a human life may become positively immoral*1* An Englishman tells the story of his meeting on a train a men who Is about to be captured by detectives and to be carried to certain death* fhe criminal has a vial of carbolic acid with which he means to end his life be­ fore the train stops* He sees a bottle of morphine In the Englishman’s bag, and insists that he be given it to

4m Ibid* p* 202* 84

use In stead o f th e a c id . I f he is to commit su ic id e regardless of the consequences, IsaH It a moral act if the Englishman gives Mm the morphine thereto allow­ ing him to die a more comfort;able death? the English­ man leaves the morphine for him. later* In the news­ paper* there is an account of the criminal’s death. Where is the line between morality and immorality? In the story five intelligent people discuss the problem and arrive at no conclusion. In the Difference* an artist of the new generation with all the courage of ignorance* insists that Margaret Fleming give up her husband with, whom Bose* the a rtist, Is in love* Margaret* a Victorian wife* with, a Victor­ ian husband, decides to give him up if It is for his happiness. When she offers George release* he is indig­ nant* -and Insists that, the affair ms simply a ^recreation, ” and th a t th e re was nothing to it* tor dan’s End is concerned with a family which* for generations* has suffered from inherited mental decay. A wife* rather than see her beloved husband live the rest of his life in an asylum, gives hi® an overdose of opiate, the doctor Is the only one who fenows—and he only half suspects— the truth. Is it an immoral act to free one

5# Ibid. p. 060 a s

from inherited Insanity? y 5 th e chBTaotev/i^these stories .are both real and unreal, but none of them Mare a life in common every- day society, the point all of them hare in common is that the spark of their liras barns before ms at white heat* fhe voi mm of stories is truly a collection of high moments* M ss Glasgow* u n lik e so many w rite rs h as n o t been converted to new. Ideas; she has held to the same belief she had at the beginning of her literary career, for these ideas she has fought in each of her novels. Her in siste n t theme since 1897 has been that there should be something besides love for women to live by* She has emphasized the need of work and independence for women, 1 and Barren Ground contains the fulfillment of all she predicted for her sex in the Descendant.In Barren Ground are no cavaliers* no loving, courteous Southern gentlemen, no beautiful belles, no legro mammies, no mint juleps; but there is futility, poverty, work, defeat, and bitter real­ ity. The only splashes of color in the novel are those of Bose Bmlly’s zephyrs, which she knits as she lies dying, now and then a brilliant sunset, Borindafs orange shawl,

1» Barren Ground. Double day, Bags and Co., 1925. 06

and her eyas—blue as a Jaybird's wing* Ail beside is the dan shads of broomse&g© and dying leaves* In writ­ ing of the quality of th© mrr&tiv©, Mies Agues Bepplier, a severe or it la of stylo* considers Barren Ground "a a brilliant accomplishment in manner as wall as matter* ° the scon© of tbs morel which is concerned with poor whites only* is laid In Caroline Coimty, Virginia. On© critic speaks of the narrative as Miss Glasgow's most ad- n mirabX© example of epic novels; another calls It *a val­ uable document upon typical Virginia;* Jams© Branch Ca­ b e ll c a lls i t "fh© l a s t Cry o f Bom&ncl;" Cameron Boger© says, "It la the first outrider of what may prove an army, the first note of a clarion hitherto unfamiliar to the South* that of realism.* In Barren Ground the lower classes are rapidly con­ quering their traditional poverty through first conquer­

ing the soil* Family tradition plays no part In the novel*# religion plays no part except in the life of ihrs* Oakley— It isn 't necessary to Borinas;, All Scat hern-Victorian scruples concerning woman’s place In the world of business, are overcome! there is no ©ham in the lives of the char­ acters—all is cold reality; It is proved here that love

