28/53 The other women characters seem, so far at least as I know, to have been pure creation, and especially that new and admirable incarnation of the eternal feminine in the elder Kirstie. The little that he says about her himself is in a letter written a few days before his death to Mr.Gosse. The allusions are to the various moods and attitudes of people in regard to middle age, and are suggested by Mr. "It seems rather funny," he writes, "that this matter should come up just now, as I am at present engaged in treating a severe case of middle age in one of my stories, _The Justice-Clerk_. The case is that of a woman, and I think I am doing her justice. |