Man Against Woman A Vade Mecum For The Weaker Sex, and A Caution To Women, by Charles Neider

MAN
WOMAN
A slightly one-sided and merrily vicious
compendium of the best and most entertaining
writing about — God bless 'em — women
Edited by
CHARLES NEIDER
E. B. White Richard Armour
Dorothy Parker John Fischer
Ogden Nash James Thurber
Robert Benchley George Jean Natii
H. L. Mencken Phyllis McGinley
Franklin P. Adams Cato the Elder
Charles W. Morton and Others...
j
MAN
AGAINST
WOMAN
Edited by
CHARLES NEIDER
Here is a wonderfully entertaining

book on a timeless topic— the battle
of the sexes. A great variety of wit

and opinion guarantees merriment
on every page, as well as a certain
amount of rueful enlightenment.
The authorities testifying— Mencken,

Thurber, George Jean Nathan, Dor-
othy Parker, E. B. White, Robert
(Continued on back flap)
No. 7322A
ch
V r&Tfi,
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2012
http://archive.org/details/managainstwomanvOOneid
MAN
Against
WOMAN
Boo\s by Charles Neider
THE WHITE CITADEL, a novel
THE AUTHENTIC DEATH OF HENDRY JONES, a novel
THE FROZEN SEA, a study of franz kafka
Edited by Charles Neider:
THE STATURE OF THOMAS MANN

SHORT NOVELS OF THE MASTERS
GREAT SHORT STORIES FROM THE WORLD'S LITERATURE
GREAT SHIPWRECKS AND CASTAWAYS
THE FABULOUS INSECTS
MEN OF THE HIGH CALLING
MAN AGAINST NATURE
OUR SAMOAN ADVENTURE
ESSAYS OF THE MASTERS
THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES OF MARK TWAIN
MAN AGAINST WOMAN
MAN
Against
WOMAN
A Vade Mecum for the Weaker Sex,
and
a Caution to Women
Edited by
CHARLES NEIDER
HARPER & BROTHERS H publishers newyork

MAN AGAINST WOMAN
© 19 57 by Charles N eider
Copyright
Printed in the United States of America
All rights in this book, ore reserved.

No part of the book. ma y be used or reproduced
in any manner whatsoever without written per-
mission except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical articles and reviews. For
information address Harper &Brothers
49 East 33rd Street, New York '6, N. Y.
FIRST EDITION
M-F
Library of Congress catalog card number: 56-8758

To my wife, Joan Merrick
From Her Majesty's loyal opposition
CONTENTS
introduction by Charles Neider ix
Part Still Inordinately Menacing

I:
The War Between Man and Woman,
by H. L. Mencken 3
What You Don't Know Won't Hurt You Till Later,
by Richard Armour 9
A Fickle Widow, Anonymous 11
Artificial Beauty, by Lucianus 25

Disdain Returned, by Thomas Carew 27
The Incomparable Buzz-Saw, by H. Mencken
L. 29
Lady, Your Claws Are Showing, by Richard Armour 31
Part II: Certain Social Problems

Ladies' Wild, by Robert Benchley 35
Unfortunate Coincidence, by Dorothy Parser 41
You Never Tell Me Anything, by Charles W. Morton 43
What Almost Every Woman Knows Sooner or Later,
by Ogden Nash 51
Getting Along With Women, by E. B. White 55
Part III: The Old Guard

The Garden of Eden, Anonymous 65
In Support of the Oppian Law, by Cato the Elder 71
Vlll CONTENTS
Women, by Semonides of Amorgus 79

That Women Are But Men's Shadows,
by Ben Johnson 83
Advice to a Young Man on the Choice of a Mistress,
by Benjamin Franklin 85
Part IV: The New Look

The Case Against Women, by James Thurber 91
Woman's Place, by David Ross hoc\e 99
Women as Playthings, by George Jean Nathan in
Part V: J'Accuse
Woman, God Bless Her!, byMar\ Twain 123
Women and Drinks, by Charles W. Morton ng
Are Witty W omen
T
Attractive to Men ?
by Stephen Leacoc\ 135
The Loving Care of Determined Women,
by John Fischer 145
The Little Woman, by L A. R. Wylie 149
Women Are Intellectually Inferior, by Waverley Root 169
Part VI: Fact or Fiction?

A Pair of Sexes, by Fran\lin P. Adams 185
Why, Some of My Best Friends Are Women!
by Phyllis McGinley 189
The Sexes, by Dorothy Parser 193
A Family Quarrel, by Jane Austen 201
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 2CK)
INTRODUCTION
In the following pages you are going to read some

maniacal or maddeningly tolerant com-
witty, zany, sour,
ments on the greatest permanent difference of opinion of
all time. Don't blame me, please, if your blood pressure
rises. I only brought the material together. The battle was
hundreds of millennia old when even the earliest account
was written.
I should like to say for the record that I happen to like
women. I mean it. I just happen to like them, that's all.
I didn't like them at first, but if you give them a chance

they sort of grow on you, like snails.
I had great fun doing this book. I hope you have as
much fun reading it.
Charles Neider
Pacific Palisades, California
August 13, 1956
Ye must \now that women
have dominion over you: do ye
not labour and toil, and give and
bring all to the woman?
—The Apocrypha
STILL INORDINATELY
MENACING
I
O woman, perfect woman! what
distraction
Was meant mankind when
to
thou wast made a devil!

—John Fletcher
THE WAR BETWEEN MAN
AND WOMAN
by H. L. Mencken
N,OT many men, worthy of the name, gain anything

of net value by marriage, at least as the institution is now
met with in Christendom. Even assessing its benefits at
their most inflated worth, they are plainly overborne by

crushing disadvantages. When a man marries it is no more
than a sign that the feminine talent for persuasion and
intimidation — />., the feminine talent for survival in a
world of clashing concepts and desires, the feminine com-
petence and intelligence —has forced him into a more
or less abhorrent compromise with his own honest inclina-
tions and best interests. Whether that compromise be a
sign of his relative stupidity or of his relative cowardice
it is all one: the two things, in their symptoms and effects,
are almost identical. In the first case he marries because

he has been clearly bowled over in a combat of wits;
in the second he resigns himself to marriage as the safest
Copyright 1920, 1922, 1949 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
3
4 MAN AGAINST WOMAN
form of liaison. In both cases his inherent sentimentality
is the chief weapon in the hand of his opponent. It
makes him cherish the fiction of his enterprise, and even

of his daring, in the midst of the most crude and obvious
operations against him. It makes him accept as real the
bold playacting that women always excel at, and at no

time more than when stalking a man. It makes him, above
all, see a glamor of romance in a transaction which, even
at its best, contains almost as much gross trafficking, at

bottom, as the sale of a mule.
A man in full possession of the modest faculties that
nature commonly apportions to him is at least far enough

above idiocy to realize that marriage is a bargain in
which he seldom wants all that taking a wife offers and

implies. He wants, at most, no more than certain parts.
He may desire, let us say, a housekeeper to protect his

goods and entertain his friends —but he may shrink from
the thought of sharing his bathtub with anyone, and
home cooking may be downright poisonous to him. He
may yearn for a son to pray at his tomb and yet suffer —
acutely at the mere approach of relatives-in-law. He may
dream of a beautiful and complaisant mistress, less
exigent and mercurial than any bachelor may hope to
discover — and stand aghast at admitting her to his bank-

book, his family-tree and his secret ambitions. He may
want company and not intimacy, or intimacy and not
company. He may want a cook and not a partner in his
STILL INORDINATELY MENACING 5
business, or a partner in his business and not a cook.
But in order to get the precise thing or things that he

wants, he has to take a lot of other things that he doesn't
want—that no sane man, in truth, could imaginably
want—and it is to the enterprise of forcing him into this
almost Armenian bargain that the woman of his "choice''

addresses herself. Once the game is fairly set, she searches
out his weaknesses with the utmost delicacy and accuracy,

and plays upon them with all her superior resources. He
carries a handicap from the start. His sentimental and
unintelligent belief in theories that she knows quite well
are not true e.g., the theory that she shrinks from him,
and is modestly appalled by the banal carnalities of mar-
riage itself —gives her a weapon against him which she
drives home with instinctive and compelling art. The
moment she discerns this sentimentality bubbling within
him — that is, the moment his oafish smirks and eye-
rollings signify that he has achieved the intellectual
disaster that is called falling in love —he is hers to do

with as she listeth. Save for acts of God, he is forthwith as
good as married.
Men usually get their mates by this process of falling in

love; save among the aristocracies of the North and
Latin men, the marriage of convenience is relatively rare;
a hundred men marry "beneath" them to every woman

who perpetrates the same folly. And what is meant by
falling in love? What is meant by it is a procedure
MAN AGAINST WOMAN
whereby a man accounts for the fact of his marriage,
after feminine initiative and generalship have made it
inevitable, by enshrouding it in a purple maze of romance

—in brief, by setting up the doctrine that an obviously
self-possessed and mammalian woman, engaged deliber-
ately in the most important adventure of her life, and with

the keenest understanding of its utmost implications, is
moony and almost disembodied creature,

a naive, tender,
enchanted and made perfect by emotions that have stolen
upon her unawares, and which she could not acknowl-
edge, even to herself, without blushing to death. By this
preposterous doctrine, the defeat and enslavement of the

man is made glorious, and even gifted with a touch of
flattering naughtiness. The sheer horsepower of his woo-

ing has assailed and overcome her maiden modesty; she
trembles in his arms ; he has been granted a free franchise
to work his wicked will upon her. Thus do the ambulant
images of God cloak their shackles proudly, and divert

the judicious with their boastful shouts.
Women are much more cautious about embracing the
conventional hocus-pocus of the situation. They seldom
acknowledge that they have fallen in love, as the phrase
is, until the man has revealed his delusion, and so cut
off his retreat; to do otherwise would be to bring down
upon their heads the mocking and contumely of all their
sisters. With them, falling in love thus appears in the light
of an afterthought, or, perhaps more accurately, in the

light of a contagion. The theory, it would seem, is that
the love of the man, laboriously avowed, has inspired it
instantly, and by some unintelligible magic; that it was

non-existent until the heat of his own flames set it off.
This theory, it must be acknowledged, has a certain ele-
ment of fact in it. A woman seldom allows herself to be

swayed by emotion while the principal business is yet
afoot and its issue still in doubt; to do so would be to

expose a degree of imbecility that is confined only to
the half-wits of the sex. But once the man is definitely
committed, she frequently unbends a bit, if only as a

relief from the strain of a fixed purpose, and so, throwing
off her customary inhibitions, indulges in the luxury of
a more or less forced and mawkish sentiment. It is, how-
ever, almost unheard of for her to permit herself this
relaxation before the sentimental intoxication of the man

is assured. To do otherwise —that to confess, even post
is,
facto, to an anterior descent—would expose her to the

scorn of all other women. Such a confession would be an
admission that emotion had got the better of her at a
critical intellectual moment, and in the eyes of women,
as in the eyes of the small minority of genuinely intel-
ligent men, no treason to the higher cerebral centers
could be more disgraceful.

The heart of a coquette is li\e a rose, of which the lovers
pluc\ the leaves, leaving only the thorns for the husband.
— Anonymous
The music at a marriage procession always reminds me

of the music which leads soldiers to battle.
— Heinrich Heine
WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW
WON'T HURT YOU
TILL LATER
by Richard Armour
Young man, have you seen her in curlers,

Have you seen her with face all agleam
With lotions
And potions,
No telling what oceans

Of cleansing and pore-closing cream?
Young man, have you seen her unpowdered,

Unrouged on the cheeks and the lips?
Have you eyed
Her untied
And a good bit more wide
Ungirdled, I mean, at the hips?
Copyright 1954 by Richard Armour
9
Young man, have you seen her in work clothes,
In things long outmoded and old,

In slippers
Like kippers
And frocks without zippers,
Just up from a sniveling cold ?
You haven't ? Young man, then here's hoping

Your nerves are as steady as rock.
When you do
Get a view
Of your true love that's true,
You're in for a helluva shock.
10
A FICKLE WIDOW
Anonymous
A T A DISTANCE from the

peaceful retirement of the country there dwelt
capital,
many
and in the
centuries ago a philosopher named Chwang, who led

a pleasurable existence in the society of his third wife,
and in the study of the doctrines of his great master,
Lao-tsze. Like many philosophers, Chwang had not been

fortunate in his early married life. His first wife died
young; his second he found it necessary to divorce, on
account of misconduct; but in the companionship of the
Lady T'ien he enjoyed a degree of happiness which had
previously been denied him. Being a philosopher, how-
ever, he found it essential to his peace that he should
occasionally exchange his domestic surroundings for the
hillsides and mountain solitudes. On one such expedition

he came unexpectedly on a newly made grave at the
side of which was seated a young woman dressed in

mourning, who was gently fanning the new mound. So
strange a circumstance was evidently one into which a
ii
12 MAN AGAINST WOMAN
philosopher should inquire. He therefore approached the
lady, and in gentle accents said, "May I ask what you are
doing?"
"Well," replied the lady, "the fact is that this grave
contains my husband. And, stupid man, just before he
died he made me promise that I would not marry again
until the soil above his grave should be dry. I watched
it for some days, but it got dry so very slowly that I am
fanning it to hasten the process." So saying she looked
up into Chwang's face with so frank and engaging a
glance that the philosopher at once decided to enlist him-
self in her service.
"Your wrists are not strong enough for such work," he
said. "Let me relieve you at it."
"By all means," replied the lady briskly. "Here is the

fan, and I shall owe you an everlasting debt of gratitude
if you will fan it dry as quickly as possible."

Without more ado, Chwang set to work, and by the
exercise of his magical powers he extracted every drop
of moisture from the grave with a few waves of the fan.
The lady was delighted with his success, and with the
sunniest smile said, "How can I thank you sufficiently
for your kindness! As a small mark of my gratitude, let
me present you with this embroidered fan which I had

in reserve; and as a token of my esteem, I really must
ask you to accept one of my silver hairpins." With these
words she presented the philosopher with the fan, and

drawing out one of her ornamented hairpins, she offered

it for his acceptance. The philosopher took the fan, but,
possibly having the fear of Lady T'ien before his eyes,
he declined the pin. The incident made him thoughtful,

and as he seated himself again in his thatched hall, he
sighed deeply.
"Why are you sighing?" inquired the Lady T'ien, who
happened to enter at that moment, "and where does the
fan come from which you hold in your hand?"
Thus invited, Chwang related all that had passed at the
tomb. As he proceeded with the tale, Lady T'ien's coun-
tenance fell, and when he had concluded she broke forth

indignantly, inveighing against the young widow, who
she vowed was a disgrace to her sex. So soon as she had
exhausted her vituperations, Chwang quietly repeated
the proverb, "Knowing men's faces is not like knowing
their hearts."
Interpreting this use of the saying as implying some

doubts as to the value of her protestations, Lady T'ien
exclaimed:
"How dare you condemn all women as though they
were all formed in the same mold with this shameless
widow? I wonder you are not afraid of calling down
a judgment on yourself for such an injustice to me, and
others like me."
"What need is there of all this violence?" rejoined her

husband. "Now, tell me, if I were to die, would you,
possessed as you are of youth and beauty, be content to
remain a widow for five, or even three years?"
"A faithful minister does not serve two princes, and a
virtuous woman never thinks of a second husband,"
sententiously replied the lady. "If fate were to decree that
you should die, it would not be a question of three years
or of five years, for never, so long as life lasted, would

I dream of a second marriage."
"It is hard to say, it is hard to say," replied Chwang.

"Do you think," rejoined his wife, "that women are
like men, destitute of virtue and devoid of justice ? When

one wife is dead you look out for another, you divorce
this one and take that one; but we women are for one
saddle to one horse. Why do you say these things to annoy

me?"
With these words she seized the fan and tore it to shreds.
"Calm yourself," said her husband; "I only hope, if
occasion offers, you will act up to your protestations."

Not many days after this Chwang fell dangerously
ill, and as the symptoms increased in severity, he thus
addressed his wife:
"I feel that my end is approaching, and that it is time
I should bid you farewell. How unfortunate that you
destroyed that fan the other day! You would have found
it useful for drying my tomb."
"Pray, my husband, do not at such a moment suggest
suspicions of me. Have I not studied the 'Book of Rites/

and have I not learned from it to follow one husband, and

one only? If you doubt my sincerity, I will die in your
presence to prove to you that what I say, I say in all faith-
fulness."
"I desire no more," replied Chwang; and then, as weak-

ness overcame him, he added faintly, "I die. My eyes grow
dim."
With these words he sank back motionless and breath-
less.
Having assured herself that her husband was dead, the

Lady T'ien broke out into loud lamentations, and em-
braced the corpse again and again. For days and nights
she wept and fasted, and constantly dwelt in her thoughts
on the virtues and wisdom of the deceased. As was cus-
tomary, on the death of so learned a man as Chwang,

the neighbors all came to offer their condolences and to
volunteer their assistance. Just as the last of these had
retired, there arrived at the door a young and elegant
scholar, whose face was like a picture, and whose lips
looked as though they had been smeared with vermilion.

He was dressed in a violet silk robe, and wore a black
cap, an embroidered girdle, and scarlet shoes. His servant
announced that he was a Prince of the Kingdom of Tsoo,
and he himself added by way of explanation:
"Some years ago I communicated to Chwang my desire
to become his disciple. In furtherance of this purpose I
came hither, and now, to my inexpressible regret, I find

l6 MAN AGAINST WOMAN
on my arrival that my master is dead."
To evince his respectful sorrow, the Prince at once ex-
changed his colored clothing for mourning garments, and
prostrating himself before the coffin, struck his forehead
four times on the ground, and sobbed forth, "Oh, learned
Chwang, I am indeed unfortunate in not having been
permitted to receive your instructions face to face. But
to show my regard and affection for your memory, I
will here remain and mourn for you a hundred days."

With these words he prostrated himself again four
times, while he watered the earth with his tears. When
more composed, he begged to be allowed to pay his re-
spects to Lady T'ien, who, however, thrice declined to
see him, and only at last consented when it was pointed

out to her that, according to die most recondite authorities,
the wives of deceased instructors should not refuse to
see their husband's disciples.
After then receiving the Prince's compliments with

downcast eyes, the Lady T'ien ventured just to cast one
glance at her guest, and was so struck by his beauty and
the grace of his figure, that a sentiment of more than
interest suffused her heart. She begged him to take up
his abode in her house, and when dinner was prepared,
she blended her sighs with his. As a token of her esteem,
so soon as the repast was ended, she brought him the

copies of "The Classic of Nan-hwa," and the "Sutra of
Reason and of Virtue," which her husband had been in
the habit of using, and presented them to the Prince. He,

on his part, in fulfilment of his desire of mourning for
his master, daily knelt and lamented by the side of the
coffin, and thither also the Lady T'ien repaired to breathe
her sighs. These constant meetings provoked short con-

versations, and the glances, which on these occasions
were exchanged between them, gradually betook less of
condolence and more of affection, as time went on. It
was plain that already the Prince was half enamored,

while the lady was deeply in love. Being desirous of
learning some particulars about her engaging guest, she
one evening summoned his servant to her apartment, and
having plied him with wine, inquired from him whether
his master was married.
"My master," replied the servant, "has never yet been
married."
"What qualities does he look for in the fortunate woman
he will choose for his wife?" inquired the lady.
"My master says," replied the servant, who had taken
quite as much wine as was good for him, "that if he
could obtain a renowned beauty like yourself, madam,
his heart's desire would be fulfilled."
"Did he really say so ? Are you sure you are telling me

the truth?" eagerly asked the lady.
"Is it likely that an old man like me would tell you a

lie?" replied the servant.
1 MAN AGAINST WOMAN
"If it be so, will you then act as a go-between, and ar-
range a match between us?"

