The Old Wives' Tale

“[…] there is an extreme pathos in the mere fact that every stout ageing woman was once a young girl with the unique charm of youth in her form and movements and in her mind. And the fact that the change is made up of an infinite number of infinitesimal changes, each unperceived by her, only intensifies the pathos.”

Bennett, in his preface to the novel, explains the driving motivation behind writing his book. The transformation from youth to old age—and the tragic pathos inherent in that transformation—gives the novel its overarching sentiments.

“They were both of them rather like racehorses, quivering with delicate, sensitive, and luxuriant life; exquisite, enchanting proof of the circulation of the blood; innocent, artful, roguish, prim, gushing, ignorant, and miraculously wise.”

This passage, from Bennett’s first description of Constance and Sophia, focuses on the physical and psychological charms of their youthful vigor. This is the picture of the girls against which the author compares the portrait of them as old women at the end of the book.

“Constance was foolishly good-natured, a perfect manufactory of excuses for other people; and her benevolence was eternally rising up and overpowering her reason.”

Here, Bennett describes Constance’s trait of wanting to believe the best about others. It’s an endearing trait most of the time, but as he notes here, it also has downsides, as becomes especially obvious in her relationship with her son, Cyril.