2m Clark, Emily, op. ©It. p. 41. Bm Mann, Dorothea Laurence, E llen Glasgow. Doubleday, Doran, 192V, pp. 21 and 22. 4. Van Boren, Carl, "Barren Ground", fhe Mew Bepubllc. April, 29, 1926, p. 271. 5. Cabell, dames Branch, RUaajanwgg* Double day, Doran, 1920, p* 26. 6 # fiogers, Cameron, nEealism ?rom the Homnntto south fo r ld ’e Work. May. 1926. p. 99. ” i s m% neceas&ry for a m m an*# full Ufa# fhese South­ ern conventions have been hr eating down for generations* ant lioo aiaogow has followed thin passing through all her novels* Barren Ground contains the culmination of her ideas held tm m the beginning of her literary career '•"•that tradition means lees andmm 1 to Southerners; that the wgoo4 people" of the South are rapidly becoming the beet people; that religion is becoming to mean less to women than is a philosophy of morale; that women may enter any business ant imeceed—even after being "ruined;” fl n that women should no longer tolerate the double standard * for they haw a right to those privileges that men haw; that men and women should no longer lead lives of sham, but be brave enough be live and speafcthe tru th * Borlnda* deeply in low with fascn Greyloofe, by whom she has been wronged* flees to lew York* where her new* bow infant dies* She begins to live over and rebuild h er lif e * Qaing bsolt to Pedlar*s M il* ah# become® a suc­ cessful owner of an up-to-date dairy farm* marries If at ban 3*31nr because she needs Ms help, and—to preserve him from the poor-house—cares for M m n Sreylocfc* who dies a t h er homo* The novel shows the futility o f passion that is caused by the at tract ion of sea, and the ability of a woman to find that there is something else besides love to live by. Mss Glasgow shows this, mot with sentimen- 7 tal humour, but with stark reality. Borin&a gives her first and only passionate love to Dr. Oreyloek, and wonders **»hy did love, when it comes, a take away all your ability to enjoy ittft When she hears of Geneva Bllgood* s buying a new dress to please Jason, %er belief that love brought happiness, had departed forever—it meant mot peace but a sword in the heart • * When Jason forgets some compliment he has paid her, "she wonders why women marry men, and asks her mother, who doesn't know but supposes each woman thinks she1 s got 10 & reason. As her mother warns her not to ,frun after men," Borinda wonders, if, when' the matter is one of love, whether "honesty;; is at best a guestionable policy. Was truth-* a weaker power than duplicity? Would evasion win in life 11 r, where frankness would fail? When she evades Jason, she

7. Brock, H. I .,”Southern Bomance is Bead**, lew fork, f imgs iBook Beview> Photo st a t i c copy, A pril; 1 Zt fBSfeV"' " 1L ' ""11,1 " u ”' 8 . Barren Grounds p . 30 • 9. " Ybid, • ” pp. 68, 69 • 10. Ib id . p . 104 • 11. ffH. p. 107. 89

sees his passion for her grow. She decides later that life would he so much simp lei1 if people built on facts and not on shame* Bor lads hoe been re a re d on b arren ground* She has had no chance to form a philosophyof life, though she struggles daily to find a road to hap­ p in e ss, Ab she flees to lew York, she voices again the thought that so many of Mss Glasgow's heroines have formulated* nfhere mat be something in life besides loll." then -follows the period of revulsion for all physical contacts* She has finished with love, and* un­ til there is something else to fill her life, she is only an empty sh ell* She knows th a t whatever comes w ill be permanent* this she tries to eisplain to Br* Faraday by telling him that on barren soil - first comes-broom* sedge; then, when that goes, there come pines and life —everlasting to stay* She is waiting for pines and life --everlasting* When Borinda returns home, and, on seeing la son again, finds that she can meet him without a return of her old emotion, she wishes that all women who have longed for love could know the infinite relief of having it over she realises that there is something deep down in her that she values more than love or happiness or anything* Yet

IE* Ibid* p. 192 90

the guest for this elusive happiness gees on, and she wonders If* when it is discovered, she will be as gray and wrinkled as her mother* Dress helps to interest her and—to a oar tain extent—makes her happy* Hathan mkes her content but not happy* Once near the end of the novel she dreams of her young love again* In her dream, w Heality was nothing, success* aaMevment, victory over fate—ail these things were nothing beside that imperish­ able illusion* love was the only thing that made life 13 desirable and love was irrevocably lost to her** But this is only onao that sis dreams* In her serenity of mind* there is no conflict of frustrated desires* She is not desolate for she has done as old Matthew told her —put her heart in the land—and the land has stayed by her* Work* communion w ith nature* th e fe e lin g o f being 'necessary to others— all revive her courage that has car­ ried her through her life* Dorin&a, who has shown that a woman can succeed in the business world* is a modern ©t&rielXa* stripped of all sentimentality* who thinks* "not with the heart but with the head*"

13* Ibid* p . 60S tx

&b in most of her novels H as Glasgow ma&es us feel, pity for the defeated hopes of human beings, she tmM&s us feel pity for each of the comedians in her fifteenth novel-sad next to her latest—Sfoe Romantic Comedians. Although Sh# has given as approaches to the modern g irl, this is the first of her novels to be written about %a 2 intensely mode™ girl#1* through these fifteen novels M ss Glasgow has shorn insistently that sexual passion Is evanescent, that women are soon disillusioned as to love, and that m n love humiliatingly and bewilderingly 3 without being loved in return. In 1926 Stuart £. Sher­ man wrote that Realism crossed the Potomac twenty-five years ago, going norths*1 alluding to the red-haired hero In ghe Voice of the Feonle. With fhe Romantic Comedians realism has mossed the oceans, for the principles in this novel apply not only to Virginia and the South but to m n and women all over the world. Women of the South have sat and waited In the past, but they no longer wait in 1926 unless they are left-overs from the Victorian era#

