Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 24.pdf/43

 24

The Green Bag

To how great an extent Mme. Hazard has idealized her characters we have no means of knowing. They have a deli cate feminine charm which we Americans do not associate with women who ven ture to compete with men in the mascu line professions. This charm may largely come from a Parisian elegance and re finement that we would not expect to find paralleled in other countries. These women advocates, moreover, have an air of dignity and authority which imply the bestowal of a well-deserved masculine respect for the skill with which they have mastered their pro fession — a respect which for obvious reasons is not elsewhere accorded. If the characters are idealized, the author has nevertheless drawn a charming picture of the women lawyers of a per haps not distant future. There will be some dispute whether feminism is vindicated by such a book. These women are evidently attracted to criminal more than to civil practice, and a maternal interest in their unfortu nate clients makes them sometimes too willing to defend an unjust cause. They have great intelligence, yet reveal that the legal intellect is rare among women; they have fine consciences, yet show that the legal conscience- which exalts the community above the individual is scarcely a feminine attribute. The equality of these women lawyers with their masculine associates is by no means proved. The heroine, Henriette Marcadieu, daughter of the president of the bar, marries the barrister Andre Velines with a resolution to pursue the pro fession of the law independently of her husband. She soon achieves greater success than he, with the result that he grows intensely jealous, and accuses his wife of caring less for him than for her profession. In other respects high-

minded and thoroughly admirable, Ve lines has one serious moral defect, a proneness to jealousy under conditions which would induce in a stronger man merely a feeling of shame that his marriage should be made ridiculous by his wife's conduct. The breach widens, and in so far as this is a "problem novel," the problem is that of the relation of the feminist movement to the main tenance of the family. The author's solution is a sane one; the heroine sees her mistake and becomes thenceforth the companion and assistant of her husband, who achieves the leadership of the bar. The characters, limned with a vivid ness which dwells, womanlike, on exter nals more than on the complexities of psychology, are portrayed with a deli cacy of sympathy which seems to know little of the harsher realities of a rough world. The picture of Maltre Fabrezan, that honored leader, is particularly fine. The conversations of lawyers with their clients are described in a manner which throws much light on the practice of the law in France, and give more than an ephemeral interest to a wellwritten story.

A SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY Christ's Christianity: being the precepts and doctrines recorded in Matthew. Mark. Luke, and John, as taught by Jesus Christ, analyzed and arranged according to subjects. By Albert H. Walker, of the New York bar. Equity Press, New York. Pp. 161 +11 (indices). ($1.)

THE compiler of this work evidently believes in the literal inspiration of the four Gospels, otherwise he would not have taken such pains to assemble the recorded sayings of Jesus under particular sub-headings, with no notes save citations of chapter and verse, and no attempt to suggest the historical