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A WORD WITH THE WOMEN
(By Elia W. Peattie)

Tuesday evening, December 3, the Nebraska Ceramic club will display its work at room 1 of the New York Life building. The exhibition and sale will continue throughout the week. the club has, among its half hundred members, some who do the most exquisite work, and it is certainly a favor on the part of those artists to exhibit their work, and to place some of it on sale at a season of the year when gifts are uppermost in the minds of women who rejoice in Christmas-tide.

There has appeared recently, in the Woman's Weekly, a new department, one of literary criticism. It is edited, or, more properly speaking, written, by Miss Irene Byrne of this city, a school teacher, who is, perhaps 20 years of age. It would be a liberty, perhaps, to mention the occupation and age of Miss Byrne but for the fact that she is doing remarkably good criticism--so good that it cannot but arrest the attention of all lovers of good writing. As a critic who has ventured to make her criticisms public, one ventures to mention her, just as one might take the liberty of making some personal remarks about a student who carried off honors at the university or a musician who has won praise. Not to distress more the modesty of a very retiring young woman one may venture to quote her last criticism of Thomas Hardy's fiction--especially Hardy's "Hearts Insurgent," which has appeared as a serial in Harper's Magazine, and which has been very recently sent from the press in book form under the title of "Jude, the Obscure" Miss Byrne says.

There is a certain likeness in the plots of his [?] noticeable to any who may have read many of the rather long list of books headed by "Desperate Remedies" in 1867, and finishing with 'Jude, the Obscure.' The likeness consists in this, that the complications generally grow out of the nature of the women whom he depicts, who, in spite of the Christian civilization into which they were born, are essentially pagan, in that they are creatures of untamed instinct who feel that joy and happiness should be their inalienable right, never thinking that their grasping for it may bring pain and sorrow to another.

These women are dowered with such a love of love, that their insatiable desire for it leads them into intimate relations with several men before they discover which one is really the prince of lovers, and even then they often waver in their allegiance and the tragedy of their lives [hes?] quite generally in the fact, that when the true lover does assert his claim, they are not quite free to give themselves wholly and unconditionally, and though they attempt it, their past or sometimes present lovers, keep them from doing so 'Undines of the earth," some one calls them, soulless creatures who because of their elemental simplicity, hold men captive.

The rest of the criticism is equally interesting, but this particular portion has been quoted because it formulates the idea which, nebulously, has been floating in the minds of all who have read Hardy's stories. These delicate Hedonists of his, who win our sympathies, perplex our judgment, baffle us, and leave us mournful, have been difficult to classify. The leader--the average reader--has ralled alternately at the world and at the woman. Miss Byrne has had to moral as well as the intellectual perception to set the matter right. Woman has grown very fascinating yet very unlovely in recent fiction and portraiture. In the frontispieces of books, in the flat prints of the posters, one sees a subtle and immoral face, half symbolic, wholly pagan. The unsophisticated look at the faces in bewilderment. The experienced are hardly less baffled, recognizing perhaps, some taint to which their lower goul responds, yet knowing how to give words to the emotion that stirs them.

In fiction the woman grows less and less sacrificial, less and less submissive. She aspires less to be "the captain of her soul," than to be the arbiter of her pleasures. She is mysterious, full of secrets. She is high priestess of sophistry. And against the implacable laws of convention she beats her wing as the wild bird beats his against the cruel bars of his cage, and in the end, like that unreconciled struggler, falls bleeding.

One sees this drift in pictures and in literature--sees it every day, and wonders why men invent such sad, sad, things. But it is not often the folly and the futility of it is set forth in phrases so [?] and excellent as those which Miss Byrne employs.

One has the honor to salute Miss Byrne. May her studies be patient, her work humble, her triumphs many. There are few pleasures in life so fine as believing in those around one. It is easy to believe in Miss Byrne. If she chooses she may do good writing.

A WORD WITH THE WOMEN
(By Elia W. Peattie)

Tuesday evening, December 3, the Nebraska Ceramic club will display its work at room 1 of the New York Life building. The exhibition and sale will continue throughout the week. the club has, among its half hundred members, some who do the most exquisite work, and it is certainly a favor on the part of those artists to exhibit their work, and to place some of it on sale at a season of the year when gifts are uppermost in the minds of women who rejoice in Christmas-tide.

There has appeared recently, in the Woman's Weekly, a new department, one of literary criticism. It is edited, or, more properly speaking, written, by Miss Irene Byrne of this city, a school teacher, who is, perhaps 20 years of age. It would be a liberty, perhaps, to mention the occupation and age of Miss Byrne but for the fact that she is doing remarkably good criticism--so good that it cannot but arrest the attention of all lovers of good writing. As a critic who has ventured to make her criticisms public, one ventures to mention her, just as one might take the liberty of making some personal remarks about a student who carried off honors at the university or a musician who has won praise. Not to distress more the modesty of a very retiring young woman one may venture to quote her last criticism of Thomas Hardy's fiction--especially Hardy's "Hearts Insurgent," which has appeared as a serial in Harper's Magazine, and which has been very recently sent from the press in book form under the title of "Jude, the Obscure" Miss Byrne says.

There is a certain likeness in the plots of his [?] noticeable to any who may have read many of the rather long list of books headed by "Desperate Remedies" in 1867, and finishing with 'Jude, the Obscure.' The likeness consists in this, that the complications generally grow out of the nature of the women whom he depicts, who, in spite of the Christian civilization into which they were born, are essentially pagan, in that they are creatures of untamed instinct who feel that joy and happiness should be their inalienable right, never thinking that their grasping for it may bring pain and sorrow to another.

These women are dowered with such a love of love, that their insatiable desire for it leads them into intimate relations with several men before they discover which one is really the prince of lovers, and even then they often waver in their allegiance and the tragedy of their lives [hes?] quite generally in the fact, that when the true lover does assert his claim, they are not quite free to give themselves wholly and unconditionally, and though they attempt it, their past or sometimes present lovers, keep them from doing so 'Undines of the earth," some one calls them, soulless creatures who because of their elemental simplicity, hold men captive.

The rest of the criticism is equally interesting, but this particular portion has been quoted because it formulates the idea which, nebulously, has been floating in the minds of all who have read Hardy's stories. These delicate Hedonists of his, who win our sympathies, perplex our judgment, baffle us, and leave us mournful, have been difficult to classify. The leader--the average reader--has ralled alternately at the world and at the woman. Miss Byrne has had to moral as well as the intellectual perception to set the matter right. Woman has grown very fascinating yet very unlovely in recent fiction and portraiture. In the frontispieces of books, in the flat prints of the posters, one sees a subtle and immoral face, half symbolic, wholly pagan. The unsophisticated look at the faces in bewilderment. The experienced are hardly less baffled, recognizing perhaps, some taint to which their lower goul responds, yet knowing how to give words to the emotion that stirs them.

In fiction the woman grows less and less sacrificial, less and less submissive. She aspires less to be "the captain of her soul," than to be the arbiter of her pleasures. She is mysterious, full of secrets. She is high priestess of sophistry. And against the implacable laws of convention she beats her wing as the wild bird beats his against the cruel bars of his cage, and in the end, like that unreconciled struggler, falls bleeding.

One sees this drift in pictures and in literature--sees it every day, and wonders why men invent such sad, sad, things. But it is not often the folly and the futility of it is set forth in phrases so [?] and excellent as those which Miss Byrne employs.

One has the honor to salute Miss Byrne. May her studies be patient, her work humble, her triumphs many. There are few pleasures in life so fine as believing in those around one. It is easy to believe in Miss Byrne. If she chooses she may do good writing.