"My master has already spoken to me of the matter,
and would desire the alliance above all things, if it were
not for the respect due from a disciple to a deceased
master, and for the animadversions to which such a mar-
riage would give rise."
"But as a matter of fact," said the Lady T'ien, "the

Prince was never my husband's disciple; and as to our
neighbors about here, they are too few and insignificant
to make their animadversions worth a thought."
The objections having thus been overcome, the servant
undertook to negotiate with his master, and promised to

bring word of the result at any hour of the day or night
at which he might have anything to communicate.
So soon as the man was gone, the Lady T'ien gave way
to excited impatience. She went backwards and forwards
to the chamber of death, that she might pass the door
of the Prince's room, and even listened at his window,
hoping to hear him discussing with his servant the
proposed alliance. All, however, was still until she ap-
proached the coffin, when she heard an unmistakable

sound of hard breathing. Shocked and terrified, she ex-
claimed, "Can it be possible that the dead has come to
life again!"
A light, however, relieved her apprehensions by dis-
covering the form of the Prince's servant lying in a

drunken sleep on a couch by the corpse. At any other

time such disrespect to the deceased would have drawn
from her a torrent of angry rebukes, but on this occasion
she thought it best to say nothing, and on the next morn-

ing she accosted the defaulter without any reference to
his escapade of the night before. To her eager inquiries
the servant answered that his master was satisfied on
the points she had combated on the preceding evening,
but that there were still three unpropitious circumstances
which made him hesitate.
"What are they?" asked the lady.
"First," answered the man, "my master says that the

presence of the coffin in the saloon makes it difficult to
conduct marriage festivities in accordance with usage;
secondly, that the illustrious Chwang having so deeply

loved his wife, and that affection having been so tenderly
returned by her in recognition of his great qualities, he
fears that a second husband would probably not be held
entitled to a like share of affection; and thirdly, that not
having brought his luggage, he has neither the money

nor the clothes necessary to play the part of a bride-
groom."
"These circumstances need form no obstacle to our
marriage," replied the lady. "As to the first objection, I
can easily have the coffin removed into a shed at the

back of the house; then as to the second, though my
husband was a great Taoist authority, he was not by any
means a very moral man. After his first wife's death he
married a second, whom he divorced, and just before
his own decease, he flirted outrageously with a widow

whom he found fanning her husband's grave on the hill
yonder. Why, dien, should your master, young, hand-
some, and a prince, doubt the quality of my affection?
Then as to the third objection, your master need not
trouble himself about the expenses connected with our
marriage; I will provide them. At this moment I have

twenty taels of silver in my room, and these I will readily
give him to provide himself clothes withal. Go back, then,

and tell the Prince what I say, and remind that there
is no time like the present, and that there could be no

more felicitous evening for our marriage dian that of
to-day."
Carrying the twenty taels of silver in his hand, the
servant returned to his master, and presently brought

back word to the lady that the Prince was convinced by
her arguments, and ready for the ceremony.
On receipt of this joyful news, Lady Tien exchanged
her mourning for wedding garments, painted her cheeks,
reddened her lips, and ordered some villagers to carry
Chwang's coffin into a hut at the back of the house, and

to prepare for the wedding. She herself arranged the
lights and candles in the hall, and when the time arrived
stood ready to receive the Prince, who presently entered,
wearing the insignia of his official rank, and dressed in a

gayly embroidered tunic. Bright as a polished gem and

a gold setting, the two stood beneath the nuptial torch,
radiant with beauty and love. At the conclusion of the
ceremony, with every demonstration of affection, the

Prince led his bride by the hand into the nuptial chamber.
Suddenly, as they were about to retire to rest, the Prince
was seized with violent convulsions. His face became

distorted, his eyebrows stood on end, and he fell to the
ground, beating his breast with his hands.
The Lady T'ien, frantic with grief, embraced him,
rubbed his chest, and when these remedies failed to revive
him, called in his old servant.

"Has your master ever had any fits like this before?"
she hurriedly inquired.

"Often," replied the man, "and no medicine ever allevi-
ates his sufferings; in fact, there is only one thing that
does."
"Oh, what is that?" asked the lady.

"The brains of a man, boiled in wine," answered the
servant. "In Tsoo, when he has these attacks, the king,
his father, beheads a malefactor and takes his brain to
form the decoction; but how is it possible here to obtain
such a remedy?"
"Will the brains of a man who has died a natural death
do?" asked the lady.
"Yes, if forty-nine days have not elapsed since the

death."
"My former husband's would do then. He has only been
dead twenty days. Nothing will be easier than to open
the coffin and take them out."
"But would you be willing to do it?"

"I and the Prince are now husband and wife. A wife
with her body serves her husband, and should I refuse
to do this for him out of regard for a corpse, which is
fast becoming dust?"

So saying, she told the servant to look after his master,
and seizing a hatchet, went straight to the hut to which

the corpse had been removed. Having arranged the light
conveniently, she tucked up her sleeves, clenched her

teeth, and with both hands brought down the hatchet on
the coffin-lid. Blow after blow fell upon the wood, and
at the thirty-first stroke the plank yielded, and the head
of the coffin was forced open. Panting with her exertions,
she cast a glance on the corpse preparatory to her further

grim office, when, to her inexpressible horror, Chwang
sighed twice, opened his eyes, and sat up. With a piercing
shriek she shrank backwards, and dropped the hatchet

from her palsied hands.
"My dear wife," said the philosopher, "help me to rise."
Afraid to do anything else but obey, she assisted him out

of the coffin and offered him support, while he led the
way, lamp in hand, to her chamber. Remembering the
sight that would there meet his eyes, the wretched woman
trembled as they approached the door. What was her
relief, however, to find that the Prince and his servant had
disappeared. Taking advantage of this circumstance, she
assumed every woman's wile, and in softest accents, said,
"Ever since your death you have been in my thoughts day

and night. Just now, hearing a noise in your coffin, and
remembering how, in the tales of old, souls are said to
return to their bodies, the hope occurred to me that it
might be so in your case, and I took a hatchet to open your

coffin. Thank Heaven and Earth my felicity is complete;
you are once more by my side."
"Many thanks, madam," said Chwang, "for your deep
consideration. But may I ask why you are dressed in such
gay clothing."
"When I went to open your coffin, I had, as I say, a
secret presentiment of my good fortune, and I dared not

receive you back to life in mourning attire."
"Oh," replied her husband, "but there is one other cir-
cumstance which I should like to have explained. Why

was not my coffin placed in the saloon, but tossed into a
ruined barn?"
To this question Lady T'ien's woman's wit failed to
supply an answer. Chwang looked at the cups and wine

which formed the relics of the marriage feast, but made no
other remark thereon, except to tell his wife to warm him
some wine. This she did, employing all her most engag-
ing wiles to win a smile from her husband; but he steadily
rejected her advances, and presently, pointing with his
finger over her shoulder, he said, "Look at those two men
behind you."
She turned with an instinctive knowledge that she
would see the Prince and his servant in the courtyard,
and so she did. Horrified at the sight, she turned her
eyes towards her husband, but he was not there. Again

looking towards the courtyard she found that the Prince
and his servant had now disappeared, and that Chwang
was once more at her side. Perceiving then the true state
of the case, that the Prince and his servant were but
Chwang's other self, which he by his magical power was
able to project into separate existences, she saw that all
attempts at concealment were vain; and taking her girdle

from her waist, she tied it to a beam and hung herself on
the spot.
So soon as life was extinct Chwang put his frail wife
into the coffin from which he had lately emerged, and
setting fire to his house, burnt it with its contents to ashes.
The only things saved from the flames were the "Sutra of
Reason and of Virtue," and "The Classic of Nan-hwa,"
which were found by some neighbors, and carefully
treasured.
As to Chwang, it is said that he set out as on a journey

towards the West. What his ultimate destination was is
not known, but one thing is certain, and that is, that he
remained a widower for the rest of his life.
ARTIFICIAL BEAUTY
by Lucianus
You give your cheeks a rosy stain,

With washes dye your hair,
But paint and washes both are vain
To give a youthful air.
Those wrinkles mock your daily toil;
No labor will efface them;

You wear a mask of smoothest oil,
Yet still with ease we trace them.
An art so fruitless then forsake,

Which though you much excel in,
You never can contrive to make

Old Hecuba young Helen.
Translated by William Cowper

25
To promote a Woman to bear rule, superiorities do-
minion or empire above any realm, nation, or citie, is
repugnant to Nature; contumelie to God, a thing most

contrarious to His revealed will and approved ordinance;
and finally, it is the subversion of good order, of all equity
and justice. . . .
For who can deny but it is repugnant to Nature that

the blind shall be appointed to lead and conduct such as
do see? That the wea\, the sic\ and impotent persons

shall nourish and \eep the whole and strong? And finally,
that the foolish, madde and phrenetic\ shall govern the
discreet and give counsel to such as be sober of mind?
—John Knox
DISDAIN RETURNED
by Thomas Carew
He that loves a rosy cheek,
Or a coral lip admires,

Or from star-like eyes doth seek
Fuel to maintain his fires;
As old Time makes these decay,
So his flames must waste away.
But a smooth and steadfast mind,

Gentle thoughts, and calm desires,
Hearts with equal love combined,
Kindle never-dying fires.
Where these are not, I despise

Lovely cheeks or lips or eyes.
27
No tears, Celia, now shall win
My resolved heart to return;
I have searched that soul within,

And find nought but pride and scorn:
I have learned thy arts, and now

Can disdain as much as thou.
Some power in my revenge convey

That love to her I cast away.
28
THE INCOMPARABLE BUZZ-SAW
by H. L. Mencken
X HE ALLUREMENT that women hold out to men is

precisely the allurement that Cape Hatteras holds out
to sailors: they are enormously dangerous and hence
enormously fascinating. To the average man, doomed to
some banal drudgery all his life long, they offer the only
grand hazard that he ever encounters. Take them away

and his existence would be as flat and secure as that of a
moo-cow. Even to the unusual man, the adventurous

man, the imaginative and romantic man, they offer the
adventure of adventures. Civilization tends to dilute and

cheapen all other hazards. Even war has been largely re-
duced to caution and calculation; already, indeed, it em-
ploys almost as many press-agents, letter-openers and
generals as soldiers. But the duel of sex continues to be
fought in the Berserker manner. Whoso approaches
women still faces the immemorial dangers. Civilization
has not made them a bit more safe than they were in
Copyright 1920, 1922, 1949 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
29
Solomon's time; they are still inordinately menacing,
and hence inordinately provocative, and hence inordi-
nately charming.
The most disgusting cad in the world is the man who,

on grounds of decorum and morality, avoids the game
of love. He is one who puts his own ease and security
above the most laudable of philanthropies. Women have

a hard time of it in this world. They are oppressed by
man-made laws, man-made social customs, masculine
egoism, the delusion of masculine superiority. Their one
comfort is the assurance that, even though it may be im-
possible to prevail against man, it is always possible to
enslave and torture a man. This feeling is fostered when
one makes love to them. One need not be a great beau,
a seductive catch, to do it effectively. Any man is better
than none. To shrink from giving so much happiness at
such small expense, to evade the business on the ground
that it has hazards — this is the act of a puling and tacky
fellow.
LADY, YOUR CLAWS
ARE SHOWING
by Richard Armour
One dreadful truth I rather wish

I know is that
did not
The woman who is kittenish
May one day be a cat.
Copyright 1954 by Richard Armour

31
CERTAIN SOCIAL PROBLEMS
II
Who ist can read a woman?

—Shakespeare
LADIES' WILD
by Robert Benchley
I N THE exclusive set (no diphtheria cases allowed) in

which I travel, I am known as a heel in the matter of
parlor games. I will drink with them, wrassle with them
and, now and again, leer at the ladies, but when they
bring out the bundles of pencils and the pads of paper
and start putting down all the things they can think of be-
ginning with "W," or enumerating each other's bad
qualities on a scale of ioo (no hard-feeling results, mind
you — just life-long enmity), I tip-toe noisily out of the
room and say: "The hell with you."
For this reason, I am not usually included in any little
games that may be planned in advance. If they foresee

an evening of "Consequences" coming over them, they
whisper "Get Benchley out of the house. Get him a horse
to ride, or some beads to string —anything to get him
out of the way." For, I forgot to tell you, not only am
I a non-participant in parlor games, but I am a militant
Copyright 1938 by Robert C. Benchley
35
non-participant. I heckle from the sidelines. I throw stones
and spit at the players. Hence the nickname: "Sweet Old
Bob/' or sometimes just the initials.
One night last summer, I detected, from the general

stir among the ladies and more effete gents, that I was
being eased out of the house. This meant that the gaming
was about to begin. But instead of the usual clatter of
pencils among the croupiers, I saw someone sneaking in

with a tray of poker chips. They almost had me out the
door when I discovered what was up.
"Well, so long, Bob," they said. "Good bowling to
you."
"What's this?" I came back into the room. "Are those
poker chips?"
"Sure, they're poker chips. It's all right to play poker,
isn't it? The reform administration's gone out."
I assumed a hurt air. In fact, I didn't have to assume it.
I was hurt.
"I don't suppose I'm good enough to play poker with

you," I said. "All I'm good enough for is to furnish the
liquor and the dancing girls."

"Why, we thought you didn't like games. You always
act like such a goddamned heel whenever a game is sug-
gested."
"My dear people," I said, trying to be calm, "there are

games and games. 'Twenty Questions' is one game, if
you will, but poker —why, poker is a man's game. It's

CERTAIN SOCIAL PROBLEMS 37
my dish. I'm an old newspaperman, you know. Poker is
the breath of life to a newspaperman." (As a matter of

fact, I never played poker once when I was on a news-
paper, and was never allowed to do more than kibitz at
the Thanatopsis games of Broun, Adams, Kaufman, and

that bunch, but poker is still my favorite game in a small
way, or at least it was.)

Then there was a great scrambling to get me a chair,
and sell me chips. "Old Bob's going to play!" was the
cry. "Old Bob likes poker!" People came in from the next
room to see what the commotion was, and one woman
said that, if I was going to play, she had a headache. (I
had ruined a game of "Who Am I?" for her once by

blowing out a fuse from the coat-closet.)
As for me, I acted the part to the hilt. I took off my

coat, unbottoned my vest so that just the watch-chain
connected it, lighted my pipe, and kept my hat on the

back of my head.
"This is the real poker costume," I said. "The way we
used to play it down on the old Trib. There ought to be
a City News ticker over in the corner to make it seem
like home."
"I'm afraid he's going to be too good for us," said one
of the more timid ladies. "We play for very small stakes,
you know."
"The money doesn't matter," I laughed. "It's the game.
And anyway," I added modestly, "I haven't played for a
long time. You'll probably take me good." (I wish now
that I had made book on that prediction.)
It was to be Dealer's Choice, which should have given
me a tip-off right there, with three women at the table,
one the dealer.

"This," she announced, looking up into space as if for
inspiration, "is going to be 'Hay Fever.'

"I beg pardon," I said leaning forward.
" 'Hay Fever,' " explained one of the men. "The girls
like it. One card up, two down, the last two up. One-eyed
Jacks, sevens, and nines wild. High-low."
"I thought this was going to be poker," I said.
"From then on you play it just like regular poker," said
the dealer.
From then on ! My God ! Just like regular poker
Having established myself as an old poker-fan, I didn't
want to break down and cry at the very start, so I played

the hand through. I say I "played" it. I sat looking at my
cards, peeking now and then just to throw a bluff that I
knew what I was doing. One-eyed Jacks, sevens, and nines

wild, I kept saying that to myself, and puffing very hard at
my pipe. After a minute of owlish deliberation, I folded.
The next hand was to be "Whistle Up Your Windpipe,"

another one which the girls had introduced into the group
and which the men, weak-kneed sissies that they were,
had allowed to become regulation. This was seven-card

stud, first and last cards up, deuces, treys, and red-haired
Queens wild, high-low-and-medium. I figured out that

I had a very nice straight, bet it as I would have bet a
straight in the old days, and was beaten to eleven dollars
and sixty cents by a royal straight flush. Amid general

laugher, I was told that an ordinary straight in these games
is worth no more than a pair of sixes in regular poker. A
royal straight flush usually wins. Well, it usually won in
the old days, too.
By the time the deal came to me, my pipe had gone out
and I had taken my hat off. Between clenched teeth I an-
nounced "And : this, my f rands, is going to be something
you may not have heard of. This is going to be old-
fashioned draw-po\er, with nothing wild." The women
had to have it explained to them, and remarked that they
didn't see much fun in that. However, the hand was
played. Nobody had anything (in comparison to what
they had been having in the boom days), and nobody bet.
The hand was over in a minute and a half, amid terrific
silence.
That was the chief horror of this epidemic of "Whistle

Up Your Windpipe," "Beezy-Weezy," and "Mice Afloat."
It made old-fashioned stud seem tame, even to me. Every
time it came to me, I elected the old game, just out of
spite, but nobody's heart was in it. I became the spoil-sport
of the party again, and once or twice I caught them trying

to slip the deal past me, as if by mistake. Even a round of
jack-pots netted nothing in the way of excitement, and
even when I won one on a full-house, there was no savour
to the victory, as I had to explain to the women what a
full-house was. They thought that I was making up my
own rules. Nothing as small as a full-house had ever been
seen in that game.
The Big Newspaper Man was taken for exactly sixty-one
dollars and eight cents when the game broke up at four
a.m. Two of the women were the big winners. They had
finally got it down to a game where everything was wild
but the black nines, and everyone was trying for "low."
From now on I not only walk out on "Twenty Ques-
tions" and "Who Am I?" but, when there are ladies
present (God bless them!), I walk out on poker. And a

fine state of affairs it is when an old newspaperman has to
walk out on poker!

