ed sorceresses; a
revel in which the modern demons of Neurasthenia and Hysteria sport and
sneer.

* * * * *

Let us not be mistaken, however. Elsie Lindtner's confession is not
merely to be weighed by its fierce physiological sincerity; it is the
feminine soul, and the feminine soul of all time, that is revealed in
this extraordinary document. I think nothing less would give out such a
pungent odour of truth. _The Dangerous Age_ contains pages dealing with
women's smiles and tears, with their love of dress and desire to please,
and with the social relations between themselves and the male sex, which
will certainly irritate some feminine readers. Let them try to unravel
the real cause of their annoyance: perhaps they will perceive that they
are actually vexed because a woman has betrayed the freemasonry that
exists among their own sex. We must add that we are dealing here with
another nation, and every Frenchwoman may, if she choose, decline to
recognise herself among these portraits from Northern Europe.

A sure diagnosis of the vital conditions under which woman exists, and
an acute observation of her complicated soul--these two things alone
would suffice, would they not, to recommend the novel in which they were
to be found? But _The Dangerous Age_ possesses another quality which, at
first sight, seems to have no connection with the foregoing: it is by no
means lacking in emotion. Notwithstanding that she has the eye of the
doctor and the psychologist, Elsie Lindtner, the heroine, has also the
nerves and sensibility of a woman. Her daring powers of analysis do not
save her from moments of mysterious terror, such as came over her, for
no particular reason, on a foggy evening; nor yet from the sense of
being utterly happy--equally without reason--on a certain autumn night;
nor from feeling an intense sensuous pleasure in letting the little
pebbles on the beach slide between her fingers. In a word, all the
harshness of her judgments and reflections do not save her from the
dreadful distress of growing old....

In vain she withdraws from the society of her fellow-creatures, in the
hope that old age will no longer have terrors for her when there is no
one at hand to watch her physical decay; the redoubtable phantom still
haunts her in her retreat; watches her, brushes past her, and mocks her
sincere effort to abandon all coquetry and cease "to count as a woman."
At the same time a cruel m