The heroines of Virginia Woolf.

No discussion of the women in Mrs.Woolf's fiction would be complete without a brief survey of some previous English heroines, and the methods by which their characters are revealed. Earliest in the line of English novel heroines is Samuel Richardson1s Pamela— the virtuous lady's maid whose campaign to preserve her virtue against the repeated onslaughts of Mr. B. is minutely described by the author.\ The novel is in many ways a penetrating study of the adolescent girl, half-child in the face of her master1 s bold and unprincipled attacks; half-woman in her intelligence,\ determination and conscious self-valuation. She makes skilful use of moral rectitude and the pathos of her position as a Damsel in Distress; and at last, after harrowing treatment at the hands of Mr.B., Pamela's strategy is crowned with the respect and love of her pursuer,and a wedding-ring.[...