But although the conditions that I have been describing are about the same in all Western countries, the tone of the literature which deals with love is not at all the same.  There are very great differences.  In prose they are much more serious than in poetry; because in all countries a man is allowed, by public opinion, more freedom in verse than in prose.  Now these differences in the way of treating the subject in different countries really indicate national differences of character.  Northern love stories and Northern poetry about love are very serious; and these authors are kept within fixed limits.  Certain subjects are generally forbidden.  For example, the English public wants novels about love, but the love must be the love of a girl who is to become somebody’s wife.  The rule in the English novel is to describe the pains, fears, and struggles of the period before marriage—­the contest in the world for the right of marriage.  A man must not write a novel about any other point of love.  Of course there are plenty of authors who have broken this rule but the rule still exists.  A man may represent a contest between two women, one good and one bad, but if the bad woman is allowed to conquer in the story, the public will growl.  This English fashion has existed since the eighteenth century. since the time of Richardson, and is likely to last for generations to come.

Now this is not the rule at all which governs making of novels in France.  French novels generally treat of the relations of women to the world and to lovers, after marriage; consequently there is a great deal in French novels about adultery, about improper relations between the sexes, about many things which the English public would not allow.  This does not mean that the English are morally a better people than the French or other Southern races.  But it does mean that there are great differences in the social conditions.  One such difference can be very briefly expressed.  An English girl, an American girl, a Norwegian, a Dane, a Swede, is allowed 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.