UNFORTUNATE COINCIDENCE
by Dorothy Parser
By the time you swear you're his,

Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.
Copyright 1926, 1944 by Dorothy Parker
41
A female poet, a female author of any hjnd, rankj
below an actress, I thinly.
—Ciivrles Lamb
YOU NEVER TELL ME
ANYTHING
by Charles W. Morton
WcOMEN have their own peculiar way of reading,
or not reading, newspapers. Sitting under a dryer or pick-

ing things up —between phone calls —around the house,
they happen upon a newspaper. Its date is not important

—yesterday's or last week's or last month's, it's all the
same. Everything in the paper is necessarily news.
The woman is astonished to find that all sorts of things
have been going on in the world, some of them quite

complicated. Of the lead story —from Korea or Lake Suc-
cess or Moscow — she can make no sense whatever, since it
seems to be mixed up with previous matters that she never

heard of at all. Who is Lomakin ? Why should the mayor
be talking about the cost of snow removal ? What is snow
removal? They have to keep the streets clean anyhow,
don't they ? Where is Java ? Is that sale of yard goods still
going on ? What is the date of this paper anyhow ? What

Copyright 1949 by Charles W. Morton
43
date is today ? Heavens, the twenty-fifth ! Too bad.
Such a plunge into the middle of things would discon-
cert a man. He would feel out of touch. According to his
habit of life, he would either brush up on what he had
been missing or remain, by firm choice, happily out of
touch. To wander in and out of a fragmented world would
confuse him. It confuses the woman too, but here again
she achieves the main purpose of the defenseless sex: the
conversion of a weak point into a trap for her master. It's
not the wife who comes off as the defective in the contest
which follows her casual skimming of an old Sunday

Times. The husband is the one who is shown up —igno-
rant, insensate, and forgetful.
The wife does not need to lay any deep plan for using
the gleanings of her half hour under the dryer. They
simply pop into her head that evening at dinner.
"What is going on in Turkey?" she asks. Her air is that
of an eager pupil, confident that a great authority will re-
spond with the definitive report on Turkey, brought up

to date.
The man is perplexed. He has seen no big story out of

Turkey that day or for some time past. He tries to think.
"Nothing special that I know of," he replies.
"Nothing? Now really, isn't that just like you!"

"Well, I didn't see anything in the papers about
Turkey."
"Why have we sent battleships to Turkey?" the wife

demands.
This jolts the husband. What new mess is in the mak-
ing ? Could something have started a war while he was on
the way home? "Great heavens/' he exclaims, "are we
sending battleships to Turkey?"
"I'm surprised that you don't know. I thought you al-
ways followed these things."

"I certainly haven't heard of our sending any battleships
to Turkey. Where did you get it?"
"I read all about it today at Miss Butler's while I was
getting my hair done. It said something about the re-
serves. Do you mean to say that we are even sending our
reserves to Turkey and that you haven't heard about it?"

The husband puts down his coffee. Not a war, after all,
but what about the battleships? He thinks furiously,

cudgels his memory. Reserves . . . reserves —the word stirs
a faint recollection. Vaguely to mind comes a minor item

of some weeks back two : destroyers, perhaps three, taking
naval reservists to the Mediterranean, a "good-will" cruise

or some such thing.
"I seem to recall a story about a couple of our destroyers

going to Turkey on a naval reserve cruise," the husband
begins.
"Ah, so you do know what I'm talking about," says the

wife.
"Well, you asked me about battleships."
"What difference does that make?" demands the wife.
"The point is that you did know that something was going
on in Turkey and that when I asked you about it you just
sat there and pretended you didn't."
"But I thought you meant today," says the husband.

"That destroyer business was a month ago."
Now comes the crusher. "Well, if you knew it at the
time," the wife asserts, "you certainly ought to have told

me about it."
The wife has the situation well in hand by this time. Pa-
tiently, as if according a stubborn child one more chance,
she says, "Well, then tell me some more interesting things
from the news tonight."
The husband realizes that he had better play up. He

launches into a spirited account of a local censorship quar-
rel. A vice crusader has taken from the shelves of the
public library a half-dozen novels, denounced them as ob-
scene, and refuses to give them back to the library. He has

no right to do this, the husband explains, and the library
is taking it to court. This will interest the wife especially,
he tells her, because she met the librarian last week at the
Browns' party and —But the wife's attention seems to have

turned elsewhere. He has lost his audience.
"What have you done," the wife demands suddenly,

"about the deposit for Tom's summer camp ? You know it
was supposed to be mailed to Mr. Peters on the first of the

month and here it is the fifteenth. If we're not going to
send him to camp, I think you ought at least to let Mr.

Peters know, he's been so helpful," etc.
A variation of what's-in-the-papers-tonight ? entrapment

comes when the wife returns one afternoon from a lecture
course that she is taking. The course is entitled "Our Gov-
ernment and What It Means to You," and deals with the
more elementary aspects of elections, public revenues, the
courts and so on. She has just heard the district attorney
explain the successive stages of procedure against a crimi-

nal. She found him a terribly interesting speaker —rather
attractive, too —and she is full of the speech that night at
dinner.
"I did so wish you had been with me at the lecture this
afternoon," the wife begins. "I know you don't like that
sort of thing, but this one was simply fascinating. I learned
things about our courts that I'll bet even you didn't know.
."
Somehow, he made it all so simple, so clear. . .
"Good enough," says the husband. "Tell me about it.
Who was giving the lecture?"

"It was either the attorney general or the district at-
torney —or whatever you call him," the wife replies. "I
don't quite remember his name but he gave us a wonder-

Jul talk."
"Well, you should have noticed which he was," says the

husband. "The district attorney here, George Himmel-
farber, is a pretty good guy, but the attorney general is a
4o MAN AGAINST WOMAN
bad egg, a very bad egg —Jerome Sculpin. Was that who
it was?"
"I have the program somewhere, if it makes any dif-
ference," says the wife. "I don't think it was either of them.
Some name more like Switzer."
"I don't believe I know him," the husband says.
"Well, you would if you went to more of these things,"

says the wife. "You have no idea of what you miss. This
one was simply fascinating."

The wife unfolds the gist of the lecture as she remem-
bers it: the wrongdoer is first arrested and arraigned — yes,
that was the word —arraigned, in the District Court; they

either let him go or hold him for a higher court—of
course, that is, if it's something really serious; otherwise
they may just fine him or send him to jail —assuming, of

course, that he's guilty; then the grand jury indicts him
if they haven't let him go —and then he finally has his trial
in what is called the Superior Court. "Did you know

that?" she demands.
"Know what?" the husband asks.
"Why, that we have in this state a court called the Su-
perior Court —did you know that?" She is challenging
him. He foolishly accepts.
"Well yes, I did," the husband admits.

"Well I didn't," says the wife. "Are you sure you know
about the Superior Court and what it does?"
"Of course I am," says the husband stoutly.
Students of chess, military tactics, and the technique of
cross-examination will see that the wife has achieved the
classic situation of encirclement. That is where her Q-and-
A has been leading ever since she started the conversation.
All that remains is for her to pull the string, close the
noose. She indulges herself in one more exchange with

the loser just to savor the extra moment of victory.
"Do you mean to say," she begins, silkily, "that you have
known all along about the Superior Court and the District
Court and all that?"
"Certainly," replies the husband. "Why shouldn't I?"
Again the crusher: "Well why on earth haven't you told
me about it?"
"Why should I?" asks the husband. He can't help
sounding as if he had preferred to keep his knowledge a

dark masculine secret. He realizes this. "How should I
know that you wanted to hear about the Superior Court?"

he adds.
"That's just it," says the wife triumphantly. "You never
tell me anything."
Game! Set! Match!
Woman will be the last thing civilized by man.
—George Meredith
He that has lost a wife and sixpence has lost sixpence.

— Scots proverb
WHAT ALMOST EVERY WOMAN
KNOWS SOONER OR LATER
by Ogden Nash
Husbands are things that wives have to get used to putting

up with,
And with whom they breakfast with and sup with.
They interfere with the discipline of nurseries,
And forget anniversaries,
And when they have been particularly remiss
They think they can cure everything with a great big kiss.
They are annoying when they stay home
And even more annoying when they roam,
And when you tell them about something they have done
they just look unbearably patient and smile a superior
smile,
And think, Oh she'll get over it after a while,
And they always drink cocktails faster than they can

assimilate them,
And if you look in their direction they act as if they

Copyright 1934 by Ogden Nash
51
were martyrs and you were trying to sacrifice, or
immolate them.
And when it's a question of walking five miles to play
golf they are very energetic but if it's doing anything
useful around the house they are very lethargic,
And then they tell you that women are unreasonable and
don't know anything about logic,
And they never want to get up or go to bed at the same

time as you do,
And when you perform some simple common or garden
rite like putting cold cream on your face or applying a
touch of lipstick they seem to think you are up to some
kind of black magic like a priestess of Voodoo,
And if you serve meat balls for dinner they look put-
upon and say Can't we ever have a sirloin or a porter-
house,
So you get them what they want and then when the bills
come in they act as if you were trying to drive them to
the slorterhouse,
And they are brave and calm and cool and collected about
the ailments of the person they have promised to honor
and cherish,
But the minute they get a sniffle or a stomach-ache of then-
own, why you'd think they were about to perish,
And when you are alone with them they ignore all the
minor courtesies and as for airs and graces, they utterly
lack them,
But when there are a lot of people around they hand you
so many chairs and ash trays and sandwiches and butter
you with such bowings and scrapings that you want
to smack them.
Husbands are indeed an irritating form of life,
And yet through some quirk of Providence most of them

are really very deeply ensconced in the affection of
their wife.
It is only the man whose intellect is clouded by his
sexual impulses that could give the name of the fair sex
to that undersized, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped, and
short-legged race: for the whole beauty of the sex is bound
up with this impulse.
— Schopenhauer
GETTING ALONG WITH WOMEN
by E. B. White
w,HO IS this
prince of good fellows

wonder man
who
in Harper s Magazine,
gets along with women ?
this
Did any of you read that article ? I mean the article called
"Getting Along with Women," written by a man who

shows right off the bat what women think of him by sign-
ing the piece "Anonymous." He gets along so well with
women he dassent even sign his name. Well, / dast. My

name is White, and I don't get along with women. I
would rather be at continual odds with women, and am.

One thing that struck me right away about Anony-
mous's article was that he apparently has no real taste for
women anyway, and of course it's easy enough to get along

with women if you don't care for them. It simply isn't a
problem. Anonymous says some very fine things about
women, but they don't ring true. They haven't got what I
call "glow." According to Anonymous, women don't even

belong to the same race as men. He says that what you've
Copyright 1935 by E. B. White
55
$6 MAN AGAINST WOMAN
got to have to get along is the ability to "see in every
woman something of the woman eternal." Well, that's
just what I can't do. I see in every woman thewoman

temporary, or the woman dishevelled, or the woman ter-
ribly attractive, or the woman beloved. The reason I can't
see the woman eternal is that I don't think woman is a
day more eternal than I am.

Another thing he says about women is that they are the
"keepers of the life-tides." I think that is silly, too. I've
never seen a woman with a life-tide, and if a woman did

have a life-tide, she probably couldn't keep it, because if
she's anything like my Gloria, she can't keep anything. I
can just see Gloria trying to keep a life-tide when she

doesn't even know where she put the key to the front door
except she thinks it was in her purse. It is as keeper of the
life-tides, according to Old Know-it-all, that woman has a
truly great kinship with Nature, far greater than man's.
"Once let a man understand this relationship between

woman and Nature, and he will bow before her outbursts
and condone them." Oh, is that so ? Well, sir, I have found

out that when a woman has burst out at me, it wasn't be-
cause of any kinship with Nature, it was usually because
I damn well had it coming to me. Furthermore, if any-
body around my house is going to have kinship with

Nature, I'll handle it. That's understood. I am just as
"natural" as any woman, and I'm far naturaller than a lot.
I know enough about Nature not to call her Mother, for

one thing. I call her Father. Old Father Nature. Good old
Pop! I have been out messing around with old Pop

Nature when a lot of my fine women friends were safe
indoors with their lares, penates, bridge lamps, and old

copies of Harpers. No, woman isn't the keeper of any
tides. Woman is, on the whole, scared to death of tides,
particularly the strong tides which characterize the eastern

section of the coast of Maine around Mount Desert Island.
But I'll let that go. Let's see how a man should behave
to get along with women, according to old Daddy Anony-
mous, the king of Get Alongers.
"If you really are intent on getting along well with your
woman," he says, "anything you do to help things along is
justifiable." Now isn't that just fine ? For the sake of get-
ting along, anything goes. Anonymous, even if I were in-
tent on getting along with my (as you call her) woman,

I could think of a dozen things which I would not con-
sider justifiable. And so could she. In fact, she could prob-
ably think of more things than I could, which is another

reason we don't get along —she's always got the edge on
me, that way. You want to know some of the things I
would not consider justifiable? Lying is one. Acting dif-

ferent from the way I feel is two. Giving in by so much as
an inch in a matter of principle is three. Offering her a
handkerchief is four. And if you want the other eight,

you know my name.
"Keep your head," says Anonymous, "and you'll be able
to manage her all right." Manage her, eh ? That gives you
a pretty good idea of what the author of "Getting Along
with Women" means by getting along with women. He
means managing women. He is talking not about marital
harmony or sexual rapport or general amicability, he is
talking about managerial prowess. I am not quibbling

here, or turning a chance phrase to my advantage: Anony-
mous mentions "managing" over and over again. In the
very first paragraph he introduces a poor, inept male who
couldn't get along with women. "The man," he says, "has
not managed her." And again: "Most women can be
managed with praise." Manage, manage, manage. The pic-
ture I got of Anonymous's woman, after reading his arti-
cle, was of a little girl whom he kept out in the kitchen

and fed on Ken-L Ration. Once in a while he gave her a
couple of life-tides to play with, and some praise to keep
her from screaming and annoying the neighbors, and all
the time he kept murmuring to himself what a wonderful
creature she was (for him to manage), and seeing in her

"something of the woman eternal," a kin of Nature,
warmly human, wanting to be possessed and "enwrapped
in the strong mantle of maleness." Not just wrapped, mind
you, but ^wrapped. But does he ever go out there and
enwrap her ? Not that I can make out.
I just don't understand this man. He says men are im-
aginative, women are realistic. "For confirmation of this
truism," he says, "I give you Hans Christian Andersen,

the Brothers Grimm, Andrew Lang, Homer, Virgil, and

the nameless spinner of Scheherazade's adventures." O.K.,
Anonymous, two can play at gift-giving. I give you Marie
de France, the Sisters Bronte, Beatrix Potter, Selma Lager-
lof, Lady Murasaki, Laura E. Richards, Helen Banner-
man, Lily F. Wesselhoeft, and Beatrice Lillie. No, on sec-
ond thought I think I'll keep Beatrice Lillie. You don't
deserve her, and I doubt if you could manage her.

This fellow Anonymous not only claims to know all
about women, he seems to know all about us men, too. All

about me, I don't doubt. Listen to this one: "One chief
reason for the failure of a man in love to get along with
his woman seems to him of course to be a tendency on her

part to ask too much He grows resentful, they quarrel,
and then what ? He turns to some other woman for com-

fort." I do, eh? All right, Smarty, what's the other
woman's name ? Come on, what's her name ? You're pretty
sure of yourself, aren't you? I bet you'd be surprised to
know what I do turn to, when I grow resentful and quar-
rel. It's not another woman either. It's a pineapple mara-
schino nut sundae with a whiskey base. Ha!
He know all about my carnal side, too. He
seems to
speaks of certain men (and I can only assume he means
me) who "think of women primarily as bodies sent for
man's gratification. . . . Given a pretty woman and a drink,
and they become clumsily chivalrous." Well, Sir Galahad,
it might interest you to learn that given a pretty woman
and a drink, I do not become clumsily chivalrous, I be-
come grace itself. I have friends who keep the finest liquors
and the prettiest women always on hand, just so they can

give them to me and see how beautifully I carry on. How
d'ya like that, Anonymous? And whether I think of a
woman as "primarily" or "secondarily" a body sent for
man's gratification is quite possibly a point too fine for
an old Get Alonger like you to get mixed up with, you

old Amicable Relations Establisher, you. Don't start me
off about the body of woman, please, or this will grow too
esoteric for anything.
After he has explained how to get along with women

you Anonymous plunges on into new fields: he
love, ex-
plains how to get along with women you don't love — as
though anybody cared. For heaven's sake, who wants to
get along with a woman in whom he's not interested? I
say chuck her and get one you do love, one who fascinates
you so completely that getting along with her is practically
out of the question. But not Anonymous. No, he says:

"The clever man lets the same qualities in him be ap-
parent to all women, whether sweetheart, friend, or busi-
ness associate —his maleness, his consideration, his under-

standing. And toward all women alike, if he be wise, he
exhibits a genuine appreciation, just as in their various
relationships he displays a sense of humor." Anonymous

apparently got his idea about the necessity of having a
sense of humor from a friend of his named Charley
CERTAIN SOCIAL PROBLEMS 6l
Calder, whom he quotes. Charley says that a man "has

got to be diplomatic, and he's got to have a sense of hu-
mor." I think Charley Calder is just as odd a character,
in his own way, as Anonymous. Diplomacy and a sense of
humor, to my mind, are mutually exclusive qualities. They

do not coexist. Sense of humor is just another name for
sense of directness; diplomacy means sense of indirectness,
or mild chicanery. I don't see how a man can have both,

or, if he had them, how he could use 'em against a woman.
But enough of this tedious theme! I will leave Anony-
mous to his amicability, his sense of humor, his little
hypocrisies and artifices. It's five o'clock. Twilight is set-
tling down on the city, and with it comes the infinitely
alluring prospects of going forth to meet a pretty woman,

and of not making the slightest effort to get along with
her, and of succeeding.
THE OLD GUARD
III
The history of women is the
form of tyr-
history of the worst
anny the world has ever \nown.
The tyranny of the wea\ over the
strong. It is the only tyranny that
lasts,
—Oscar Wilde
THE GARDEN OF EDEN
Anonymous
JlHUS the heavens and the earth were finished, and

all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended
his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh
day from all his work which he had made. And God
blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in
it he had rested from all his work which God created
and made.
These are the generations of the heavens and of the
earthwhen they were created, in the day that the Lord
God made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of
the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the
field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it
to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the
ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and
watered the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God
formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into
his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living
soul.
65
And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden;
and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out
of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree
that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree
of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of
knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of

Eden to water the garden and from thence ; it was parted,
and became into four heads. The name of the first is
Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of

Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land
is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the
name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that com-
passeth the whole land of Ethiopia. And the name of the
third river is Hiddekel that : is it which goeth toward the

east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates. And
the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden
of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God

commanded die man, saying, Of every tree of the garden
thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day
that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man
should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast
of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them
unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatso-
ever Adam called every living creature, that was the name
THE OLD GUARD 6j
thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the
fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for
Adam there was not found a help meet for him. And the
Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he

slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh
instead thereof. And the rib, which the Lord God had
taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto
the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones,
and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, be-

cause she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man
leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his
wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both
naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the
field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto
the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every
tree of the garden ? And the woman said unto the serpent,
We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: but of
the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden,
God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall yc

touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the
woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that
in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened,
and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for
food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be
desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof,
and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her;
and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened,
and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig
leaves together, and made themselves aprons. And they

heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden
in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid them-
selves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the
trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam,
and said unto him, Where art thou ? And he said, I heard
thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was
naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that
thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof

I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the
man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me,
she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord God
said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done ?
And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I

did eat.
And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou
hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above
every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and
dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put
enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy

seed and her seed ; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt
bruise his heel.
Unto the woman he said, I will gready multiply thy

THE OLD GUARD 69
sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring

forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband,
and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, Be-
cause thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and
hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, say-
ing, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy
sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy
life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee;

and thou shalt eat the herb of the field: in the sweat of
thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the
ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art,
and unto dust shalt thou return. And Adam called his
wife's name Eve ; because she was the mother of all living.
Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make
coats of skins, and clothed them.
And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as
one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put
forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat,
and live for ever: therefore the Lord God sent him forth
from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence
he was taken. So he drove out the man: and he placed at
the east of the garden of Eden cherubim, and a flaming

sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the
tree of life.
It goes ill with the house when the hen sings and the
coc\ is silent.
— Spanish proverb
This mad wic\ed folly of Women's Rights with all its
attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex has been

forgetting every sense of feeling and propriety.
—Queen Victoria
IN SUPPORT OF THE
OPPIAN LAW
by Cato the Elder
I F, ROMANS, every individual among us had made it a

rule to maintain the prerogative and authority of a hus-
band with respect to his own wife, we should have less
trouble with the whole sex. But now our privileges, over-
powered at home by female contumacy, are, even here in
the Forum, spurned and trodden under foot ; and because
we are unable to withstand each separately we now dread
their collective body. I was accustomed to think it a fabu-
lous and fictitious tale that in a certain island the whole
race of males was utterly extirpated by a conspiracy of the
women.
But the utmost danger may be apprehended equally
from either sex if you suffer cabals and secret consultations
to be held: scarcely indeed can I determine, in my own

mind, whether the act itself, or the precedent that it
affords, is of more pernicious tendency. The latter of these
more particularly concerns us consuls and the other magis-

71
strates; the former, you, my fellow citizens: for, whether
the measure proposed to your consideration be profitable
to the state or not, is to be determined by you, who are to
vote on the occasion.