1» fhe Romantic Comedian 8« double day, fage & Co#, 1926. 2# C&aa&L femilvZ ' ou. 'o lF . p. 40. 3# Sherman, S tuart'£* m » c i t . p . 9. 92

Xn The Romantic Comedians. Judgo Honeywell, a man, is left salting. In tills novel a si dower, age sixty-live, of the old school, sorries and trios to hold the of footion of a bighetrong modern girl of twenty-three* Els otm- fuelon of passion with love is the object of siss Glae- gow's irony* for the ahdcfca in The Romantic Comedians the reader has been prepared: for the Judge’s regarding with amorous intensity the copper arsa of the light «a- la tto servant he has been prepared by Silas Treadwell's B offspring* MMX* by black Mandy§ *»a to r th« "slipping" o f %h» Judge1si sister, by ttltty’d mother la flis MIXmt 6 of OM Church end by Angela’stmmrellt# in th e sh eel of M£s» Th& difference i s th a t in the first" two of the novel© Angela and MiXly^a mother both ©offor ooBdesna* tlOB for their actions; sMle Macula, la fhe Eomantlo Comedians loving tbs wins «?M1# It Is raft* is "eagerly sought after by the inquisitive youth of the par lot, who treated bar scarlet letter less m the badge of sham than 0 as soise foreign decoration for distinguished service#*

4* th e Bog&ntic Co medians,* p* 40 • &* pp4 172# 36? £• ¥heM ille r of Old Church. a* 69 • 7* gge’ “iheel" of giVs'rop."'^ 24 8 # pm 84 - WLb& Glasgow has concluded that wen in those late Victorian days, "a lady might lose her virtue-several timet in Baris without forfeiting easts in the eyes of 9 the f . f . V's", With this announcement, Mss Glasgow breaks the Victorian tradition of physical chastity and of fidelity in marriage. Amanda leaves the Judge for a younger man with whom she is passionately in love—•with­ out so much as asking for a divorce! The story is a real tragedy of old age. Always passion has been relegated to youth* and old age has been regarded as a haven of rest; hut how far from a haven does Mss Glasgow show it to he! Even the Hebrew prophets understood the emotions of men better than we do, for did not King David* when he was stricken in years, heated neither by clothes nor food, have the fair damsel AM shag brought to him? this tenacity of love in man holds to the end of fhe Semantic Comedians. first the Judge loves Amanda passionately, he loves— with a certain warmth—Cordelia, he loves the young Ansbel with passion, and la the last pages he feels a rising passion for an even younger girl than Anabel.

9, tan Vechten, Carl, oj>. olt. p. 41. 10# 1 lings l - 1,4. 94

the Judge is of the pure tradition of the South, but his feelings for contentions were defeated because "he refused to bow his head to emotional convent ions* and he was se t on fin d in g h ispleasure where less tradition— i*botmd men find it; in the complete surrender to Ms 11 instinct, far from Ms heritage of romance and idealism*11 fh e Judge, although he is tradition bound, is oneof Adam's true sons, for he loves to watch Anabel undress because he thinks her limbs are gracious; he quickly forsakes tradition as a snake forsakes his skin when tradition comes in conflict with the primitive passions* Mrs. Bredalbane, the Judge's twin sister, is the meiirn Southerner, full ofcommon sense, sound Judgment and a saving sense of humor, Just as Anabel is typioql of the modern girl of whom there is an example in Mary Byrd, in One Man In His, f 1ms* Mrs.* Bredalbane has the sincere but uncomfortable habit of speaking the truth, the courage of her appetites, mind enough to get four husbands and to have her character restored four times, and a belief that ^happiness, any kind of happiness that IB' does not make someone else miserable, Is meritorious.n

