Читать книгу The Women Who Make Our Novels онлайн

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“Genius has a particular fascination for her, and with a rare boldness she would rather face difficulties of creating or re-creating genius in her fiction than to waste time on mediocre protagonists. With the newer school of English and American novelists, with the Frank Swinnertons, the J. D. Beresfords, or the Mary Wattses, she has nothing in common, unless it be their patience. But she will not expend that patience on the drab or the colorless.

“An Alexander Hamilton or a Rezanov seems to be made to her hand, and if she cannot find what she wants in history or in fact, she prefers to dream of a woman genius, the young German countess, Gisela Niebuhr, a Brunnhilde who leads her sisters to revolt against Prussianism and all that makes Germany hideous to the world to-day.

“To understand genius, it has been said, is to approach it, and Mrs. Atherton beyond any doubt understands genius. She understands its trials, temptations, vagaries and accomplishments. She knows that the fires which feed it are certain to break out in many ways aside from its recognized work. Did Mrs. Atherton take the trouble to acknowledge the existence of Mrs. Grundy, it would be only that she might destroy that unpopular lady.