As to the outrageous behavior of these women, whether
it be merely an act of their own, or owing to your instiga-
tions, Marcus Fundanius and Lucius Valerius, it unques-
tionably implies culpable conduct in magistrates. I know
not whether it reflects greater disgrace on you, tribunes,
or on the consuls: on you certainly, if you have brought

these women hither for die purpose of raising tribunitian
seditions; on us, if we suffer laws to be imposed on us by
a secession of women, as was done formerly by that of
the common people. It was not without painful emotions
of shame that I, just now, made my way into the Forum
through the midst of a band of women.
Had I not been restrained by respect for the modesty
and dignity of some individuals among them, rather than
of the whole number, and been unwilling that they should
be seen rebuked by a consul, I should not have refrained
from saying to them, "What sort of practice is this, of
running out into public, besetting the streets, and address-

ing other women's husbands ? Could not each have made
the same request to her husband at home? Are your
blandishments more seducing in public than in private,
and with other women's husbands than with your own ?
Although if females would let their modesty confine them
THE OLD GUARD 73
within the limits of their own rights, it did not become

you, even at home, to concern yourselves about any laws
that might be passed or repealed here." Our ancestors
thought it not proper that women should perform any,
even private business, without a director; but that they
should be ever under the control of parents, brothers, or
husbands. We, it seems, suffer them, now, to interfere in
the management of state affairs, and to thrust themselves
into the Forum, into general assemblies, and into as-
semblies of election: for what are they doing at this mo-

ment in your streets and lanes ? What, but arguing, some
in support of the motion of tribunes; others contending
for the repeal of the law?
Will you give the reins to their intractable nature, and
then expect that themselves should set bounds to their
licentiousness, and without your interference ? This is the

smallest of the injunctions laid on them by usage or the
laws, all which women bear with impatience: they long
for entire liberty; nay, to speak the truth, not for liberty,
but for unbounded freedom in every particular: for what

will they not attempt if they now come off victorious ? Rec-
ollect all the institutions respecting the sex, by which
our forefathers restrained their profligacy and subjected
them to their husbands; and yet, even with the help of all
these restrictions they can scarcely be kept within bounds.
If, then, you suffer them to throw these off one by one, to
tear them all asunder, and, at last, to be set on an equal
74 M AN AGAINST WOMAN
footing with yourselves, can you imagine that they will be
any longer tolerable? Suffer them once to arrive at an
equality with you, and they will from that moment be-
come your superiors.
But, indeed, they only object to any new law being made
against them; they mean to deprecate, not justice, but
severity. Nay, their wish is that a law which you have ad-
mitted, established by your suffrages, and found in the
practice and experience of so many years to be beneficial,

should now be repealed; and that by abolishing one law
you should weaken all the rest. No law perfectly suits the
convenience of every member of the community; the only

consideration is, whether, on the whole, it be profitable to
the greater part. If, because a law proves obnoxious to a
private individual, it must therefore be canceled and an-
nulled, to what purpose is it for the community to enact
laws, which those, whom they were particularly intended

to comprehend, could presently repeal ? Let us, however,
inquire what this important affair is which has induced the
matrons thus to run out into public in this indecorous
manner, scarcely restraining from pushing into the Forum
and the assembly of the people.
Is it to solicit that their parents, their husbands, children,
and brothers may be ransomed from captivity under Han-

nibal ?
By no means and : far be ever from the commonwealth

so unfortunate a situation. Yet, when such was the case,
THE OLD GUARD 75
you refused this to the prayers which, on that occasion,

their duty dictated. But it is not duty, nor solicitude for
their friends; it is religion that has collected them together.
They are about to receive the Idaean Mother, coming out
of Phrygia from Pessinus.
What motive, that even common decency will not allow

to be mentioned, is pretended for this female insurrection ?
Hear the answer:
That we may shine in gold and purple; that, both on

festival and common days, we may ride through the city
in our chariots, triumphing over vanquished and abro-

gated law, after having captured and wrested from you
your suffrages; and that there may be no bounds to our
expenses and our luxury.
Often have you heard me complain of the profuse ex-
penses of the women—often of those of the men and that ;
not only of men in private stations, but of the magistrates;

and that the state was endangered by two opposite vices,
luxury and avarice; those pests which have ever been the
ruin of every great state. These I dread the more, as the
circumstances of the commonwealth grow daily more

prosperous and happy; as the empire increases; as we have
passed over into Greece and Asia, places abounding with
every kind of temptation that can inflame the passions;
and as we have begun to handle even royal treasures: for
I greatly fear that these matters will rather bring us into
captivity than we them.

Believe me, those statues from Syracuse made their way
into this city with hostile effect. I already hear too many
commending and admiring the decorations of Athens and
Corinth, and ridiculing the earthen images of our Roman
gods that stand on the fronts of their temples. For my
part, I prefer these gods —propitious as they are, and I hope
will continue, if we allow them to remain in their own
mansions.
In the memory of our fathers, Pyrrhus, by his ambas-
sador Cineas, made trial of the dispositions, not only of
our men, but of our women also, by offers of presents: at
that time the Oppian law, for restraining female luxury,
had not been made; and yet not one woman accepted a
present. What, think you, was the reason ? That for which
our ancestors made no provision by law on this subject:
there was no luxury existing which might be restrained.
As diseases must necessarily be known before their

remedies, so passions come into being before the laws
which prescribe limits to them. What called forth the
Licinian law, restricting estates to five hundred acres, but

the unbounded desire for enlarging estates? What the
Cinlian law, concerning gifts and presents, but that the

plebeians had become vassals and tributaries to the senate ?
It is not, therefore, in any degree surprising that no want

of the Oppian law, or of any other, to limit the expenses
of the women, was felt at that time, when they refused to

THE OLD GUARD 77
receive gold and purple that was thrown in their way and
offered to their acceptance. If Cineas were now to go round
the city with his presents, he would find numbers of
women standing in the public streets ready to receive

them.
There are some passions the causes or motives of which
I can no way account To be debarred of a liberty in
for.
which another is indulged may perhaps naturally excite
some degree of shame or indignation; yet, when the dress

of all is alike, what inferiority in appearance can any one
be ashamed of? Of all kinds of shame, the worst, surely,
is the being ashamed of frugality or of poverty; but the
law relieves you with regard to both; you want only that
which it is unlawful for you to have.
This equalization, says the rich matron, is the very thing
that I cannot endure. Why do not I make a figure, dis-
tinguished with gold and purple? Why is the poverty of
others concealed under this cover of a law, so that it should
be thought that, if the law permitted, they would have
such things as they are not now able to procure ? Romans,
do you wish to excite among your wives an emulation of
this sort, that the rich should wish to have what no other
can have; and that the poor, lest they should be despised
as such, should extend their expenses beyond their abili-
ties?Be assured that when a woman once begins to be
ashamed of what she ought not to be ashamed of, she will
not be ashamed of what she ought. She who can, will
purchase out of her own purse; she who cannot, will ask
her husband.
Unhappy is the husband, both he who complies with the
request, and he who does not; for what he will not give
himself, another will. Now they openly solicit favors from

other women's husbands; and, what is more, solicit a law
and votes. From some they obtain them; although, with
regard to you, your property, or your children, you would
find it hard to obtain anything from them. If the law
ceases to limit the expenses of your wife, you yourself will
never be able to limit them. Do not suppose that the matter
will hereafter be in the same state in which it was before
the law was made on the subject. It is safer that a wicked
man should never be accused than that he should be ac-
quitted; and luxury, if it had never been meddled with,
would be more tolerable than it will be, now, like a wild
beast, irritated by having been chained and then let loose.
My opinion is that the Oppian law ought on no account

to be repealed. Whatever determination you may come to,
I pray all the gods to prosper it.

WOMEN
by Setnonides of Amorgus
w,HEN GOD made woman He made her mind

different from man's.
He made her of a bristly sow. Everything about her is
disorderly, defiled with dirt; and she herself grows fat
sitting on the dunghills in clothes as filthy as herself. So

much for one kind of woman.
Another kind God made of a knavish vixen. This one
knows everything and notices everything, regardless of
whether it is bad or good. The bad she often calls good,

and the good bad. This kind is always switching her
moods.
Another kind He made of a bitch, a busybody like her
mother. This one wants to hear all and know all and is
always peering and prying about and barking even when

she sees nobody. No man can stop her threats, not even
if he knocks her teeth out with a stone or speaks gently
to her even if she happens to be sitting among strangers.
Translated by J. M. Edmonds
Revised by Charles Neider
79
This dame has just got to keep howling.
Another the Olympians made of Earth. This one is
entirely lacking in sense, knowing neither good nor evil.
All she can do is eat, and even if God gives us a raw

winter she hasn't got the brains to draw her stool closer
to the fire.
Another God made of the sea. One day she does noth-
ing but laugh, and a stranger, seeing her, will say: "This
is without doubt the best wife in the world, as well as the
prettiest.'' The very next day she is impossible to look at

or to come close to, like a bitch with pups, nasty to friend
and foe alike. The sea in summer will often be calm and
beautiful and yet will suddenly rage and storm. This kind
of woman is exactly like the sea from which she was made.
Then there is the kind made of a stubborn and beaten
donkey. This one does nothing unless she is first threat-
ened, and everything she touches is half-done. In the
meantime she eats all day long, no matter where she hap-
pens to be, and all men are welcome to her bed.
There is also the kind made of a cat, who is not pretty,
pleasant or physically desirable. This one is always meow-
ing for a mate, but when she gets one she turns his
stomach. She also manages to do her neighbors lots of
harm in her underhand fashion.
Another kind is the child of a dainty longmaned mare.

She refuses to work at the mill or the sieve or to throw
out the garbage or to sit beside the oven. She takes a mate
THE OLD GUARD 8l
only when it's absolutely necessary, washes herself as much

as three times a day, anoints herself with oils, and always
wears her hair combed and wreathed with flowers. Such
a girl may look good to other men, but not to her hus-
band, unless he happens to be one of those despots or
kings who takes pride in adornments like her.
Another was made of an ape. This one is the worst that

Zeus gives to man. Her face is foul, her neck short, her
hips are without curves, her legs too thin —God help the
man who gets a woman like that! She makes all men
laugh as she walks through the town. But she is as cun-
ning as an ape and doesn't care at all about men's laughter.

She will never be kind to a man. All she thinks of is to
be as evil as she can.
The kind made of a bee is another story. Happy is the

man who gets her. She is without blame, and life flourishes
because of her. Pre-eminent among women, she is loving

and loved and the mother of fair and honorable children.
Divine grace pervades her. She never sits among the
women when they tell stories about fornication. Such a
wife is the best and wisest that Zeus bestows on a man.
The others, thanks to Him, are and forever will be a
mischief in the world.
For woman is the greatest evil that Zeus has created.
Even when she seems an advantage to him a wife is little
more than a mischief to the man who has one. He who
lives with a woman hardly ever passes a whole day with-
out sorrow, and is always struggling to shove Hunger,
that hostile deity, out of his house. Just man is when a
settling down to be happy in his house by the grace of God
and the favor of men, just then will his wife find cause to
blame and battle him. Where there is a woman, a stranger
cannot be received heartily. And when she seems to be

most discreet, that is when she will do the most harm.
Her husband may be all taken with her but the neighbors
will laugh that still another fellow is deceived. Every man
is ready to praise his own wife while condemning another
man's —we are unable to see that we are all in the same
boat. Yes, this is die greatest evil that Zeus has made. We
have all been in bondage to woman ever since Death
took those that went a-warring for her.

:
THAT WOMEN ARE

BUT MEN'S SHADOWS
by Ben Jonson
Follow a shadow, it still flies you;

Seem to fly it, it will pursue:
So court a mistress, she denies you;

Let her alone, she will court you.
Say are not women truly, then,
Styled but the shadows of us men ?
At morn and even shades are longest;
At noon they are or short or none

So men at weakest, they are strongest,
But grant us perfect, they're not known.
Say are not women truly, then,
Styled but the shadows of us men ?
83
Women . . . are only children of a larger growth; they
have an entertaining tattle, and sometimes wit; but for
solid, reasoning good sense, I never in my life \new one

that had it, or who reasoned or acted consequentially for
four and twenty hours together. . . . A man of sense only
trifles with them, plays with them, humours and flatters
them, as he does with a sprightly, forward child; but he

neither consults them about, or trusts them with, serious
matters. . . . No flattery is either too high or too low for

them. . . . But these are secrets which you must \eep
inviolably, if you would not, li\e Orpheus, be torn to
pieces by the whole sex.

—Lord Chesterfield
ADVICE TO A YOUNG MAN
ON THECHOICE OF A MISTRESS
by Benjamin Franklin
X I
O MY DEAR FRIEND:
know of no medicine fit to diminish the violent natural
inclinations you mention; and if I did, I think I should
not communicate it to you. Marriage is the proper remedy.
It is the most natural State of Man, and therefore the
State in which you are most likely to find solid Happi-

ness. Your Reasons against entering into it at present
appear to me not well founded. The circumstantial Ad-

vantages you have in view by postponing it, are not only
uncertain, but they are small in comparison with that of
the Thing itself, the being married and settled. It is the

Man and Woman united that make the compleat human
Being. Separate, She wants his Force of Body and Strength
of Reason; he, her Softness, Sensibility, and acute Dis-
cernment. Together they are more likely to succeed in the
World. A single Man has not nearly the value he would
have in the State of Union. He is an incomplete Animal.
He resembles the odd half of a pair of Scissars. If you get
85
a prudent, healthy Wife, your Industry in your Profes-
sion, with her good Economy, will be a Fortune sufficient.
But if you will not take this Counsel & persist in think-
ing a Commerce with the Sex inevitable, then I repeat my

former Advice, that in all your Amours you should prefer
old Women to young ones.
You call this a Paradox and demand my Reasons. They

are these:
i. Because they have more Knowledge of the World, &

their Minds are better stor'd with Observations, their Con-
versation is more improving, & more lastingly agreeable.
2. Because when Women cease to be handsome they

study to be good. To maintain their Influence over men,
they supply the Diminution of Beauty by an Augmenta-
tion of Utility. They learn to do a thousand Services small
& great, & are the most tender and useful of Friends when
you are sick. Thus they continue amiable. And hence there
is hardly such a thing to be found as an old Woman who

is not a good Woman.
3. Because there is no Hazard of Children, which ir-
regularly produced may be attended with much Incon-

venience.
4. Because through more Experience they are more pru-

dent and discreet in conducting an Intrigue to prevent
Suspicion. The Commerce with them is therefore safer
with regard to your Reputation. And with regard to theirs,
if the Affair should happen to be known, considerate

THE OLD GUARD 87
People might be rather inclined to excuse an old Woman,

who would kindly take care of a young man, from his
Manners by her good counsels, & prevent his ruining his
Health and Fortune among mercenary Prostitutes.
5. Because in every Animal that walks upright, the De-

ficiency of the fluids that fill the Muscles appears first in
the highest part. The Face first grows lank and wrinkled;
then the Neck; then the Breast and Arms; the lower Parts
continuing to the last as plump as ever: so that covering all
above with a Basket, and regarding only what is below

the Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to tell an old
one from a young one. And as in the dark all Cats are
grey, the Pleasure of Corporal Enjoyment with an old
Woman is at least equal, and frequently superior; every
Knack being, by Practice, capable of Improvement.
6. Because the Sin is less. The debauching a Virgin may

be her Ruin, and make her for Life unhappy.
7. Because the Compunction is less. The having made a

young Girl miserable may give you frequent bitter Re-
flection; none of which can attend the making an old
Woman happy.
8th & lastly. They are so grateful! !
Thus much for my Paradox. But still I advise you to

marry directly; being sincerely
Your affectionate Friend,
Benjamin Franklin
THE NEW LOOK
IV
She will stay at home, perhaps,
if her leg be bro\e.
—Thomas Fuller
THE CASE AGAINST WOMEN
by James Thurber
A
more
BRIGHT-EYED woman,
of eagerness than of
whose sparkle was rather
intelligence, approached
me at a party one afternoon and said,"Why do you hate
women, Mr. Thurberg?" I quickly adjusted my fixed grin
and denied that I hated women; I said I did not hate
women at all. But the question remained with me, and I
discovered when I went to bed that night that I had been

subconsciously listing a number of reasons I do hate
women. It might be interesting —at least it will help pass
the time —to set down these reasons, just as they came up
out of my subconscious.
In the first place, I hate women because they always
know where things are. At first blush, you might think
that a perverse and merely churlish reason for hating
women, but it is not. Naturally, every man enjoys having
a woman around the house who knows where his shirt
studs and his briefcase are, and things like that, but he
Permission the author
Copyright 1936, The New Yorker Magazine, Inc.
91
detests having a woman around who knows where every-
thing is, even things that are of no importance at all, such
as, say, the snapshots her husband took three years ago at
Elbow Beach. The husband has never known where these
snapshots were since the day they were developed and

printed; he hopes, in a vague way, if he thinks about them
at all, that after three years they have been thrown out.
But his wife knows where they are, and so do his mother,
his grandmother, his great-grandmother, his daughter,

and the maid. They could put their fingers on them in a
moment, with that quiet air of superior knowledge which

makes a man feel that he is out of touch with all the
things that count in life.
A man's interest in old snapshots, unless they are snap-
shots of himself in action with a gun, a fishing rod, or a
tennis racquet, languishes in about two hours. A woman's

interest in old snapshots, particularly of groups of people,
never languishes; it is always there, as the years roll on,
as strong and vivid as it was right at the start. She remem-

bers the snapshots when people come to call, and just as
the husband, having mixed drinks for everybody, sits
down to sip his own, she will say, "George, I wish you
would go and get those snapshots we took at Elbow
Beach and show them to the Murphys." The husband, as
I have know where the snapshots are; all he

said, doesn't
knows is that Harry Murphy doesn't want to see them;

Harry Murphy wants to talk, just as he himself wants to
THE NEW LOOK 93
talk. But Grace Murphy says that she wants to see the pic-
tures; she is crazy to see the pictures; for one thing, the
wife, who has brought the subject up, wants Mrs. Murphy
to see the photo of a certain costume that the wife wore at
Elbow Beach in 1933. The husband finally puts down his

drink and snarls, "Well, where are they, then?" The wife,
depending on her mood, gives him either the look she re-
serves for spoiled children or the one she reserves for

drunken workmen, and tells him he knows perfectly well
where they are. It turns out, after a lot of give and take,
the slightly bitter edge of which is covered by forced

laughs, that the snapshots are in the upper right-hand
drawer of a certain desk, and the husband goes out of the

room to get them. He comes back in three minutes with
the news that the snapshots are not in the upper right-hand
drawer of the certain desk. Without stirring from her
chair, the wife favors her husband with a faint smile (the
one that annoys him most of all her smiles) and reiterates
that the snapshots are in the upper right-hand drawer of
the desk. He simply didn't look, that's all. The husband
knows that he looked; he knows that he prodded and dug
and excavated in that drawer and that the snapshots
simply are not there.The wife tells him to go look again
and he will find them. The husband goes back and looks
—
again the guests can hear him growling and cursing and
rattling papers. Then he shouts out from the next room.
"They are not in this drawer, just as I told you, Ruth!"