11* Collins, Joseph, "Slien Glasgow's Hew level A tragedy of Old Age,” copy of Hew fork times Book Heview . September 12, 1926, p. 6* 12* th e Homan ti c Comedians, p* 2Bfm B&monia's keen sense of humor helps her to he to l­ erant of other people's failings, hut Mabel Is bent on her own satisfaction. She is typical of the new girl IS in that she reads but rarely and then nothing but trash, Bren Btoonla admits that though she looks innocent she is worldly wise. She is brazenly truthful, and she is self-confident to the point that' she knows the things 14 she wants better than God does, Mabel does not lean on the prerogatives of men or the acts of God, but she believes in fair play to an extent. Before she accepts the Judge, she goes to Amanda to find whether, behind her reserve, she still has a paseibn for the Judge. She won­ ders how a woman can think it moral to lie, how one can •be natural only when she is artificial, why a woman so> loves sham, fo the Judge, Mabel appears "occasionally IB noble but always unethical." Amanda considers her mar- 16 riage to the Judge immoral; bat when she finds that she has nothing to take the place of love in that marriage, she commits another immoral act by leaving the Judge and going with Dabney to what she thinks will be perfect hap­ p in e ss,

13, Ibid. p. 166. 14, TSid* p, 144. 16, p, 218 16. p. 286 m

MM Oorinna i s One ManI d Els fima. Amenda is the mm woman In the Bomantie Comedians^ who, true to her breeding, give© up her Inver. And she gets nothing in return* Bdmonia, possibly the philosopher of the novel, ,-4- utters the moral of One SSan in Sis ftoe and fhe Romantic Comedians when she aays in speeding of Am&nda, "What she is enduring now..••is almost the inevitable reward of vir- 17 tu e ." A sentimentalist pays the price! n% igr aromatic in style, ironio in flavor, sustained in intensity, ^fhe Semantic Comedians1*' makes us think of Joseph Conrad, and of his homily and justification of ysnthi wo think of I^Touthl AH Youth! the silly, charm­ ing, beautiful y o u th ,o f the strength, the romance, the glamour of youth. What he has done for youth, in making us understand and love It,M&® Clasgow has done for old age In writhing our sympathy for it and reminding us of its feebleness, sadness, drabness, inherent loneliness and path* is etie tragedy.”

17, Ibid. p, 813. 10, doll ins, Joseph, C£. cit. p. 5. I» 1M6 « . «■»». ».». . . type «P wn *ho was significant less because lie laid olaim to good breeding than because lie could not be* lieve be would ever fail to be attractive and fasci- g rating to women be wished to admire* In 1989 Bias 3 Glasgow wrote her newt novel* fh m Stooped to Folly. in which she shows the South of traditional chivalry in transition from morals and manners of one age to those of another* She has subtitled the booh A Com­ edy of Morals, and it is am ob poignant conception 4 of comedies of morals and manners. Miss Glasgow believes that moral law must change. When tie* Mttlepage is told that moral laws do not change* he replies % P e rh a p s not* Tee* c e rta in ly not," without conviction. And then he thinks, "after all* was anything stable? Sow could scientific theory* how could a moral law* be M rs stable than the perpetual 5 flaw from which it emerged and into which It returned?" Billy tells him that conventions and morals are chang­ ing because the present generation hasm m the theories

!• fhs Bomantic Comedians. 1926. 2m TSnS^TKTfT* "ihree Heroines who Stooped to Belly* Boston Evening transcript. August 3* 1989* 3. fhesr Stooped to golly. Boublsdsy* Doran and Co** 1929 4# Soskin, William* "Boohs on Our Sable*" lew York Evening P o st. August 1* 1929* £• foiev looped to Folly- p. 26?. 98

of the older generation break to pieces. Kiss Glasgow 10 truly a prophetess. In her first took la 1897 there is a prophecy that hears footing after her latest hook in 1989; "She fashions of mor­ ale end manners are changing with much rapidity. A new form of rice ia in vogue, not the old skillfully draped creature that ire of the fiftie s remenfeer so fondly—but there is a nee sohool of morality, quite a popular one in its day, and carrying under its ham* ner some of the foremost names of the century—Ibsen, foisted, I. Zola, end many others, she hold that, being 7 done publicly, it is no longer vice but realism." Soring predicted tho coming changes, she proceeds, thirty-two years after, to satirise with biting irony and polite subtlety the dishonesty and hypocrisy of the chivalry of the old-time southern gentleman. She views, scorn­ fully, the posturings toward morality held by most of 8 the characters in the novel. Virginians, the thinks, adapt themselves slowly to the bad manners and morals of today, but when they do, they adapt themselves with dignity, calm,and detachment.

