all possible liberty before marriage. The girl is told, "You must be able
to take care of yourself, and not do wrong." After marriage there is no
more such liberty. After marriage in all Northern countries a woman's
conduct is strictly watched. But in France, and in Southern countries, the
young girl has no liberty before marriage. She is always under the guard
of her brother, her father, her mother, or some experienced relation. She
is accompanied wherever she walks. She is not allowed to see her betrothed
except in the presence of witnesses. But after marriage her liberty
begins. Then she is told for the first time that she must take care of
herself. Well, you will see that the conditions which inspire the novels,
in treating of the subjects of love and marriage, are very different in
Northern and in Southern Europe. For this reason alone the character of
the novel produced in England could not be the same.

You must remember, however, that there are many other reasons for this
difference--reasons of literary sentiment. The Southern or Latin races
have been civilized for a much longer time than the Northern races; they
have inherited the feelings of the ancient world, the old Greek and Roman
world, and they think still about the relation of the sexes in very much
the same way that the ancient poets and romance writers used to think. And
they can do things which English writers can not do, because their
language has power of more delicate expression.

We may say that the Latin writers still speak of love in very much the
same way that it was considered before Christianity. But when I speak of
Christianity I am only referring to an historical date. Before
Christianity the Northern races also thought about love very much in the
same way that their best poets do at this day. The ancient Scandinavian
literature would show this. The Viking, the old sea-pirate, felt very much
as Tennyson or as Meredith would feel upon this subject; he thought of