The wife quietly excuses herself and leaves the guests and
goes into the room where her husband stands, hot, miser-
able, and defiant —and with a certain nameless fear in his

heart. He has pulled the desk drawer out so far that it is
about to fall on the floor, and he points at the disarray of
the drawer with bitter triumph (still mixed with that
nameless fear). "Look for yourself!" he snarls. The wife

does not look. She says with quiet coldness, "What is that
you have in your hand ?" What he has in his hand turns
out to be an insurance policy and an old bankbook —and
the snapshots. The wife gets off the old line about what it
would have done if it had been a snake, and the husband

is upset for the rest of the evening; in some cases he can-
not keep anything on his stomach for twenty-four hours.
Another reason I hate women (and I am speaking I be-
lieve, for the American male generally) is that in almost
every case where there is a sign reading "Please have exact

change ready," a woman never has anything smaller than
a ten-dollar bill. She gives ten-dollar bills to bus conduc-
tors and change men in subways and other such persons
who deal in nickels and dimes and quarters. Recently, in
Bermuda, I saw a woman hand the conductor on the little
railway there a bill of such huge denomination that I was

utterly unfamiliar with it. I was sitting too far away to see
exactly what it was, but I had the feeling that it was a
five-hundred-dollar bill. The conductor merely ignored

it and stood there waiting —the fare was just one shilling.
THE NEW LOOK 95
Eventually, scrabbling around in her handbag, the woman

found a shilling. All the men on the train who witnessed
the transaction tightened up inside; that's what a woman
with a ten-dollar bill or a twenty or a five-hundred does
to a man in such situations —she tightens him up inside.
The episode gives him the feeling that some monstrous
triviality is threatening the whole structure of civilization.
It is difficult to analyze this feeling, but there it is.
Another spectacle that depresses the male and makes

him fear women, and therefore hate them, is that of a
woman looking another woman up and down, to see
what she is wearing. The cold, flat look that comes into
a woman's eyes when she does this, the swift coarsening
of her countenance, and the immediate evaporation from
it of all humane quality make the male shudder. He is
likely to go to his stateroom or his den or his private
office and lock himself in for hours. I know one man who
surprised that look in his wife's eyes and never afterward
would let her come near him. If she started toward him,
he would dodge behind a table or a sofa, as if he were
engaging in some unholy game of tag. That look, I be-
lieve, is one reason men disappear, and turn up in Tahiti
or the Arctic or the United States Navy.
I (to quit hiding behind the generalization of "the
male") hate women because they almost never get any-

thing exactly right. They say, "I have been faithful to
thee, Cynara, after my fashion" instead of "in my fashion."
They will bet you that Alfred Smith's middle name is
Aloysius, instead of Emanuel. They will tell you to take
the 2:57 tram , °n a day that the 2:57 does not run, or, if
it does run, does not stop at the station where you are
supposed to get off. Many men, separated from a woman
by this particular form of imprecision, have never showed
up in her life again. Nothing so embitters a man as to
end up in Bridgeport when he was supposed to get off
at Westport.
I hate women because they have brought into the cur-
rency of our language such expressions as "all righty" and
"yes indeedy" and hundreds of others. I hate women be-
cause they throw baseballs (or plates or vases) with the

wrong foot advanced. I marvel that more of them have
not broken their backs. I marvel that women, who co-
ordinate so well in languorous motion, look uglier and

sillier than a goose-stepper when they attempt any form
of violent activity.
I had a lot of other notes jotted down about why I hate

women, but I seem to have lost them all, except one.
That one is to the effect that I hate women because, while
they never lose old snapshots or anything of that sort,
they invariably lose one glove. I believe that I have never

gone anywhere with any woman in my whole life who
did not lose one glove. I have searched for single gloves
under tables in crowded restaurants and under the feet
of people in darkened movie theatres. I have spent some

THE NEW LOOK 97
part of every day or night hunting for a woman's glove.
If there were no other reason in the world for hating
women, that one would be enough. In fact, you can leave

all the others out.
When Eve upon the first of men

The apple pressed with specious cant,
Oh, what a thousand pities then
That Adam was not Adamant!
—Thomas Hood
All sensiblemen are of the same opinion about women
and no sensible man ever says what that opinion is.
— Samuel Butler (1835-1902)
Men should \eep their eyes wide open before marriage t

and half shut afterward.
—Mlle. de Scuderi
WOMAN'S PLACE
by David Ross Loc\e
I ADORE woman, but I want her to keep her place. In

considering this woman question, I take the conservative
standpoint. From the beginning, woman has occupied a
dependent position. The Turks, logical fellows, denied her
a soul, and made her an object of barter and sale. The
American Indians made of her a beast of burden. In
America, since we have extended the area of civilization
by butchering the Indians, we have copied both. In our
higher walks of life, she is a toy to be played with, and
is bought and sold; in the lower strata she bears the
burdens and does the drudgery of servants. But I am sure
that her present condition is her proper condition, for it
has always been so.
Man, it will be observed, was created first, showing

conclusively that he was intended to take precedence of
woman. A schoolmistress of mine once denied the correct-

ness of this conclusion. "If there is anything in being first,"
she said, "man must acknowledge the supremacy of the
99
goose, for according to Genesis, the fowl was first
created."
Such an argument, of course, I reject with scorn.

My research indicates that Eve was the ideal woman.
She knew her place. She did not even keep a kitchen girl.
At least, I find no record of anything of the kind. Prob-
ably at that time the emigration from Ireland was setting
in other directions. Eve was no strong-minded female, and

never got out of her legitimate sphere. I have searched
the Book of Genesis faithfully, and I defy anyone to find
it recorded therein that Eve ever made a public speech,
or expressed any desire to practice law or medicine, or

sit in the legislature. What a crushing, withering, scathing,
blasting rebuke to the Dickinsons, Stantons, Blackwells,
and Anthonys of this degenerate day!

I find in the Bible many arguments against the equality
of woman with man in point of intellectual power. The

serpent tempted Eve, not Adam. Why did he select Eve ?
Ah, why, indeed! He is a most consummate judge of

character, and he has never failed to select for his
work the most fitting instruments. When America was to
be betrayed the first time, Satan selected Benedict Arnold.
. . . When there is a fearful piece of jobbery to get through

Congress or the New York legislature, he never fails
to select precisely the right persons for the villainy. Pos-
sibly he is not entitled to credit for discrimination in

THE NEW LOOK 101
these last-mentioned bodies, for he could not very well
go wrong, blindfolded and with both hands tied —but this
is a digression.
Satan selected Eve because the woman was weaker than

the man, and therefore best for his purpose. This reckless
female, my old schoolmistress, insisted that Satan ap-

proached Eve first because he knew that woman was not
afraid of the Devil. But I reject this explanation as irrele-
vant.
At this point, however, we must stop. Should we go

on,we would find that Eve, the weak woman, tempted
Adam, the strong man, with distinguished success, which
would leave us in this predicament: Satan, stronger than
Eve, tempted her to indulge in fruit. Eve's weakness was

demonstrated by her falling a victim to temptation.
Eve tempted Adam Adam ; yielded to Eve ; therefore —but
I shall dismiss Adam and Eve with the remark that if
Satan had been considerate of the feelings of the con-

servatives, his best friends, by the way, in all ages, he
would have tempted Adam first and caused Adam to
tempt Eve.
As a conservative, I must say that the inferiority of the
sex is easy of demonstration. It has been said that the

mother forms the character of the man so long, that the
proposition has become axiomatic. If this be true, we can
crush those who prate of the equality of woman, by hold-
ing up to the gaze of the world the inferior men she
has formed. Look at the Congress of the United States!
By their works ye shall know them.
Pocahontas has been held up as a sample of female
strength of mind. I don't deny that she displayed some
decision of character, but it was fearfully unwomanly.
When her father raised his club over the head of the
astonished Smith, instead of rushing in so recklessly, she
should have said, "Please, pa, don't." Her recklessness
was immense. Suppose Pocahontas had been unable to
stay the blow, where would our Miss have been then?
she never would have married Rolfe. What would the
first families of Virginia have done for somebody to
descend from?
The disturbing female, my former schoolmistress, of
whom I have spoken once or twice, maintains that
women's qualifications entitle them to vote. I answer that
such is not the case. For example, my friend is learned.
She has read the Constitution of the United States. She

excels in political lore the great majority of our representa-
tives in Congress. Nevertheless, I protest against her vot-
ing for several reasons

i. She cannot sing bass. Her voice is pitched higher
than the male voice, which indicates feminine weakness
of mind.
2. Her form is graceful rather than strong.
3. She delights in millinery goods.

THE NEW LOOK IO3
4. She can't grow whiskers.

In all of these points nature has made a distinction be-
tween the sexes which cannot be overlooked.

Unless women keep to their sphere, dependent on men
for all things, they would be as miserable as Jay Gould
is, with an ungobbled railroad. Let every woman marry
and marry as soon as possible. Then she is provided for.
Then the ivy has her oak. Then, if her husband is a good
man, a kind man, an honest man, a sober man, an in-
dustrious man, and if he has a good business and drives

it, and meets with no misfortunes, and never yields to
temptations, why, then, the maid promoted to be his wife
will be tolerably certain to, at least, have all that she can
eat, and all that she can wear, as long as he continues so.
If there be more women than there are men, I don't

know what they can do unless they make shirts at twelve
and a half cents each, and live gorgeously on the proceeds
of their toil. If one man concludes that he won't marry
at all, it's bad for another woman, unless some man's
wife dies and he marries again. That might equalize it,
but for two reasons: It compels the woman to wait for a
husband until she possibly concludes it isn't worth while.

Furthermore, husbands die as fast as wives, which brings
a new element into the field —widows. And, pray, what
chance has an inexperienced man against a widow deter-
mined upon a second husband?
However, this strange woman, of whom I have spoken,
remarked that she wanted woman to have an opportunity
to stand alone in case she could not marry or her husband
proved incompetent to support her. She demanded for
woman, in short, employment at anything she was capable
of doing, and pay precisely the same that men receive for
the same labor, provided she does it as well.
This is a clear flying in the face of Providence! It is
utterly impossible that any woman can do any work as
well as men. Nature decreed it otherwise. Ask the clerks
at Washington, whose muscular frames, whose hardened

sinews, are employed at from twelve hundred to three
thousand dollars per annum, at the arduous and exhaust-

ing labor of writing in books and counting money, and
cutting out extracts from newspapers, and endorsing
papers and filing them, what they think of that?
I asked her sternly, "Are you willing to go to war?
Did you shoulder a musket in the late unpleasantness?"
She merely asked me if I carried a musket in the late
war? Certainly I did not. I had too much presence of
mind to volunteer. Nor did the majority of those holding

official position. Like Job's charger, they snuffed the battle
afar off —some hundreds of miles—and slew the haughty

Southron on the stump, or by hired substitute. But there
is this difference: We could have gone, while women
could not. And it is better that it is so. In the event of
another bloody war, one so desperate as to require all the
patriotism of the country to show itself, I do not want my

—
THE NEW LOOK IO5
wife to go to the tented field, even though she have the

requisite physical strength. No, indeed ! I want her to stay
at home—with me.
In the matter of wages, I do not see how it is to be
helped. The woman who teaches a school receives, if she
has thoroughly mastered the requirements of the posi-

tion, say, six hundred dollars a year, while a man occupy-
ing the same position, filling it with equal ability, receives
twice that amount, and possibly three times. But what is
this to me? As a man of business, my duty to myself is
to get my children educated at the least possible expense.

As there are very few things women are permitted to do,
and as, for every vacant place, there are a hundred women
eager for it, their pay — as a matter of course — is brought
down to a fine point.
There are immutable laws governing all these things

the laws of supply and demand. Christ, whose mission
was with the poor, made other laws, but Christ is not
allowed to have anything to do with business. Selfishness
is older than Christ, and we conservatives stick close to
the oldest.
As I said some minutes ago, if the men born into the

world would marry at twenty-one, each a maiden of
eighteen, and take care of her properly, and never get
drunk or sick, or anything of that inconvenient sort, and
both would be taken at precisely the same time with con-
sumption, yellow fever, cholera, or any of those ailments,
and employ the same physician, that they might go out
of the world at the same moment, it would be well. The
men would then take care of the women. Women are
themselves to blame for a great part of the distress they

experience. There is work for them, if they would only
do it. The kitchens of the country are not half supplied
with intelligent labor, and therein is a refuge for all
women in distress. I assert that nothing but foolish pride,

which is sinful, keeps the daughters and widows of in-
solvency out of kitchens, where they may have happy

underground homes and three dollars per week, by
merely doing six hours per day more labor than hod-
carriers average.
Failing the kitchen, women may canvass for books,

though that occupation, like a few others, equally profit-
able, brings them into continual contact with the lords
of creation, and thus has a drawback in the fact that
some men leer into the face of every woman who strives
to do business for herself, as though she were a moral

leper.
Failing all these, as I have touched upon before, she

may, at least, take to the needle. At this last occupation,
she is certain to meet no competition, save from her own

sex. In all my experience, and it has been extensive, I
never yet saw a man making pantaloons at twelve and

one half cents a pair.
But women will not all submit. Refusing to acknowl-

THE NEW LOOK IO7
edge the position in life nature fixed for them, they rebel,
and unpleasantness takes place. An incident which fell
under my observation recently, beautifully illustrates this.
A young lady, named Jane Evans, I believe, had sus-
tained the loss of both her parents. Jane purchased some

needles, and renting a room in the uppermost part of a
building in a secluded section of New York, commenced a
playful effort to live by making shirts, at eighteen cents
each. She was situated, I need not say, pleasantly for one
of her class. Her room was not large, it is true, but as she
had no cooking stove or bedstead, what did she want
of a large room ? She had a window, which did not open,
but as there was no glass in it, she had no occasion to
open it. This building commanded a beautiful view of

the back parts of other buildings similar in appearance,
and the sash kept out a portion of the smell. In this de-
lightful retreat, she sat and sat and sewed and sewed.
Sometimes, in her zeal, she would sew till late in the
night, and she was always at her work very early in the
morning. She paid rent promptly, for the genial old
gentleman of whom she leased her room had a sportive
habit of kicking girls into the street who did not pay
promptly. She managed every now and then, did this
economical girl, to purchase a loaf of bread, which she
ate.
One Saturday night, she took her bundle of work to the

delightful man who employed her. Jane had labored six-
teen hours per day on them, and she had determined, as
Sunday was close at hand, to have for her breakfast, in

addition to her bread, a small piece of mutton. Mutton!
Luxurious living destroyed Ancient Rome!
Her employer found fault with the making of these
shirts. "They are not properly sewed," he said, and he
could not, in consequence, pay her. Jane then, injudi-
ciously cried about it, and her employer who was, and is,
possessed of a tender heart, and cannot bear to see a
woman cry, kicked her out of his store into the snow.
What did this wicked girl do? Did she go back and
ask pardon of her good, tender-hearted employer? Not
she! On the contrary, she clenched her hands, and, passing
by a baker's shop, stole a loaf of bread, and, brazen thing

that she was, she ate it in front of the shop! She said she
was hungry, though it was subsequently proven that she
had eaten within forty-eight hours.
Justice was swift upon the heels of the desperate wretch
— it always is, by the way, close behind the heels of the

friendless. She was arrested by a policeman and conveyed
to the Tombs, was herded into a cell in which there were
other women who had progressed farther than she had.
She was arraigned for petty larceny and sent to jail for
sixty days.
Now, see how surely evildoers come to bad ends. The

wretched Jane — this fearfully depraved Jane —unable,
after such a manifestation of depravity, to hold up her
THE NEW LOOK IO9
head, fell into bad ways. Remorse for the stealing of that
loaf of bread so preyed upon her, that she wandered
about the streets of New York for five days, asking for
work, and finally threw herself off a wharf. Had she

continued working cheerily, sewing shirts, accepting the
situation like a Christian, taking life as she found it,
would she have thrown herself off a dock? Never!

So you see demonstrated the mischief that comes from
women attempting to move out from their sphere.
Women who do not want to steal bread, and be arrested,
and go off wharves, must take pay as it is offered, whether

they get anything to eat or not. Had this wretched girl
gone back contentedly to her room, and starved to death

cheerfully, she would not have stolen bread, and would
have saved the City of New York the expense and trouble
of fishing her out of the East River.
Alas! Such women always make trouble.

The female woman is one of the greatest institooshuns
of which this land can boste.
—Artemus Ward
The fickleness of women 1 love is only equaled by the

infernal constancy of the women who love me.
—George Bernard Shaw
—
WOMEN AS PLAYTHINGS
by George Jean Nathan
A
defined
.LTHOUGH
woman
so great a philosopher as Nietzsche
as a plaything
—"the reward of the war-
rior" was his phrase —any lesser man who would repeat
the definition today would be set down as an impresario

of gibberish. Now that old Friedrich is dead, it is ap-
parently permitted to Frenchmen alone to write of women

with any degree of honesty. The Anglo-Saxon and certain
others deem it proper to speak of the ladies only in tones
customarily reserved for the Deity; to be a trifle realistic
in the philosophic contemplation of them, they regard
as not quite nice. Yet, unless I am submerged in error,
woman is and always has been primarily a plaything.