6 , Ibid. p. 41. 7* The beacendant p. 84. 8 . l.k .. uEllan Glasgow Satirizes Host Moral Attitudes.'* Kansas City Star. September 7, 1989. 90

Mr* littlepage, whose father was a man with "Geor­ gian morals but Victorian manners, who had found it less 9 embarrassing to commit adultery than to pronounce the word in the presence of a lady** is disenchanted with life* He is as greatly confused as his wife* who* not knowing how to cope with the two extremes of manners, gives % up and expires near the end of the novel* But he believes that the modern revolt is less immoral than experimental* He is the revolutionary moralist; yet he tells his brother termadxt&e th a t i t looks a s i f the whole world were going to ruin* while termaduke thinks 11 the world is better off «| A because it has discarded moral shams*" hr. littlepage touches the lives of all the three lovely women who slipped; his aunt Agatha* Amy Balryple—a widow—* and Hilly Burden* his stenographer* in the penalties of these three women* Miss Glasgow lists given a picture of the revolution in the moral cod# governing feminine conduct which has occurred 11 in one lifetime* Bach woman represents a period* fhev Stooped to folly shows, hither the vast' Importance or the vast unimportance of the phenomenon* associate# with

9* Th&y Stooged to Folly- p. 00. 10* "irT ' ibid* p.124. U* PattersonTTcabel, "Hue with a Difference" Hew fo rk H erald Tribune Books. August 4* 1929* p* 1. 100

the female sex, the phenomenon of being "ruined." As to fe the opinions concerning this, there are shifting points of v i m from time to time* Perhaps this incident will make this point clear* A little Hegro g irl, who for years had been known as shiftless, worthless and ill-clad, was seen one day parad- lug down the street dressed in silks and Jewelry. "How come you a ll dressed up lak dat, Suet11 One curious darkey inquired. "How come you put tin on so?” "Ain't you heard de news?” was Sue's bearning reply. "Why, ain 't you heard de goodnews? Ah's ruined!* this attitude probably causes the name "Home for Un­ fortunates" to he changed to the "Rouse of Hope." "Whether you realise it or not," Miss Glasgow as­ serts, "being ruined- is not a biological fact, but a state of mind*—What really ruined poor Aunt Agatha—was not a IE fall from virtue but Victorian psychology." Aunt Agatha, forever crushed by one false move like Angela in fhe. Wheel of .life, and overcome by a sense of sin, retires from the world to spend herlife in the third story back bedroom, Hot until the war softened the moral fibre of Qaeensborough and Aunt Agatha is needed to make

12* fhey Stooped to Folly, p. 212. pajamas for the soldiers, does she feel she can indulge her loir# for the movies and for toe cream sodas* Mrs* Balrymple, coming half a generation later, sinned, was divorced, and was married again*A fend, clinging from* an whom man long either to protect or ruin, she is some* fchai forgiven for her slipping because of her heroic war service# lihe Eugenia in fhe Bomaatto Comedians. there is always an aroma of romance about her which fascinates M itlspsge and other men* Milly Burden slips, not heavily Xi&e the first, nor lightly* lihe the second, but naturally as if it were her IS own private concern* She Is neither penitent nor remorse* fhl, She insists she has a ri^ t to live her own life. Milly1 s mother remembers that, even at the very end of the nineteenth century, tta womsm had at least teown when Id she was ruined.11 Milly doesn't want to he safe, she wants to be free* She despises the word ^taby*, and she is hap* py at the end of the novel because she is "free to begin over again, * not to Mole for love alone, "but something 15 worth loving#11

10* Ibid* p . 219• 14* 1BBC p . m * 100

Smth la a ll that la sacred to her# Each character' In fhev Stooped to foliar thinks ha has a moral right to ha sat la flad* fhasa conflicting rights any system of morality' m at either deny or sat* lefy. Hilly eoreaats for her right to happiness which Amy ^aljm q?l6 has asked fo r lo se loudly* and Which Aunt Agatha has whispered for blindly* Even Virginias has softly sighed for It. Even Victoria lifctlepag© honour- ably maintains that there should be the right of fidel­ ity. then there ie the right of lonisa Goddard to Vir­ ginias* for she has loved him In silence all her life* while Harms duke sighs in v ain fo r her# t e r ti n G liding solves hie problem, by leaving for a foreign country* as­ serting that every mm %m a right to be alone and to be miserable in his own way* fwentjr-seven poems* bound together in plain brown boards* constitute the little volume called the freeman 1 and ,Other Poems* published by Hiss Glasgow in 1000* In She lo riaf8 Work for September* 1000* under the heading* Painty Books for the lover of foefrry* the first adver­ tisement of the little poems appears* Miss Glasgow showed

