Page:Critical Woodcuts (1926).pdf/48

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of the rabbit palpitating under the brown fur, not to lose the faint tinkle of stubble, not to dim the light in the moth's eye.

The second conspicuous interest of Mr. Lawrence's work he believes is intimately and profoundly related to the first. I refer, in general, to the erotic interest and, in particular, to his searching, exhaustive and exhausting exploration of certain phases of sexual attraction and sexual repulsion, and the bearings of these violent and excessive emotions upon human conduct. Where and how he acquired the psychopathic lore which fills the pages of "The Rainbow," "Women in Love," "The Lost Girl," "Aaron's Rod" and "The Captain's Doll" I shall not inquire. It is clear that for a dozen years he has been a "specialist" in that form of violent "love," which, as he says, is to be regarded rather as a "duel" than as a "duet," as a bitter and shattering clash of contending egotisms—"wildcats in a red-hot iron cage."

This tract of Mr. Lawrence's labors is before us. It is just as well to take an intelligent attitude toward it. Whether we wish it or not, Mr. Lawrence's remorseless studies in sex psychology will no more be annihilated by wishing than sex will be annihilated by wishing. These studies are dangerous to the young; sex is dangerous to the young. The men and women in these novels, exclaims Dr. Collins, can be referred to definite abnormal types, easily recognized and named by the psychopathologist. But that supplies no principle for annihilating Mr. Lawrence's novels. Doubtless Dr. Collins has often seen in hospitals or insane asylums men easily recognizable as of the type of Orestes or King Lear or Othello. We don't dispose of Othello by saying "epilepsy," or of King Lear by saying