She herself may at times and in certain instances try to
blink the fact —particularly when she happens to be so

unprepossessing that no man wants her for a plaything
but in her heart of hearts she knows the truth of it. Of
this truth, a certain increasingly prevalent sexual phe-
Copyright 1925, 1952 by George Jean Nathan
III
nomenon among women offers illuminating evidence.
This phenomenon is, in essence, nothing but a challenge
and a resentment.
The by this time already irritated reader will have

observed that I generalize about women. He will object
to this generalization. But, since it is I and not he who is
writing this, the generalization must stand. Generaliza-
tions are not always faulty. One may generalize with a
fair degree of accuracy on numerous subjects. War is one

of them. Hygiene is another. Sculpture and bock beer
are And woman is, I believe,

still others. another still.
The men who group women under certain different clas-
sifications marry them. And, as Omnipotence has willed

it, I happen to be a bachelor. I am not unduly swollen
over the fact; I offer it to the jury, indeed, as evidence
against myself. I simply remain still to be convinced.
Toward the aforesaid conviction, I have at times drifted,

but the old tugboat has somehow ever remained in mid-
stream. And there, for the time being, it remains rolling
a cappella at anchor.
It is, to get back on the key, foolish to group women
under various headings. Only men may be so grouped.
Men differ, in many essentials. But all women are, at
bottom, much the same. The O'Grady and the ColonePs

lady, up to the age of thirty-five at least, are sisters under
their skins. But do not mistake me, please. I do not pose
as a Ph.D. of the fair sex. I simply set down the results
THE NEW LOOK 113
of my own observation. If these results collide with your
own, then one of us is wrong. Itmay be I; but it may

too, on the other hand, be you. Woman, it seems to me,
was wrought primarily by an all-wise Creator for man's
entertainment and bemusement. That she is the mother
of the race hardly invalidates the point. The moment a

man's wife no longer amuses him — I use the word
"amuse," obviously enough, in its broadest sense —he
grows sick of her and she too, by the act of droll and
ironic fate, grows tired of him. The best mother is she who
seems to her little son his father's delicate and beautiful
sweetheart. No son of a raucous suffragette admires his
mother as the son of a sweet and amiable woman does
his. A boy in his youngsterhood plays with girls. And, save
he be an absurd sentimentalist and an out-and-out emo-
tional Babbitt when he grows up, he continues to do so
until he dies. That he may marry offers no argument
against this point of view. Ninety-nine men out of a
hundred look on their wives as playthings when they
marry them, for love is a music written for playthings.
When they stop regarding their wives as playthings, they
no longer love them with the quality of love that launched
their marriage. The woman then loses much of her femi-
ninity in the husband's eyes and gains a touch of quasi-
masculinity. She becomes, in a word, his partner in the
dull business routine of life. He admires her; he respects
her; but he no longer loves her in the sense that he
originally loved her —and it is that original love that
every wife pines for. The heart of a woman, whatever her

age and however wrinkled her face, remains always the
heart of a girl.
I have known many women in this life of mine and,

among them all, I have never known one who did not,
in the lovely heart of her, wish to be, above all the more
serious things of the world, a pretty and desirable toy.
A woman is always a plaything for the man she truly

loves. It is only when she does not truly love him that she
takes on a coat of another color. The man who is married

to awoman who is not a plaything is married to a woman
who may venerate him and be loyal to him but who
doesn't really love him. Almost every woman is a
. . .
plaything on her honeymoon. It is in the years that follow
—years often disillusionizing to her — that she changes

and ceases to be. She perhaps wishes still to be a plaything,
but she no longer has the right playmate. For one can't
be a playmate when illusion has gone its way. It is thus
that married women so frequently seek innocent unction
to their vanity in the company of men other than their

husbands. The old longing to be regarded as a plaything
tugs at their bosoms; they want to hear the lighthearted
old phrases and see the lighthearted old smiles, long

since forgotten by the men to whom they are wedded.
. . . Every time a woman buys a new dress or puts on a
new hat, it is of herself as a plaything that she is think-

THE NEW LOOK 115
ing. Thinking —but never under any circumstance so

analyzing herself. For once she tries to define it, the
plaything spirit is already, so far as she is concerned, on
its deathbed calling weakly for the hot-water bottle. The

moment a woman begins to analyze herself as a plaything,
she ceases to be one. A toy doesn't think.
Why is it that the women of the stage are generally
more alluring than the women in private life? Because

they have about them the plaything air. Has it been
woman as woman or woman as plaything that has ruled
kings and emperors and the great generals of the world ?

Is the library of romance full of the stories of women who
haven't been playthings or of women who have been?
For one woman who wins a man by other means, there are
a score who win by their toy quality. ... I have said that,
in her heart, every woman wishes to be a plaything.
There are interludes in this wish, of course. There are

times when doubt and unhappiness and thoughts of
tomorrow turn the light melody into a graver key. But,
so long as a woman is immediately happy, so long does

she enthusiastically concur in the plaything estimate of
her.
I have, in the last two or three years, read no less than

one hundred male-made articles in magazines and news-
papers entitled "Why I Have Never Married." The gentle-
men who have thus taken the public into their confidence
are doubtless entirely honest and sincere, but the reasons
Il6 MAN AGAINST WOMAN
they assign for never having married would be just as con-
vincing if the articles were written by women. These
reasons are generally found to be purely sentimental ones.
This man has never married either because, so he says,
he has never been able to find a girl like his mother or
because the lady on whom he was excessively mashed was
drowned five days before the wedding. And that man
has never married, he confesses, because he deemed the
building up of a shoe factory more important than the
building up of a home or because the one girl in the
whole world whom he would have married gave him the

gate. There are doubtless men who have never married for
such reasons, but they are, I believe, few and far between.
Though they are, as I have observed, sincere and honest

in setting down their personal records, they are, it seems
to me, the exception to the rule rather than the rule it-
self. For one man who hasn't married because he couldn't
find a girl with the qualities of his mother or because his
first sweetmeat was run over by a Ford, there are a half-

dozen like myself who haven't married simply because
marriage doesn't strike their realistic minds as being one-
half so attractive as bachelorhood.
These so-called cynical fellows are not, however, wholly
unsentimental. The only difference between them and the
other fellows is that, while they are perfectly willing oc-

casionally to sentimentalize women, they cannot find it
in themselves to sentimentalize matrimony. At least, not

THE NEW LOOK 117
so long as they are still relatively young and comfortable

and happy. To particularize, I have never married be-
cause, very simply, in the language of a current music-
show ditty, I am having too much fun. I can think of
nothing that marriage could give me, but I can think of
many things it could take away from me. It could, for
example, take away from me the freedom I currently
enjoy in unloading into print any view on any subject

that comes into my head. If I were married — this being
America — I should have to stop periodically and deliberate
as to the tact of writing and printing certain ideas which
presently I may freely deliver myself of. A married man
must ever be more or less conscious of what people
will think of him; there is his wife to be thought of in
her relation to him and to his position in their immediate
community. A bachelor knows no such hindrances. The
married man who would write and publish such a treatise
as this would find a rolling-pin waiting for him when he
got home.
Marriage could take away my precious privacy, my
present ability to go where I wish to whenever I wish to,
my present agreeable habit of making even more agree-

able engagements at the last moment and breaking less
agreeable ones at the same time, my perfect equanimity

of mind, my intense dislike of life-insurance agents, and
my freely voiced credo that there is always a slightly
more charming young woman just around the corner.
Il8 MAN AGAINST WOMAN
It could give me nothing otherwise that I, with the aid
of six head of clairvoyants, am able to deduce. It is not
that I shirk responsibility; it is that I shirk what I do not
especially regard as responsibility. And connubial bliss
is one of the responsibilities that I do not consider my

own. The theory that it is the duty of every man to marry
strikes me as somewhat ridiculous. It may be the duty
of every man of a certain kind to marry, but that is an-
other matter. I personally have the misfortune to be un-
fitted temperamentally for hymeneal blessedness. I do
not possess the required peculiar technic. That technic
demands that a man spend the rest of his life with one
woman and never look at another. Of this technic I am
too much of an amateur. It is beyond me. And I am
possessed of a strange and uncontrollable feeling that it
is similarly beyond the majority of men who engage it.
The manifold diversions that society devises for itself
dancing, drinking, racing, golf, European jaunts, charities,

mah jong, and so on —are simply proofs of the constant
failure of the technic in question and of the effort to forget
that failure in opiates. These divertissements constitute,
in essence, but a heroic resolve to make the well-man-

nered best of a bad bargain. I know many married men;
I even know a few happily married men; but I don't
know one who wouldn't fall down the first open coal-
hole running after the first pretty girl who gave him a
wink.
THE NEW LOOK 119
I appreciate that there are some fetching arguments in

opposition to the general point of view herein exhibited,
but none the less there seem to me to be some equally
fetching arguments in support of it. The mere circum-
stance that a point of view is an unpopular one does not
confute it. Although the Anglo-Saxon places woman on
a pedestal and the Latin does not, a French or Italian
child loves its mother just as much as an English or Ameri-

can child does his. I have always believed that, in fact,
real and honest love flourishes best and most beautifully

among such peoples as do not foolishly idealize women.
When I say that women are essentially playthings, I
use the word not derogatorily but in terms of the highest

compliment. My mother was ever a charming and lovely
pastime in my father's eyes. My brother and I knew it,
and we admired his attitude and loved her the more for
it. For we knew other fathers who looked on our boy
friends' mothers with harder and prosier eyes, and we
saw that these mothers of our boy friends showed it. They
scolded their sons, we noticed, a lot more and a lot
oftener than our mother did us; and their smiles, we no-
ticed, were sometimes sort of cold smiles where those of
our mother seemed not to be. We noticed these differences
and many others, and if we then, as youngsters, didn't
know the reason for them, that reason we began to know
in our more mature and reflective years. . . . There is
something infinitely alluring about a plaything. The

men who marry women who are not playthings marry
for money, for position, for peace and comfort, for a
multiplicity of reasons. But these have nothing to do with
love. Where a man loves a woman really, you will gen-
erally find that the woman is, to him, above everything
else the symbol of a boyhood toy. And so too will you
frequently find that when a man hasn't married, it is
simply because, while he may often have found the right
kind of woman, he hasn't yet found the right kind of
plaything.
Ladies inclined to go fishing for compliments will find

them commonly in shallow water.
—Bayard Taylor
J'ACCUSE
V
Her best and safest club is the
home. . . and respon-
. Sensible
sible women do not want to
vote. The relative positions to
be assumed by man and

woman wording out of
in the
our civilization were assigned
long ago by a higher intel-
ligence than ours.

—Grover Cleveland
WOMAN, GOD BLESS HER!
by Mar\ Twain
T,HE TOAST includes the sex, universally; it is to
Woman comprehensively, wherever she may be found.

Let us consider her ways. First comes the matter of dress.
This is a most important consideration, and must be dis-
posed of before we can intelligently proceed to examine

the profounder depths of the theme. For text let us take
the dress of two antipodal types —the savage woman of

Central Africa and the cultivated daughter of our high
modern civilization. Among the Fans, a great negro
tribe, a woman when dressed for home, or to go out shop-
ping or calling, doesn't wear anything at all but just her
complexion. That is all; it is her entire outfit. It is the
lightest costume in the world, but is made of the darkest
material. It has often been mistaken for mourning. It is
the trimmest, and neatest, and gracefulest costume that is
now in fashion; it wears well, is fast colors, doesn't show

dirt, you don't have to send it down-town to wash, and
have some of it come back scorched with the flat-iron,
123
and some of it with the buttons ironed off, and some of
it petrified with starch, and some of it chewed by the
calf, and some of it rotted with acids, and some of it ex-
changed for other customers' things that haven't any

virtue but holiness, and ten-twelfths of the pieces over-
charged for and the rest of the dozen "mislaid." And it
always fits; it is the perfection of a fit. And it is the hand-
iest dress in the whole realm of fashion. It is always

ready, always "done up." When you call on a Fan lady
and send up your card, the hired girl never says, "Please
take a seat, madame is dressing; she'll be down in three-
quarters of an hour." No, madame is always dressed, al-
ways ready to receive ; and before you can get the door-mat
before your eyes she is in your midst. Then, again, the
Fan ladies don't go to church to see what each other has

got on; and they don't go back home and describe it and
slander it.
Such is the dark child of savagery, as to everyday toilet;
and thus, curiously enough, she finds a point of contact

with the fair daughter of civilization and high fashion
who often has "nothing to wear"; and thus these widely-
separated types of the sex meet upon common ground.
Yes, such is the Fan woman as she appears in her simple,
unostentatious, everyday toilet; but on state occasions she
is more dressy. At a banquet she wears bracelets; at a
lecture she wears earrings and a belt; at a ball she wears
stockings —and, with true feminine fondness for display,

—
j 'accuse 125
she wears them on her arms; at a funeral she wears a
jacket of tar and ashes; at a wedding the bride who can

afford it puts on pantaloons. Thus the dark child of
savagery and the fair daughter of civilization meet once

more upon common ground, and these two touches of
nature make their whole world kin.
Now we will consider the dress of our other type. A

large part of the daughter of civilization is her dress —as
it should be. Some civilized women would lose half their
charm without dress; and some would lose all of it. The
daughter of modern civilization dressed at her utmost
best, is a marvel of exquisite and beautiful art and expense.
All the lands, all the climes, and all the arts are laid
under tribute to furnish her forth. Her linen is from
Belfast, her robe is from Paris, her lace is from Venice, or
Spain, or France; her feathers are from the remote
regions of Southern Africa, her furs from the remoter
home of the iceberg and the aurora, her fan from Japan,
her diamonds from Brazil, her bracelets from California,
her pearls from Ceylon, her cameos from Rome; she
has gems and trinkets from buried Pompeii, and others
that graced comely Egyptian forms that have been dust
and ashes now for forty centuries; her watch is from
Geneva, her card-case is from China, her hair is from
from — I don't know where her hair is from; I never could
find out. That is, her other hair —her public hair, her
Sunday hair; I don't mean the hair she goes to bed with.
Why, you ought to know the hair I mean; it's that thing
which she calls a switch, and which resembles a switch

as much as it resembles a brickbat or a shotgun, or any
other thing which you correct people with. It's that thing
which she twists and then coils round and round her
head, beehive fashion, and then tucks the end in under
the hive and harpoons it with a hairpin. And that reminds
me of a trifle: any time you want to, you can glance

around the carpet of a Pullman car, and go and pick up a
hairpin; but not to save your life can you get any woman
in that car to acknowledge that hairpin. Now, isn't that
strange ? But it's true. The woman who has never swerved
from cast-iron veracity and fidelity in her whole life
will, when confronted with this crucial test, deny her

hairpin. She will deny that hairpin before a hundred wit-
nesses. I have stupidly got into more trouble and more
hot water trying to hunt up the owner of a hairpin in
a Pullman car than by any other indiscretion of my life.
Well, you see what the daughter of civilization is when

she is dressed, and you have seen what the daughter of
savagery when she isn't. Such is woman, as to costume.
is
I come now to consider her in her higher and nobler

aspects — as mother, wife, widow, grass-widow, mother-in-
law, hired girl, telegraph operator, telephone helloer,
queen, book-agent, wet-nurse, stepmother, boss, profes-
sional fat woman, professional double-headed woman,
professional beauty, and so forth and so on.
—
j 'accuse 127
We will simply discuss these few — let the rest of the
sex tarry in Jericho till we come again. First in the list
of right, and first in our gratitude, comes a woman who

why, dear me, I've been talking three-quarters of an
hour! I beg a thousand pardons. But you see, yourselves,
that I had a large contract. I have accomplished some-

thing, anyway. I have introduced my subject. And if I
had till next Forefathers' Day, I am satisfied that I could
discuss it as adequately and appreciatively as so gracious
and noble a theme deserves. But as the matter stands now,
let us finish as we began —and without jesting,
say, but
with all sincerity, "Woman—God bless her!"
Bring your ship secretly into port when you reach your
native land. Women, I warn you, are no longer to be
trusted.
—Homer
There is a tide in the affairs of women

Which, ta\en at the flood, leads —
God \nows where.
— Byron
WOMEN AND DRINKS
by Charles W. Morton
X HERE is something about the preparation of mixed

drinks which seems to defy the mentality of an otherwise
competent woman. It would be no exaggeration to add
that a whiskey and soda, even whiskey and water, is too
high a hurdle for the ordinary hostess. The choice and
service of a simple table wine are more than she can
think out or remember. To confront a woman with
several of these matters in combination is to turn her
tearful, fluttering, and quite useless.
This deep-seated failing of the sex is comparable only

to a woman's permanent determination to forget the
values of poker hands, no matter how often the formula
is jotted down. Each drink is an experiment. What is
meant by "three of a khKT is always a conjecture.