1* &*a freeman and Other foama. Doubleday* Bags & Go.* 1900* 103

hsr poems to Batalin Garland, Who visited her soon after their collected publication—"all dealing with dignity of despair, tbs splendor of Boll and tbs stent deoreos of God, singularly saeeinet and powerful of 2 diet ton." Mr. Garland thought bar progress reversed, tbat «b« began with tbs bitterness of ags. Be predicted tbattbe work would not be pleasant, bat that it would be original and powerful. Be thought her writing aor- bid and painful, —masterly and unwavering. " 3 Bmily Clark thinks she has inhabited various phases of intellectual development, and that her sci­ entific end bloiogiaal phase is recorded in her first writings as her period of skepticism is shown in the Romantic Comedians and they Stoonad to folly. In bar poems Ellen Glasgow declares that what she has wanted and what she has attained is tbs "freedom of despair 0 '—something which no one in Virginia in 1902 was look* lag for. &t that time, she was barely twenty-five. Bar poems show such great intensity and earnestness that in reading her novels, one doss not feel surprised at the number of times the phrases "moral 'earnestness" and "tor­ s i purpose" ooour. one oon easily see in bar novels

2. Garland, Hamlin. "Roadside Meetings of a literary Xomad," The Baotamw. M uch, 1920. p . 64* 3. Clark. Emily, 0£. flit, pp. 34, 36. th a t MLee Glasgow has lived up to her poetical high moments, given in the fourth hook of her eighteen# In fhe Freeman. fhe traveler* the Mountain fine. A Battle Cry, and A Prayer, she voices her faith in courage# 4 nt press irsr spurs. I ride alone” Is certainly true of her literary history. She has always heen more of a reactionary than 3&ma Branch Oahel and Mary lohnston—She was the first Southern novelist to pro* claim her adherence to reality and her disdain for sen- tim entality— a courageous attltu&e-*~espeoially in those late days of Victorian morality. "Mss Clasgow alone accepted her environment, resolute to see what she could do w ith i t # 11 § "draat me hut courage, hordlw Is her one desire in A Braver. She repeats the same thought in the Monxt- 7 tain Pine, is she writes *1 have never stooped to call nQuarterS" to victorious fate** one can see her conquer- ing against overwhelming odds. Courage is her watchword

4# fhe travelera. p# I f . 5# W eFEo^^FeS M* C|># c lt. p* 163« 6* A Braver, p# 18# 7. A Battle Cry, p. 19. 105

la her novels. the outstanding characteristic at bar heroes sa l heroines-Ben Starr, Gideon Vatdh, Laura, MiUy~-ie courage. la one prophesy* Misa Glasgow was far firos bitting the nail on the head* for in gem, ehs states that she ■111 gain fame only in death, as did feats* After twenty- seven years and, world fame. Miss Glasgow mast smile as efce re-reada that poem. In this day of novels which are written to do away 9 with war, m ss Glasgow's noaa War should bo interesting for oauq?arison with other writings on that thene. It is the only tine in all her writings that she lays bare the horror of men's killing each other* 10 gha fr e e Comedian might w a ll have been prefaced to Ih e B oaantie Come&1 arts t "Shatl take the stage again and grasp She comedy of self controi?-- *ay, better etsnd aside to grasp She humor o f th e whole.*' was written for the ladge. 11 A stansa from She Saw* shows her determination to get the most from life:

8 . She traenan and Other Poems. p. 20. 9 . p . 31 1 0 . P . 32, 11 . i s r a . p . 29, 106

"Proa good ana had alike I toa*r Security of aoul; Vaught happens hvt% becomes a la* To strengthen ray control.” Early Ellen Glasgow form&lates her belief shloh jg she gives to 1 Oread. She believes in common fellow­ ship, courtesy, love, peace, boundless pity, rights that ears wrongs, doubts, faith* ant truth* this creed is-reflected to all her morels—her earnest searching for right and truth* 10 the last stansa of her seventeenth poem, the Hunter, could fittingly be used as a summary for all her writings: "Sato thethills 1 mount and see the vultures of the mountains fleej Ky failing eyes I backward oast to gleam the harvest of the past* tor tottering feet have paused alone Before the barriers of the known-** for onward s till tbreu#* wrong and ruth, I fare—a hunter of the ’Truth*” th e re i s m f r i v o l i t y nor lig h tn e s s to h er poems* M Bven the Drinking Song* which should be oare»toee, is sung at a drunken carousal to a mam who cares nothing "for hells that wait, who has been the fool of fate** 10 tod in the poem fo Hr Bog she wonders why at the last day she shall Uprise a heaven” the dog shall never know, god's power, fate, courage, and the search tor truth are the themes of her slender velum of poems*

