orality, suppressed many of her characteristics,
telling us too little of her amatory temperament. Possibly, Mr. Moore
may err, Becky may have had no "temperament," notwithstanding her
ability to twist men around her expressive digits. That she was
disagreeable when she set herself out to be I do not doubt; in fact,
she is the protagonist of a whole generation of disagreeable heroines
in English fiction. Bernard Shaw did not overlook her pertness and
malevolence, though all his girls are disagreeable, even--pardon the
paradox--his agreeable ones. But they are as portraiture far too
"papery," to borrow a word from painters' jargon, for my purpose.
They are not alive, they only are mouthpieces for the author's rather
old-time ideas.

I mention the four heroines of a former period, Valerie, Becky, Emma,
Anna, not because they are all disagreeable, but because they are my
pets in fiction. Thoroughly disagreeable girls are Hedda Gabler,
Mildred Lawson, and Undine Spragg. Of course, in a certain sense old
Wotan Ibsen is the father of the latter-day Valkyrie brood. The
"feminist" movement is not responsible for them; there were
disagreeable females before the flood, yet somehow the latter part of
the last and the beginning of the present century have produced a big
flock in painting, music (Richard Strauss's operas), drama, and
literature. Hedda boldly carved out of a single block stands out as
the very Winged Victory of her species. In her there is a hint of Emma
Bovary; both are incorrigible romanticists, snobs, girls for whom the
present alone exists. She is decadent inasmuch as her nerves rule her
actions, and at the rising of the curtain her nerves are in rags.
Henry James finds in Ibsen a "charmless fascination," but by no means
insists on the point that Hedda is disagreeable. Nor is he so sure
that she is wicked, though he admits her perversity. The late Grant
Allen once said to William Archer that Hedda was "nothing more nor
less than the girl we take down to dinner in London, nineteen times
out of twenty," which, to put it mildly, is an exaggeration. The
truth is, Hedda is less a type than a "rare case," but to diagnose
her as merely neurasthenic is also to go wide of the mark. Doubtless
her condition may have added bitterness to her already overflowing
cup; nevertheless Hedda is not altogether a pathological study.
Approaching motherhood is not a veil for her multitude of sins. How
soon are we shown her cruel nature