Some women can plan and produce a handsomely
decorated salmon-in-aspic, make piecrust, or accomplish a
risky souffle. They work cunningly in hors d'oeuvres.
Copyright 1949 by Charles W. Morton
129
Their tables are elegant Their cocktails are nauseating.
These observations are not offered as complaints, but
simply as a report of facts. No one can change these facts.
Neither does the author seek to impose his own recipes
on the reader, even though he thinks this would be a

fine thing to do. Women would ignore his recipes just
as they do their husbands' recipes. This is one of the facts.
And it would be equally fruitless to belabor any of the

other facts of the female drink-mixer: her belief that no
one will know the difference between good liquor and bad
her faith in the staying powers of a recorked remnant
of soda water; her fondness for colored highball and cock-
tail glasses (usually magenta) ; her constant fear that the
drinks will never be sweet enough; her adventuring with
additions of maple syrup, creme Yvette, a grenadine, and
what-all to almost any drinks made in a shaker. Her
shaker, finally, is about one fourth the proper size and it
probably leaks.
Ice, as used by women, is as massive a difficulty as all
the others put together. Women hoard it. They won't

put it into a shaker themselves in appreciable quantities
and they won't put it out in a bowl except in sample

amounts. Cocktails for fifteen or twenty mean six cubes
of ice; punch for fifty or seventy-five means a dozen. A
barbecue-and-beer-on-tap picnic for a couple of hundred
would bring forth, if a woman were running the show,
j'accuse 131
the amount of ice normally found in the refrigerator of

a kitchenette apartment —just enough to dampen the
barrelhead.
Ice is cheap. It's rather attractive. It sounds good when
agitated in abundance. Yet many a man drafted to shake
and pour, in a female establishment, finds himself shak-

ing a lukewarm mixture, quite without noise because it
is immediately quite without ice. It swishes up and down;

instead of the honest crash and clatter of a coolant, one
gets the impression of a rubber-tired silence. When
poured, such a drink is usually at about body heat and
strong enough to bring a cough from the hardiest bon
vivant. A couple of rounds of them will set husbands to
eying wives with some anxiety. Yet if the man doing the
shaking asks for more ice, his hostess seems to count him
an inexpedient fellow, a nuisance, given to inordinate
caprice.
Consider the plight of a man who has agreed to help

out a hostess by mixing her cocktails. She has asked
him, she explains, only because he makes such wonderful
drinks. The fact that he usually does this simply by stick-
ing to well-tested recipes, using half-way decent ingredi-
ents and plenty of ice, means nothing to the hostess. Her
implication, which he has no way of contradicting, is
that his mastery of these things borders on the occult.
The man files his disclaimers. All that his hostess will
need, he assures her, will be three bottles of rum, a third
as much lemon juice, some granulated sugar, and plenty
of ice.
For no particular reason, the time of the party is set
for five p.m. The man finds that he must walk oil on
various office responsibilities, but he rushes out and ar-
rives at five-fifteen. About a dozen people are already
there. They all look at him sternly when the hostess an-
nounces that they just couldn't have anything to drink
until he was there to mix what she insists on calling "his
specialties."
Two or three of the male guests are plainly skeptical,

but our hero hurries through a few measurements and
mixtures. Unable to find the sugar, he asks for some. The
hostess hands him a huge bottle of colorless syrup which
she says is much better than sugar. However this may
be, the man has no way of gauging its values, so he hope-
fully dumps in a jigger or two. He has just enough ice

to make a single floating layer in the shaker, but the
company is restive and he concludes that he had better

get a round into circulation. He goes ahead, the ice
promptly melts, and he finds himself swishing to no
purpose.
By this time, guests are crowding about with their
glasses. The man takes off the cap from the shaker
spout and tries to pour a drink. Enough of a cocktail
comes forth to fill perhaps an eighth of the glass. From
j 'accuse 133
that point on, the stream is as if from a fountain-pen
filler. It takes a long time to fill the first glass. The second
is getting nowhere, and the man recaps the shaker and
gives it a hard shake. He gains enough volume to fill
the second glass. Only about fourteen glasses to go.
He removes the cover of the shaker and finds what he

had known he would. Its strainer is full of lemon pulp.
Just then the hostess comes charging up.
"Here are all these people waiting for your wonderful
drinks," she begins gayly.
"I'm afraid I'll have to strain the lemon juice," the
man replies.
This really annoys the hostess; and as he picks up the

whole tray and bolts for the kitchen, the man can hear
her saying, ". . . has to be so fussy about everything."
While he is out straining, the man looks surreptitiously
for ice, but he finds that the only tray in the refrigerator
is full of tomato jelly. The other trays are dry, empty,
and piled on top of the refrigerator. He never does get
any more ice. His first batch of drinks is warm, strong
and astonishingly sweet. His second is even warmer, dis-
agreeably sour. Nobody seems to want a third round.
The hostess now has a couple of bottles of rum on hand

and about a pint of unnecessary lemon juice. She doesn't
hesitate to wind it all up by saying to the man, "Well, you
were so afraid I wouldn't have enough, and now look at
all this."
The situation is not likely to improve, but one cannot
help theorizing as to why such things must be. My own
guess is roughly as follows.
Women get along fairly well on the assumption that
men are saps. As an infant is pleased by a bright-colored
object, the woman reasons, so does the man enjoy the
notion that he has a special aptitude for boiling eggs,
tending a fire, and mixing drinks.
The woman knows, just as well as the man, that an
eight-year-old child, able to read English, could make an

excellent whiskey sour. If a man can be given the illusion
that it requires some rare talent of his own, why not let
him think so ? Incidentally, if any woman wants a recipe

for whiskey sours, here it is :
i part lemon juice; 3 parts bonded bourbon; granulated

sugar to suit; shake well with 500 pounds of cracked ice.
ARE WITTY WOMEN
ATTRACTIVE TO MEN?
by Stephen Leacoc\
s LAVES murmur to one another in their chains.

They whisper what they think of their masters. In the
same way the generality of men, being enslaved by

women, whisper, when in safety, what they think. Slave
No. i in his Club murmurs to Slave No. 2 that women

have no sense of humour. Slave No. 2 agrees, and Slave
No. 3, overhearing from his armchair, says quite boldly,
"They certainly have not." After which quite a colloquy
ensues among the slaves. But when the wife of Slave No.
1 asks at dinner what was the talk at the Club, he
answers, "Oh, nothing much." Yet his inmost feeling is
that women have no sense of humour, and if a woman is

witty, she has somehow come by it wrongly. He daren't
speak right out, but I will speak for him.
Having been asked to answer the question, "Are witty
women attractive to men," I answer decidedly, "No."
Copyright 1945 by Dodd, Mead & Company, Inc.
135
I36 MAN AGAINST WOMAN
Having said this I dodge behind the Editor and explain
it.
There are, of course, a lot of immediate qualifications to
be made to it. In the first place, are witty people in
general attractive to anybody? Not as a rule. They get

tiresome. It is terribly hard to be witty without getting
conceited about it. I used to be very witty myself, till I
learned to be careful about it. People don't like it. There

are two things in ordinary conversation which ordinary
people dislike —information and wit. Most people— most
men at any rate — like to gather up information out of the
Digests, which are the passion of the hour. But they
won't take it from you. You're not a Digest. So, too, with
wit. They've learned by experience that if they laugh at

one thing, they'll have to go on. . . . So if this applies to
men with men, it applies all the more to men with

women. Luckily women don't go in for information; or
if they give it, it is so incorrect as to be harmless.
In the next place, it goes without saying that some

witty women are attractive to some men. This, by a
happy disposition of providence, happens to all kinds

of women, like attracting unlike. Hence witty women
always have silent why they got married.
husbands. That's
There is a particularly decent type of man who finds it
restful not to have to talk. When, in his youth, he meets
a girl who talks all the time, that exactly suits him. He
doesn't have to say anything. Ten years later you'll
j 'accuse 137
see them enter a drawing room together. The host says
to the man, "Looks like an early winter," and he answers,

"Certainly does!" The host says, "Have a cocktail," and
he answers, "Certainly will." By that time his wife has
started in on the conversation; he doesn't have to talk
any more. People commonly call this type an adoring

husband. He isn't. His wife is just a sort of fire screen. The
real adoring husband overtalks his wife, overdominates
her, pays with unexpected presents for easy forgiveness
of his ill temper, and never knows that he adored her till
it is too late, because now she cannot hear it. . . .
We will add another qualification, that one reason why

some men don't care for the society of witty women is
because of their own egotism. They want to be it. A wise
woman sitting down to talk beside such a man will not
try to be witty. She will say, "I suppose you're just as

busy as ever!"
All men, you see, have the idea that they are always
busy, and if they are not, a woman can soon persuade them
that they are. Just say, "I don't see how you do it all,"
without saying what all is.
Another very good opening for women sufficiently self-
possessed is to say, "Well, I hear you are to be congratu-

lated again!" You see there is always something; either
the office staff gave him a stick last month, or the Rotary
Club elected him an Elder Brother. He'll find some-
thing. If he doesn't, then say to him that if he hasn't heard
of it yet, you are certainly not going to tell. Then don't
see him for a month, till the Fireman's Benevolent Union
has elected him an Honorary Ash Can. He'll get some-
thing if you wait.

So you see there are ever so many ways for women to
make a hit without trying to be witty.

Nor have women, themselves, any particular use for
witty men. Instinctively they admire courage, though un-
happily courage often goes with brutality and savagery.
In the next degree they admire the courage of character
of strong people on whom one can rely. But intellect
comes last. Unhappily, women also have their superficial

admirations, things they fall for — it's too bad, but they do.
Women are apt to fall for a poet, for anything with long
hair and a reputation. Round him they cluster, searching

his thoughts. He probably hasn't got any. But wit, in all
the procession, comes last, with only a cap and bells be-
hind it.
Another thing is this. By this very restriction of their

province of humour, women are saved from some of the
silly stuff that affects the conversation of men. Take puns.

They have pretty well died out now. The last of the
punsters is probably dead, or in hiding. But many of us
can still remember the social nuisance of the inveterate

punster. This man followed conversation as a shark fol-
lows a ship, or, to shift the simile, he was like Jack

Horner and stuck in his thumb to pull out a pun. Women
j'accuse 139
never make puns; never did; they think them silly. Per-
haps they can't make them I hope not. —
Nor have women that unhappy passion for repeating
funny stories in order to make a hit, which becomes a sort
of mental obsession with many men. The "funny story"
is a queer thing in our American life. I think it must

have begun on the porch of the Kentucky store where they
whittled sticks all day. At any rate, it has become a kind
of institution. It is now a convention that all speakers at
banquets must begin with a funny story. I am quite
sure that if the Archbishop of Canterbury were invited

to address the Episcopal Church of America, the senior
bishop would introduce him with a story about an old

darky, and the Archbishop would rise to reply with a story
about a commercial traveller. These stories run riot in
our social life and often turn what might be a pleasant

dinner into an agonized competition, punctuated with
ruminating silence. Women keep away from this. They
like talk about people, preferably about themselves, or
else about their children, with their husband as a poor
third, and Winston Churchill competing with Mrs.
Chiang Kai-shek for fourth place. It may not be funny
but it's better than darkies and commercial travellers. . . .
There is also the most obvious qualification to be made

in regard to women's sense of humour in general and
women's wit in particular, that of course individual ex-
ceptions, however conspicuous, do not set aside the gen-

I4O MAN AGAINST WOMAN
eral rule. There is no doubt that at least one of the most
brilliant humourists of the hour in America is a woman.
Many would say, the most brilliant. Such a faculty for
reproducing by simple transcription the humour of social
dialogue has, it seems to me, never been surpassed. But

one swallow doesn't make a summer, though one drop
of ink may make all humour kin.
The truth is that the ideal of ordinary men is not a

witty woman, but a sweet woman. I know how dangerous
the term is, how easily derided. Sweetness may easily cloy
into sugariness, or evaporate into saintliness. A saint with

hair parted in the middle, with eyes uplifted, may be all
right for looking out from the golden bars of heaven, but
not so good for the cocktail bars below.

And yet, I don't know. A saint can kick in sideways
anywhere.
It might easily be objected that all such opinions about
sweetness in women are just left-over Victorianism, half
a century out of date. Witty women, it will be said, may

have seemed out of date in the stodgy days of women's
servitude, but not now. The men and women of today
or call them the boys and girls —mix on an entirely dif-
ferent plane. All the old hoodoos and taboos are gone.
All the girls smoke. They use language just as bad as
any themen care to use. They drink cocktails and give the
weaker men the cherry. In other words, they can curse
and swear and drink —they're real comrades. In point

j'accuse 141
of physique, they may not be equal to the men but after all
they can drive a car and fly a plane and telemark all
over hell on skis —what more do you want?

So why shouldn't a girl of that type, the new girlwho
has conquered the world, be witty if she wants to ? What
more charming than a witty girl, half-stewed, as com-
pared with a girl half-stewed and silent as a toad full
of gravel?
To all of which I answer, "No, no, it's just an illusion!"
There are no new girls, no new women. Your grand-

mother was a devil of a clip half a century before you
were born. You telemark on skis; she cut ice in a cutter.
You only knew her when she was wrinkled and hobbling,
reading the Epistle to the Thessalonians in a lace cap
and saying she didn't know what the world was coming
to. The young have always been young, and the old
always old . . . men and women don't change. It took
thousands, uncounted thousands, of years to make them
what they are. The changes that you think you see lie
just on the surface. You could wash them away with soap
and hot water.

But now I'll tell you another thing. All this new era
of ours of emancipated women, and women in offices
and women the same as men, is just a passing phase, and
the end of it is already in sight. A great social disaster fell
on the world. The industrial age built up great cities
where people lived, crowded into little boxes, where there

was no room for children, where women's work vanished
because they were dispossessed, where national population
was kept going by additions from God knows where, and
national safety was jeopardized by the increasing scarcity
of our own people. . . . We had a close shave of it.
Then came the war in the air. ... It has bombed the
industrial city out of future existence. They know that
already in England. The bomb is decentralizing industry,
spreading the population out. They will never go back.

This will mean different kinds of homes, homes half-
town, half-country, with every man his acre. . . . Every
one's dream for a little place in the country, a place to
call one's own, will come true. Socialized up to the neck,
the individual will have its own again under his feet.
And the children ? There must be four or five for every
marriage. It is the only path of national safety, safety by
the strength and power of our kin and kind, bred in our
common thought and speech and ideal. Without our own

children, the wave of outside brutes from an unredeemed
world will kill us all. Later, we can redeem the world
but we must save ourselves first. . . . Everybody will know
that. In re-organized society the nation's children will
be the first need, the main expense of government.
Women who see to that need see to nothing else. . . . That
will be done in the home, for there will be no paid
domestic service except contract labour by the hour from
the outside, labour as good as ladyship, wearing a gold
j'accuse 143
wrist watch and a domestic college degree. . . . But the

main thing will be the home and behind it the long
garden and trim grass and flower and vegetable beds, and
father trying to plant a cherry tree from a book.
When England has been bombed into the country,

America will follow. Our cities will go, too. . . . No one
will live in New York any more than miners live in a
coal mine.
So the world will be all different. One little century

will do it. Even half a century will show the full outline
of it. Surviving on . . . surviving on into this altered
world will be the queerest old set of left-over creatures,
as queer as our left-over Victorians, only queerer. These

old women will be happy and alert and self-assertive, but
they will still not know how to fry an egg or repeat a
nursery rhyme, for they only had three-quarters of a
child each. . . . The boys and girls of twenty will think
them very funny. . . . But my! Won't they be witty when
they get together and cackle.
So that, you why I don't
see, is think witty women are
attractive to men. You don't see the connection? Well,
perhaps you remember Moliere's play called The Doctor
by Accident {he Medecin Malgre Lui) where the sup-
posed doctor, called in to diagnose a case, gets off a vast
rigmarole about nothing in particular and adds at the

end, ". . . and that is why your daughter has lost her
speech." You see, he didn't know anything about it.
Possibly it was like that.

Woman would be more charming if one could jail into
her arms without jailing into her hands.

—Ambrose Bierce
Never marry a widow unless her first husband was

hanged.
—Proverb
THE LOVING CARE OF
DETERMINED WOMEN
by Jokn Fischer
L IKE
tremulous.
all brides, she
As they turned
looked heartbreakingly sweet and
to march up the aisle, she
lifted a radiant face to the man beside her and whispered:
"Stand a little straighter, dear."
These tender words were, of course, spoken in the

splendid pioneer tradition of American womanhood. She
was merely starting early to civilize the wilderness she
had just married.
To her — as to most brides in this country —her husband

represented 175 pounds of raw material. So raw, indeed,
that a less courageous race of females might shrink from
the task of trying to refine anything from such earthy
and intractable ore. No such doubts, however, bother a
true American girl. She knows it is her duty to make
something out of the sorry clod, if she has to wear her
tongue down to the roots.
Copyright 1955 by Harper & Brothers
145
This undaunted approach may, perhaps, have some-
thing to do with the divorce rate, axe murders, and the
number of morose characters nursing a shot glass late at
night in men's bars. Nevertheless, it has made American
civilization the envy of the world; or, anyhow, the
feminine half of it. Never before in history has any na-
tion devoted so large a share of its brains and resources to
the sole purpose of keeping its women greased, de-
odorized, corseted, enshrined in chrome convertibles,
curled, slenderized, rejuvenated, and relieved of all physi-
cal labor.
In benighted lands, from England to Indonesia, women

are still deluded into thinking that they ought to make
life a little pleasanter and easier for their breadwinners;
only here is the Ideal Male one who dedicates his life
to the pampering of women. In India, for example, as re-
cently as 1953, a woman was observed in the act of fixing

a quiet room and a cool drink for a husband on his
way home from work. In Dallas and Des Moines, as we

all know, the ladies make a different kind of preparation.
That precious moment when the male stumbles back

to his lair, numb and exhausted, is what they have been
waiting for all day. By striking hard while his resistance
is low, they know they can pressure him into almost any-
thing. This, then, is the Conversation Hour: the time

to touch lightly on the need for a new vacuum cleaner,
his gaucheries at last night's bridge party, the prospects

j'accuse 147
for remedying his cultural poverty by a course of lectures
at the Women's Club, and his duties at the PTA meeting

—which, by happy coincidence, will start in just twenty
minutes.
For, in return for their emancipation, American women
have undertaken to reform their menfolks. This goal
they inherited from Grandmother, who had to tame the
frontier. She did it by boiling lye soap out of skillet grease
and wood ashes, scrubbing puncheon floors, busting up

saloons, shooting Indians, building log churches, and
shearing both the mane and the six-guns off the Wild Bill
Hickok types who infested what would be, someday,

a nice residential neighborhood. Since these robust chores
are now pretty well finished, her granddaughters have
to focus their civilizing zeal on the one thing in sight

which still needs to be tamed and curried.
The measure of their success is the number of Walter
Mittys in our society. Again, never in history has any
country contained such a high proportion of cowed and
eunuchoid males, drilled with Prussian thoroughness to
shun all household sins. Never, but never, do they drop
cigar ashes in the icebox, prop their feet on a coffee
table, leave an unwashed dish in the sink, kick a baby, or
stuff a sofa cushion into the mouth of a babbling guest.

