FEMININITY IN FICTION.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1150, 10 June 1911, Page 9

FEMININITY IN FICTION.

Fiction, says the "Saturday Review," is to-day written mainly by women; and it is already possible to compile an anthology of words and phrases used and understood by wo.'.ien alone:

"Jlan-like" is a woman's word; so is "frieudly-wiso" and "alright." No male author would mak-e the heroine say, "1 am a very woman!" Heroines lead an anxious and harassed life. Young persons "sweep up" when out for the evening; ladies, when exceptionally tender, "flute"; and girls, on the slightest provocation, "pant." ' 'I =hall have the world at my feet one day,' Rachel panted, 'clapping and applauding 1110 to the echo . . . the world.'" Heroines do things in brackets. They speak (gloomily) and (grudgingly) and (archly). Omul-uncles arc addressed (yearningly). Heroines do not reply; they Hash. The best heroines "ripple." "'How manlike !' Aminta rippled." Heroines and ladies going into the magazines to say that their heart will find "its king" are "not exactly beautiful." Though lliere is ever something about them 'which lures the careless passcr-bv to look again, their face is "not quite flawless," and the best heroines suffer from a nose which is "not quite a perfect one." Faces are "proud"; and ladies with an imperfect nose have "a pure, proud, lovely woman's face, with glorious soullit eyes." Heroines are "slight." Chairs, on the other hand, are "deep"; and after the accident of a sprained ankle you "almost carry Elsie's slight figure to a deep chair."

Eyes are extremely significant. The heroines- have "glorious, dark-blue,_ soullit, womanly eyes." Ladies of a villainous type, on the other band, are recognisable by their "green eyes." On . encountering at a country house eyes "scintillating likp emeralds," a bachelor should dispatch a telegram summoning h ; mself to the death-bed of "his grand-aunt Barbara Batlev." Heroines with "pansv •eyes," ladies with orbs "misty with unshed tears," are delicate and unlike anything on earth. Though tliey have shortened their hair and lengthened their skirts, "as yet no thought of love has entered their bright young lives," and "all that seemed too far away from their young glorious thoughts."