12. Ibid* #• 15 IS* told,. m 14. f S l t . f* 26 IS* US* p* 50 10?

In her literary career, man Glasgow has avoided tits p itfalls of writing rapidly and of trying to popularity by appealing to popular tasta. Ear produc­ tions hare appeared ainoa 189? at intervals of about two years, and nans have boon grandiloquent. melo dra­ matic, or cheaply sentimental* She declares bar thaaas In the Paaoendant. an& holda to a truthful roproftaotion - of the times of which she writes* Virginians—who have within the past ten years become oltleans of the world-* are Just beginning to understand and to appraoiate the worth of her disclosures* Such uncovering of peoples real lives and emotions by novelists, until very recently, has been oonsldered indelicate, and aristocratic Virginia 2 has been wondering just why she Aid it* la the past. Hiss Glasgow has been assigned to a school of fiction to which she belonged by geography but not by temperament* Xf the two other contemporary Virginia authors of her own ran* are homesick for the good eld days of sentiment—for Ifary Johnston has written nothing this side of the Var between the States, while James Breach Cabal writes in a country o f imagination— she has consistently been a realist from the beginning of her career, end is nos " the aost Important realist

1* noble. Bsmilton sright, oj». eit. Kay 24, 1902. p . 209. 2. BlOhardeon, Budora Baaaay. gg. o lt. December, 1928, p . 4 49. MS

of the new doalnioS." lie s Glasgow has written of democracy*a besoming tbs business of tbs a m rather than tbs gast-tiae of tbs gentleman: *be has written of the treating dawn Of tradition in a democracy rtiere tba poor mm to-aay i s tbs rich man te»*orrow, nhere there was first an aristo­ cracy of family, then an ariatooraoy of wealth and later an aristocrat of Intellect; she has seen the attitude of tbs obaroh change frow dogsetls® and restraint to liberalism and helpfulness; she has sm s women liber­ ated from tba drudgery of the boas and admitted into any field of war* the? night desire to enter; she has seen the days when B l a g l o women wake their own livin g with a failing of security m i pride; She has seen women liberated from an unfortunate marriage by a di­ vorce, unaccompanied by tbs idea of scandal; she has seen the gradual breaking down sf the double standard of worais; and she has seen tbs fine art of bypoeri.cy —as practiced in tbe South of the late vietorlan per­ iod—break away, and la Its place come a sew outepokea realism that takes tbe place of shea*

3m Vis boron, Carl, g£. alt, April.. S3, 19S5, p. 271* M ss Glasgow lias brofcen the sentimental tradition of the South; she has written about real life and real people; she has pictured the transition of romance to real­ ity; she has written excellent Southern epics; and she has done much by introducing a national patriotism, as she does in fhe Builders and in tee Han in His glue, to des­ troy sectional feeling in the South* M ss Glasgow has added charm and force to the English language; she uses delicious humor and irony and satire— delicately as m expert—to shear "away the false tradi­ tions, amiable humbugs, even the smaller triche of behaviour 4 and opinion which obscure what is fine and vigorous*" She insists, even today, upon giving what one critic calls B "tough, modern reality," Mss Glasgow has, up through her publication of They Stooped to Folly. exposed to the light of the sun real life of high, low, rich and poor* truth is what she is showing. She declares it in her little volume o f poems: "For onward still*through wrong and ruth, I fare—a hunter of the Truth*"6

4* Mann, Dorothea Laurence, o p. cit* lovember, 1926, mmrnm nmrrnu «/•(* B* Bogan, Louise, "Hew England and Virginia Ladies," fhe Hew Republic. December 4, 1929, p* 50* 6« Glasgow, Ellen, "I’he Hunter", fhe Freeman and Other Booms. Doubleday, Bage & Go*, 1902,p.56* n o

Says Stuart £• Sherman: "She was a realist when some of 7 our popular exponents of realism were in thecradle*" She has always written with purpose, and that purpose is to tell the truth#

¥* Sherman, Stuart JP# on# oit# 19S9, p# S# mm

Margie Hitman Clewnto* Clouceater, V irginia Secondary e&ucafcicm obtained from p riv a te tu to rs A* B* degree from ?lor& MacDonald College, le t Springe, Berth Carolina, 19X2 One cummer of non-credit work at She University of Virginia with £r* Metcalf and 3>r* 0* Alphonso Smith fe&oher in Olouceeter County Bublic School ^atem since 191 £• Kow teacher of English in Beta* tourt High School, Gloucester, Virginia Since 1926, a critic teacher at Botetourt High School for pupil teachers in Hoglieh for the College of William and Mary- Spent summer o f 1920 in Southern Iturope and Berth* e ra A frica Fasdliar by travel with lew England and Cam* ada Member of She National Association of teachers of English Member of Alpha 21 chapter of Khppa Belts E , 1928

