in which no intimacy is withheld; relationships based upon a mood which is best set forth in the old mythologies—the serene indifference of gods and goddesses and the careless ecstasy of fauns and nymphs; generous comradeships of the moment; inconsiderate of the dull responsibilities of workaday life, existing for their own sake, without foolish, elaborate pretenses and without tremendous consequences, free equally of the burden of hope and fear.
Through "Moon-Calf" and "The Briary Bush," Felix Fay seeks the nymph, the dream-girl. Through "Janet March" and "This Mad Ideal" Janet and then Judith seek the faun, the dream-boy. Thus both the masculine and the feminine sides of the relationship should receive equal illumination. I gravely doubt whether they do.
"Janet March" strikes me as a very able attempt to make a girl out of Felix Fay. She is as like Felix Fay as two peas, except that her adventures begin in a modern and comfortable and liberal home, and except that she appears to have very little artistic talent. She has no clear purpose other than to be "free," and to be herself. Mr. Dell, however, does confer upon her some physiological experiences which are sexually distinctive. And he places her in the various situations which a contemporary young woman may enter if she sets out in search of a career and self-realization with Mr. Dell's ideals in her head. Some aspects of her rather formless yearnings and some important phases of her predicaments he discusses with a kind of intimate sympathy and understanding which are still excessively rare. "Janet March" seems to me, on the whole, an informative and valuable history of feminine adventures on the coast of Bohemia.
