[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—May I reinforce your
timely remarks in last week's Spectator on the Daisy Lord case by the following quotation from the essay on " Solitude" in Mrs. Meynell's " Spirit of Place " ? The perusal of the two together may give our sentimentalists food for reflection. After dwelling on the Unique nature of the intimacy between a woman and her child, and its absolute seclusion, Mrs. Meynell goes on to say :— " That solitude partaken--the only partaken solitude in the world—is the Point of Honour of ethics. Treachery to that obligation and a betrayal of that confidence might well be held to be the least pardonable of all crimes. There is no innocent sleep so innocent as sleep shared between a woman and a child, the little breath hurrying beside the longer, as a child's foot runs. But the favourite crime of the sentimentalist is that of a woman against her child. Her power, her intimacy, her opportunity, that should be her accusers, are held to excuse her. She gains the most slovenly of indulgences and the grossest compassion, on the vulgar grounds that her crime was easf."
Woodnesboro', _Kent.
Previous page