1 BiBtioaaAjmr I* Books:

Slaego*,, Ellen, fhe Desoendant.. Earner 4 Bros., Hew Tork City 1BB7..V s* Planet. Harper & Bros.,

3" ^■^ r-eiwhsar^*- P e Battlo-Sronnd. Doubleday, Sage & Co., Sew York City,, 1902 ■ ' 6« fke Freeman ana Other Poems. Doubleday, Page IlSf^Ei^OliyrS^r' ' • 5«- ^fe.a§^y9r|^ |‘ Double day, Page 4 Co., lev ?* |be Wbeel’ofL ifo. Doubleday,. Page & Co.,. Sew York City, X906*r ®* p e Anolentliaw, Doubleday, Page 4 Co., lev ffag Homaace o f a B la in Man* Doubledsyy fkg© r c o v ^ W w w

11* Virginia. Doubleday, Page & Co., Sev Tork City. 12* life and Cabrlella. Doubleday, Page 4 Co lev C I ~ ~ » • |be Buildere. Doubleday, Page * Co., Sew Tork C ity , ' Id. One Man in Slg gaoae. Doubleday, Page * Co,, lew 15. ghe Shadowy lEhlrd. Doubleday, Page 4 Co., lew Toirk < iliy, 192S, 15* Barren Sround. Doubleday, Page 4 Co., lew Tork # *>»»**# If# pi© Bqmaati© Comedians* Doubleday, Pag© & So#* 13* fhey_8toona& to_ Folly* Doubleday,Bag© & 0o#t

leofey* William Edward Harfcpole* H istory o f European MgrallU D# Appleton & Company, Hew ¥or&, i6§T5. Mppraan, Walter* A Frefaoe to Morale* fhe Macmillan Company, Bm Yorl^ 198f*

11 Overton, Grant, Cargoes for Orusoea* little , Brown A 001^8^7^551557^5^7^ Overton, Grant, 3?h© Women Who Male# Our Hovels. Dodd, Head A'loipaisy,1' Bow York, Idai."' u fan Doran* Carl* Contemporary American Kovellgta. the toemiilany©^a*i^t,niWw York^'l'sWr" II. Periodioala: th e Bookman, to rc h , 1904; August, 1900; February, isfeb; Hovember, 1926; Deoeiaber, 1928; April, 1929; torch, 1960. Currant Opinion, July, 1919* ffi© Forum, toy, 1930; June, I960*

^ e Sew fenublio. Aprils09, 1926; Deceiver. 8, 1926 #o 4 , 1929* the Outlook. Saturday, toy 24, 1902. T m 'oroliSoS and Independent. January 22, 1930; Feb-* rtiary 6, IbSo; torch 19, 1930; toy 7, 1930. th e Saturday Review o f L ite ra tu re , November 23, 1929. ae^aai^ai^iSSs; toy, 1926. Ill# Miscellaneous: 1# fam pklets; g len Glasgow. Critical essays by Stuart t. Sherman, Sara Haardt, and Bally Clark, Don- bledsy, Doran A Co., tow fork, 1929, fries Sllen Glasgow. with a Biography and critical essays by R» 1. Mann, James Branch Cabal, Joseph Collins and Carl fan feohten, Bon* bleday, tag© A Co., Hew fork, 1927, price 10#. 2m Photostat Prints from the lew fork times took Review: toy 28, 1922, pp. a d m w r w m Slaggow and the todern Spirit by loulSsT M aunseii 0ctobsr28, 1923, p. 16, th e Shadowy th i r d . A p ril 1 2 , 1926, p# 2, torren Ground W"H. I. Brock. April 26, 1926, f^age number erased), Barren ground louise Collier IIHoox. 3. lewapaper clippings, most of which were loaned by Hr. longwell of Doubleday, Doran, lew fork: Boston Evening transcript. August 3, 1929, three Heroinea Who ‘Mooned to Folly by Dorothy "'foster Gilman. fhe Evening tost. August 1, 1929, Rooks on Our lahl© bv william So skin.

I l l tonsas City Star. September 7, 1929* mi*n Olasgow Satirizes fegSjTttfttal Attitu&os by I . S . ... JBSsaSBfii^^ 25, 1929* Prophet of the Saw South, by Virginias Dabney* m e new11lior& dun, Mgmt 3* 1029, When lo v e ly Woman by Henry HazlelF* Sew York Herald tribune Booke. August 4* 1929* ■Hue with a 'M f £

IV