University of Virginia Library

"PRIGS" AND "CADS" IN FICTION

[Description: Ornamental capital "A" found at the beginning of Neith Boyce's "'Prigs' and 'Cads' in Fiction." ]

A RECENT review puts the question thus: "Although women make the amenities of life, and men would soon 'hottentot,' as Miss Edgeworth has it, if left to themselves, why is it that women's heroes are almost invariably prigs or cads of the first water?" And the reviewer adds: "We thought we had reached the limit in Daniel Deronda, but even he shows up well beside Mrs. Wharton's insufferable Selden: and now here is Barry Carleton filling us with a vulgar but lively desire to 'punch his head for him.'"

Why is it that this reviewer dislikes Daniel Deronda and Selden — why do we all dislike these gentlemen, in spite of the fact that we are meant to admire them? Perhaps it is because we are meant to admire them. They are painted full of delicacy, refinement and virtue — yet we are somehow obliged to consider them either prigs or cads. The author of the review we quote gives us the choice; and strict justice requires that we should choose the less rigourous term, and say that Deronda and Selden were prigs — of the first water, if you will.

But the hasty person might very well choose the other term; at least in accordance with a man's definition: "A cad is a man who is admired by women without a good and sufficient reason apparent to other men. He is the converse of a cat; for a cat is a woman who is admired by men and not by women."

According to this rule Daniel Deronda is a cad; so is Mr. Selden. In this sense, almost all women's heroes are cads. For they are usually enormously admired by the women of the story, and apparently by the feminine authors themselves, and they are made love to by more women than they can possibly love — at least according to the feminine code. And, therefore, they are obliged to repulse some of the women, or at least not to respond to all the advances that are made

to them, and this it is, no matter how gently and sweetly it is done, that revolts the masculine reader. He cannot endure to see man pursued and fleeing, however tactfully.

We think that this feeling, which calls Deronda a cad because Gwendolen made love to him, and Selden because he did not meet Lily more than half-way, is partly a kind of jealousy. Gwendolen Harlette is a wonderfully charming woman (not a cat), and Lily Bart, too, is charming; and it exasperates us to see their liking wasted on men who perhaps think themselves too good but are really not good enough for them.

Also there is here some element of masculine idealism. It is natural that woman should be charming; but it is very unnatural that man should be unappreciative, and especially that he should lack chivalry. If he were truly chivalrous he would manage somehow to get out of even the typical position in which he is placed by the feminine novelist, that of the ass between two bundles of hay, or of the too fortunate lover who sighed,

There is something asinine in this position, almost inevitably. And perhaps there is a subtle intention under the seeming admiration of the feminine novelist for her hero! Possibly she means to make him absurd and typical too. The most exasperated tone of criticism, certainly, is justified by such a proceeding. Prig, cad even, is a weak word for such a creation. It is all very well to paint an Egoist, frankly, clearly, so that nobody can possibly mistake your meaning or apply it to himself. But to set forth as admirable and admired a creature who, as you must suspect, would be unpopular at his clubs—!

In another sense, we suppose, Rochester was a cad; and Tito Melema. Adam Bede wasn't; but very likely, if two women had been in love with him, he would have been. As it is, he has the sympathetic rôle of the fighter against odds, the lover of an unwilling or ungrateful woman; and so has the only attractive man in Middlemarch, whose name we ungratefully forget.

George Sand's heroes — but where are they gone? They are not even shadows in our memory. And Jane Austen's—? Jane must pay the penalty of her spinsterhood, and of her carefulness to observe the rule which some critic has approvingly laid down for her, "never to describe a scene in which a woman was not a participant." Her men are vague in outline, compared to her women; they fade out of the picture. They may be the most delightful persons possible, without a trace of priggishness or caddishness. Let us go and take down our Jane Austen and find out.
—Neith Boyce.