"OLD WIVES' TALE."

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1486, 8 July 1912, Page 3

"OLD WIVES' TALE."

ORIGIN OF THE STORY. Jlr. Arnold Bennett has written a very interesting preface to a new edition of his famous "OM Wives' Talc," which Jfcssrs. Hodder ami Stonghton have just published. It seems that in the autumn of JUO3 he used to dine Frequently in a restaurant it; the Rue <Ie Clichy, Paris, where one night nn old woman, fat, shapeless, ugly, and grotesque, was present. "She had," writes Jlr. Bennett, "a ridiculous voice and ridiculous gestures. It was ea.sy to see that she lived alone, and that in tho long lapse of years she had developed the kind of peculiarity which imluces gnU'nws among the thoughtless. She was burdened with a lot of small parcels, which she kept dropping. She chose one seat, and then, not; liking it, chose another, and then another. In a few moments she had the whole restaurant laughing at her.

"I .reflected concerning the grotesque diner: 'This woman Mas , once young, slim, perhaps beautiful; certainly free from these ridiculous mannerisms. Very probably she is unconscious of her singularities. Her case is a tragedy.. One ought fo be able lo make a heartrending novel out of the history of a woman such ns this.' It' was at this instant I was visited by the idea of writing Ihe hook which ultimately became 'The Old Wives' Tale.' Of course, 1 felt that the woman who caused Ihe ignoble mirth in the restaurant would not serve me as a type of heroine. For she was much too old anil obviously unsympathetic. It is an absolute rule that the principal ch-ir-acter of a novel must not be unsympathetic, and the whob modern tendency of realistic fiction is against oddntss in a prominent figure. I knew that I must choose Ihe sort of woman who would pass unnoticed in a crowd."

Jlr. Bennett gees on fo tell how, desiring to emulate Guy tie Jlaupassanl's

"lino Vie," he setllcd in the privacy of his own head thai his book about the development of a young sirl inlo a stout, old lady must lie the English "Cue Vie." "I have been accu-ed," he says, "of every fault except a lack of self-confidence, and in a few weeks I settled a ful-lher point —namely, that my ljook mnst 'go one better' than 'Une Vie,' antl that to this end if must be the life historv of two women instead of only one: Hence 'The Old Wives' Tale' has two heroines. Constance was the original; Sophia was created on! of bravado just to indicate that I declined lo consider Guy tie Maupassant as ihe last forerunner of the deluge. I was intimidated by the audacity of my project, but I had sworn to'carry it out. For several years I looked it squarely in the faco at intervals, and then walked away to, write novels of smaller scope, of which I produced five or six.. But I could not dally for ever, ami in . the autumn of 1907 I actually began to write it in a village near Fonfainebloau, where I rented half a house from a retired railway servant."

The first part iv"as written in six weeks. Then Jfr. Bennett fried to continue the book in a London hotel, but found London too distracting. So he produced "Buried Alive," and then returned to Fontainebleau, giving "The Old Wives' Tale" no rest until he finished it at tho end of July, 1903.