They endure their married lives in mute docility, and die
mercifully early in life from ulcers and high blood pres-
sure.
Occasionally, however, the domestic reform program
proves unsatisfying. Perhaps the subject escapes, or proves
impossibly obdurate; more frequently he yields so
promptly to The Treatment that after a few years he
no longer offers a challenge to his wife's talent. Then she
is almost certain to turn her energies either to good works

or to politics. They both offer much the same thing: a
new field ripe for reform.
It is rare that, after having given the \ey of her heart,

a woman does not change the loc\ the day after.
—Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve
THE LITTLE WOMAN
by I. A. R. Wylie
X HE famous jester, Joe Miller, probably under the

influence of a Restoration banquet, once boasted that, at
a moment's notice, he could make a joke on any subject.
He was immediately challenged to make a joke about the
King. As in those days jests about the monarchy were

an unhealthy amusement, Mr. Miller had to think fast.
"The King, gentlemen," he said, "is no subject."
And thereby won his bet and withdrew his neck into
safety.
Contrariwise, Woman is always a subject. Whenever

lecturers, essayists, psychoanalysts, or women themselves
have nothing else to talk, write or worry about, they can
always propound such questions as "Do Women — ?"
"Why Don't Women—?" or "Are Women—?" and find
an audience, if no answer. It would seem that Woman,
who by accepted tradition woman before she
is always a
is anything else, in counterdistinction to a man who may be
Copyright 1945 by I. A. R. Wylie
149
first and foremost a poet or a plumber, is a sort of chronic
interrogation mark, the unsolved riddle of the ages, a
poor bewildered and bewildering creature who in spite of
her long sojourn on earth has never properly adjusted

herself to herself or to her environment, let alone to her
fellow wayfarer, Man. In vain she takes up determined

attitudes in various niches. Sooner or later she falls out
of them, sometimes by accident, sometimes, in a fit of
neurotic self-dissatisfaction, deliberately, but always to

sounds of disapprobation or rude mirth from the specta-
tors.
At some periods, as in the Victorian era, she assumes the
pose of Wife and Mother and develops — as apparently
inevitable by-products — megrims, vapors and the ability

to faint at the sight of a mouse. Or, going into reverse, she
may become a Career Woman who tends to strut, snort,
shoot her cuffs, blow smoke through her nose and gen-
erally behave like some strange and wondrous beast
that has never been before and will never be again —in
other words the Exceptional Woman who has, inciden-
tally, no use women of any ilk. (It is typical that

for other
Lady Astor, the first woman member of Parliament,

was, and probably still is, a violent antisuffragist. What is
sauce for the goose, obviously, is not sauce for geese.) Or,
consumed with managerial energies and debarred from
the council chambers of her country, she may become a
Femme Fatale and run it by remote control from the

j' ACCUSE 151
councilor's bedroom. Or, as a desperate compromise, she

may assay to be everything at once, Wife, Mother, Career
Woman and Femme Fatale, at which point the psycho-

analyst steps into the picture and at umpty dollars an
hour, at least once a week over a period of years, en-
deavors to discover what is the matter with her, and to
bring her back to whatever he happens, at the moment,

to consider normality.
As a onetime suffragette who knocked off policemen's
helmets and sandbagged Cabinet Ministers in the cause

of Woman's emancipation, I have to admit, as indeed I
had to admit at the height of my crusading fervor, that

next to the dinosaur, Woman is probably nature's most
outstanding failure. For the life of me, I cannot think
of any sphere of activity in which she is even passably
successful, except in the matter of surviving, where obvi-
ously she has the dinosaur licked. Her most determined
admirer would be hard put to it to produce one first-class
genius in any of the creative arts, and more than a very

few top-ranking talents in the interpretive arts. In science,
Madame Curie has to be produced over and over again

like a succession of rabbits out of a conjurer's hat. The
Brontes and Jane Austen confront an endless chain of
masculine storytellers and writers from Homer to Stein-
beck. A fragmentary and dubious Sappho, a wispy Emily
Dickinson, a somewhat overlyrical Elizabeth Browning,
are about all the sex has to show for itself in poetry.
There have been no great women painters or composers.
Even in fields marked off as peculiarly their own, women,

judged by masculine standards, are lamentably second-
rate. The best couturiers, hairdressers, home designers and
cooks are men. I suspect that, were it biologically possible,
men would make better mothers.
We know, in spite of our erudite pretensions, very little
of our origins. Peering back through the mists of history
we can only dimly discern the First Man and the First
Woman fighting, for no very obvious reason, to survive. In
that struggle one thing is biologically certain. Though
there were undoubtedly differences in point of view and
temperament, there was little to choose between them in
muscle and brain power. (If anything the woman may
have been the more agile and enduring and almost cer-
tainly, as are all female animals, she was more dangerous

as an antagonist.) There wasn't much talk of any sort and
none at all about Woman's Sphere. Whatever the man
was, stoop-shouldered, bowlegged, low-browed, and
squint-eyed, the woman was. Whatever he had to be, cun-
ning, ferocious and tenacious, she had to be. True, she was
in addition a mother, but incidentally, casually and with
no more fuss and feathers than the man gave to the busi-
ness of his no less incidental and casual fatherhood. If
George, Jr., survived that was all right. If he didn't that

was all right too. There were, apparently, plenty more
where he came from. Mother Love, if such it could be
j'accuse 153
called, was a very brief emotional episode, liable under

prolonged pressure to turn into violent antipathy. (It was
not until much later that it began to exert a stranglehold
on the species.) Men and women hunted and fought side
by side, and when they quarreled it was a matter of chance
whose skull got cracked first. They were neither lovely,
loving or lovable. Their advance on their uncharted course

toward the stars or wherever they were going was slow
and clumsy. But at any rate they were on their way to-
gether.
Then something disastrous happened and they parted

company. The man went on and the woman sat down and
waited for him to come back from time to time and tell
her, more or less accurately, what he had been up to. Like

so many convulsions in our history I imagine that the
change was brought about by some trivial incident. (One
is reminded of Priestley's play, Dangerous Corners, where
the course of half a dozen lives hangs on the decision of
one character — if I remember correctly —to pick up a ciga-
rette box.) Perhaps on some dismal winter's day some pre-
historic woman, armed cap-a-pie for the hunt or a raid
on a neighboring larder, took the unprecedented notion
to stay home and let George do it. Perhaps she had a head-
ache, perhaps George, Jr., was imminent and to be caught
with him in a hand-to-hand scuffle would be to put her at
an obvious disadvantage. At any rate, for whatever reason,
she laid her flint aside, built herself a nice fire, warmed
up the equivalent of a pot of coffee, figuratively turned on
the radio, and gave herself a day. She found she liked it.
(We always like the line of least resistance and it is al-
ways fatal. That woman happened to find it first was, no

doubt, pure accident.)
She tried it again. By grapevine communication other
women learned of the experiment and gave it a satisfac-
tory trial. Then, of course, some sort of alibi had to be
concocted. The habit of staying home had to be explained

in noble and resounding terms. Or, as we would say now-
adays, it had to be rationalized and proved to everyone's
satisfaction that Woman, far from turning sybarite and

parasite, was sacrificing herself on the altar of her Duty.
Whereupon her mind, always a shade more agile than
George's (Sr. or Jr.), lit on Mother Love and the Woman's
Sphere. Henceforward it was her business in life to keep
the home fires burning (not for herself, of course, but
against the return of her warrior-hunter), his slippers by
the embers and the stew simmering. She herself became

The Little Woman. And George, Sr., for the first time cast
lascivious glances at the Femme Fatale of his period and
thought up divorce as a social out from acute domestic

boredom. George, Jr., overwhelmed and overburdened
by Mother Love, took to the woods.
But though bored, puzzled and slightly resentful,
George, Sr., began to realize that Woman's new and self-
ordained role in the scheme of things had its advantages

j'accuse 155
even for him. Without his knowing she had, it seemed,

cramped his style. There was a tiresome, restraining rea-
sonableness about her. She killed only what she needed.

She fought only when she had to. Without her plucking
at his coattails with her everlasting "Enough's enough" he
was now free to fight and kill without rhyme or reason.
He in his turn had to produce an alibi —an equally lofty
explanation for the scalps and carcasses with which the
family cave was now embarrassingly cluttered. They be-
came therefore not merely testimonies of his unbridled
skill in destruction but tributes to the Little Woman who

by this time had become one of his possessions and there-
fore an object of pride and responsibility. (In due course
she ranked with his ox and his ass and anything else that
was his.) His shield covered her. Without it, he liked to
think and said so interminably, she must surely perish.
The Little Woman, in her turn, was at first surprised and
annoyed. But once she grasped the idea that the scalps
and carcasses were tributes and that on their superior num-
ber depended her prestige among other women, she ac-
cepted them graciously and presently demanded them. In
due course she began to nag for them.
Thus chivalry was established as an institution. War
became Man's main preoccupation. And civilization, still
in the making, bore with it in the womb of time the seeds
of its own dissolution.
Somewhere in that massive masterpiece Blac\ Lamb and

Grey Falcon Rebecca West observes that the main differ-
ence between men and women is that men are lunatics
and women idiots. By which she means, obviously, that

men are actively and women passively insane. Certainly
from moment that women began confining themselves

the
to the home and centering their happiness and raison
d'etre on its inhabitants who were never intended or able
to carry such an abnormal burden, they became intellectu-
ally inert and physically they deteriorated. Whereas men

grew straight of limb, keen-sighted and fleet-footed,
women developed knock-knees and when they ran, which

was seldom, for running had become unwomanly, it was
with a wobbly, teetering gait reminiscent of an alarmed
duck. Their marksmanship, even in the home, became
deplorable and an unfailing source of masculine humor.
Henceforward, whenever a woman suffered an urge to
create something over and above such contributions to the

home and family as crocheted antimacassars, hand-painted
vases or woolen scarves, whenever she had "immortal
longings," she knew that she was becoming "freakish'' and
cither suppressed or hid them, shamefacedly, as did the
Brontes and a certain Mile. Dupin, under a stalwart mas-

culine alias. Thus the capacity to create, like her muscles,
withered in her. Even in the home she became unin-

ventive, conservative and amateurishly second-rate. It was
George who thought up the new sauce, the better stuff-
ings, the back-saving washtubs. Since it pleased him, and

—
j'accuse 157
it was her business in life, not to mention her livelihood,

to please him (and she still retained a tough urge to sur-
vive) she stood by in respectful admiration.

"He for God only, she for God in him," Milton sang
with forthright masculine modesty. He did not add, for

he certainly did not realize it, that George had already
begun to suffer from his own excess of divinity and the
Little Woman's overpowering appreciation of it. He and
George, Jr., were, as they might have said, homesick, by
which they meant sick of home. If they were spineless they
finally yielded to its enticements and became that product
of excess Mother Love and bane of the world, chronic
adolescents. If they had guts they fled it, with one lofty
excuse after another, to the far corners of the earth. As
scientists and explorers they discovered poles and desert
wastes where they couldn't live. They intruded on conti-
nents where they did not belong, and as the original in-
habitants raised objections, started the glorious business of
converting, or in other words, exterminating them

unless, as sometimes happened, they were exterminated
first. They invented new and faster ways of getting further
and further. When the Little Woman and the nest grew
altogether too domestic they invented wars, deciding that
some foul foreigner —and this on a little two-by-four earth,

small as an ant heap in a ridiculous little universe —had
insulted them or, what was worse, the Little Woman; and
nothing less than blood, floods of it and even their own,
could wash out the dishonoring stain. The Little Woman
stayed home, wept and knitted socks and pull-overs for
her hero and defender. She was still faintly puzzled by him
but also proud and happy to think that he was prepared
to kill and even be killed for her sake. Did he not sing
to her:
I could not love thcc, dear, so much

Loved I not honor more?
And wasn't that beautiful?

The notion that she ought to step into the fracas and
bat him and George, Jr., over the head on the off-chance
of knocking some sense into them, as her dynamic an-
cestresses would have done, flickered faintly in her from
time to time, but it was not until the first decade of the
twentieth century that, again thanks to a trivial incident,
the smoldering spark burst into a small hot flame.

The Right Honorable Herbert Asquith, Prime Minister
of Great Britain, provided the incident. Amiably amused
at the mild protests of a group of women who besides
being wives, mothers and taxpayers had an unreasonable

urge to become voters, he pointed out to them in a public
speech that men, when they had demanded the suffrage,
had cared enough to fight for it. They had torn up paving
stones, destroyed property and broken heads. They had
even died for it. The Little Woman, of course, would not
and indeed could not do such things. Ergo, she didn't
j'accuse 159
care enough. Ergo, since she could not fight for her rights,
she hadn't any. Ergo, she must depend on masculine

chivalry, exercising that well-known sway in her own
peculiar sphere, the nest. And so forth and so on.
Having uttered which pious and paternal platitudes, Mr.

Asquith went his placid way. Soon afterward, when he
was again on a public platform, a flour barrel, cunningly
concealed in the flies of the auditorium, and to the shrill
screams of "Votes for Women!" emptied itself over his

astonished head. The fat was in the fire. Or, more poeti-
cally speaking, Mr. Asquith had involuntarily ushered in
the dawn. With what can only be described as a hell of
a yell thousands of wives and mothers burst out of their
nests, and, according to prescription, tore up paving stones,

destroyed property and broke heads; and though they
rigidly adhered to their old feminine characteristic of
avoiding the kill, save in dire necessity, many of them
died.
The results were startling. It was discovered that a rela-

tive handful of human beings, unarmed save with a reso-
lute fighting temper and a conviction of justice, could set
the forces of society —armed to the teeth but with a bad

conscience —right back on their heels. It was in vain that
the police force reorganized itself to cope with an un-

precedented situation. They didn't cope. The Houses of
Parliament, in a state of panic, passed the famous (or in-
famous) Cat and Mouse Act. It didn't work. The First
l6o MAN AGAINST WOMAN
World War mercifully came to the men's aid and enabled
them to present the Little Women with their vote with-
out obvious loss of face. But what was really important
news was the effect on the Little Women themselves of
their own outrageous conduct. To that, as one of them, I
can bear witness.

I am not very clear how or why I had become one of
them. My adolescence had been spent in Germany where

I had acquired a lofty contempt for women in general
and a slinking distrust of myself. But, besides being a
vigorous creature spoiling for a fight —though I did not

know it and as a woman would certainly never have ac-
knowledged it — I had, I like to believe, a rudimentary

sense of justice. Since women, whether they were idiots
or not, paid taxes, they had a right to vote. For which
ostensible reason, at any rate, I plunged into the fray. To
my astonishment I found that women, in spite of knock-
knees and the fact that for centuries a respectable woman's
leg had not even been mentionable, could at a pinch out-
run the average London bobby. Their aim with a little
practice became good enough to land ripe vegetables in
ministerial eyes, their wits sharp enough to keep Scotland

Yard running round in circles and looking very silly. Their
capacity for impromptu organization, for secrecy and
loyalty, their iconoclastic disregard for class and established

order were a revelation to all concerned but especially
themselves.
j'accuse 161
Best of all was the discovery that when it came down to
a real slugging match they were not at such a hopeless dis-
advantage as tradition would have had them suppose. The

day that, with a straight left to the jaw, I sent a fair-sized
CID officer, who was attempting to arrest an escaped

"mouse," into the orchestra pit of the Pavillion Theatre
where we were holding one of our belligerent meetings,
was the day of my own coming of age. (Incidentally I
met my victim at Southhampton during the war. I was

on my way to France and my late antagonist passed me
through the Secret Service controls ahead of all the brass
hats. He explained that he knew from experience I was
a good citizen, and we shook hands warmly.) Since I was
no genius the episode could not make me one, but it set
me free to be whatever I was to the top of my bent.
For two years of wild and sometimes dangerous ad-

venture I worked and fought alongside vigorous, happy,
well-adjusted women who laughed instead of tittering,
who walked freely instead of teetering, who could outfast

Gandhi and come out with a grin and a jest. I slept on
hard floors between elderly duchesses, stout cooks and
young shopgirls. We were often tired, hurt and frightened.
But we were content as we had never been. We shared a
joy of life that we had never known. Most of my fellow
fighters were Wives and Mothers. And strange things
happened to their domestic life. Husbands came home at
night with a new eagerness, at first perhaps because they

knew that the Little Woman was safe in Holloway Jail,
but later because it was good to find her home, fun to hear
how she had thumb-nosed that old fuddy-duddy at Bow

Street or outsmarted the CID boys again. Sometimes, since
she was often tired and battered, he got supper for her.
He gave her the high sign when the plain-clothes police,
on the watch across the way, had gone off to supper or
for other causes, and gave her a leg up over the garden
wall. When he was very brave he marched with banners

in her processions. Little as they may have realized it they
were recapturing the old comradship that their ancestors
had lost for them.

As for the children, their attitude changed rapidly from
one of affectionate toleration for poor darling mother to
one of wide-eyed wonder. Released from the smother of

Mother Love —for she was too busy to be more than casu-
ally concerned with them — they discovered that they liked
her. She was a great sport. She had guts. For the first
time they began to boast about her, not on the strength of

her domestic virtues but on the length of her prison sen-
tences. The home, which had been showing marked signs
of disintegration, was in the fire of battle being welded

into a new unity. Those women who stood outside the
fight — I regret to say the vast majority —and who were
being more than usually Little Women, hated the fighters
with the venomous rage of envy.
In the War, at the height of the struggle, the fighters
j'accuse 163
put their cause aside to merge themselves in the national

effort. But some of their gains remained. Shorts at Wim-
bledon and women in uniform testified to a revolution.
It was not yet a total war and total effort was not de-
manded of them. They were not yet to fight and die, ex-
cept by accident, in their own right. That right came to
them in the Second World War. Then their capacities had

to be acknowledged and accepted. They proved what
many of them had already suspected, that they were
physically as brave as men and often more enduring. They
were born warriors who in a cause which their reason
declared vital could and would fight effectively to the last
ditch. After untold centuries some of them were them-

selves again.
Will they remain themselves?

Recently we witnessed the United Nations draw up
blueprints for a world organization supposedly on a dem-
ocratic basis, with a full half of its inhabitants almost en-
tirely unrepresented. Dean Gildersleeve, as a sop tossed
to the American women voters, was allowed to trot along
with other minor minorities. Great Britain, who literally
owed her existence to her women, sent Ellen Wilkinson

and two or three others, not to speak for them, for as far
as the general public was concerned they never opened
their mouths in council, but to come along and watch
George do it again.
The spectacle would have been ludicrous if it had not

been, in its implications, tragic. It foreshadowed fresh dis-
aster. For sooner or later, without the checks and balances

of a healthy two-party system, Man's passion for power
for its own sake, his unbridled creativeness, will over-
whelm his platitudes and we shall have another explosion

that may literally rock our physical world to its axis.
Women cannot justly blame men for this state of affairs.

If they want to go back to First Causes they can blame the
first woman who exchanged her birthright for what she
mistakenly imagined was a sheltered life. Then they can
blame themselves for treading supinely in her footsteps.
If men still pat them on the head and allow them to write
their speeches for them in the back office, it is for good

and sufficient reason. Men, whatever else they are not, are
at least professionals who treat their talents or their genius
with respect. No love of home or wife or child ever stopped
a man who was worth his salt from doing his duty
which is, in the first place, to whatever gifts the chance
meeting of sperm and ovum have given him. If men bar
the doors of their council chambers, their universities
and their professions to women, it is because they know
from experience that, at the first love call, women how-
ever talented will toss their careers over the windmill and
retire into the nest where a long, expensive training and
perhaps their genius will be of no further use to them or
to their world. They are the eternal amateurs and no pro-
fessional, except as an off-day amusement, wants to work
j'accuse 165
with amateurs. Their very attitude toward themselves

and the job damns them to second-rateness.
Heaven knows, the Little Woman is not inactive in the

world's affairs. She is the very heart and soul of those well-
meaning, and, as things are, necessary organizations
which,among their good deeds, convince Man-on-the-

Rampage that, lost in wonder at his prowess, the Little
Woman is waiting at home for him with bands and band-
ages. She tosses committees from hand to hand, like a
juggler, with a brisk complacency and floods of talk that
may be an endeavor to silence the still small grunts of a
disgusted ancestress. For the times demand much more
of her, and perhaps in the depths of her conscience she
knows it. That they are as they are is largely her responsi-
bility. She has stood by and applauded while the other

half of her species dealt her civilization blows from which
it may never recover. The sands are running out fast.
If anything is to be saved, the Little Woman will have

to move faster, out of the nest (which will then become
for her too a place to return to but not to live in) and
down into the dusty arena with her sleeves rolled up.
Human relations, relieved at last from the crushing burden

of her dependence on them, may then become what they
should be, the adornment of life but not its foundations.
And her children, now clinging to childhood till they find
another and more permanent womb, may escape her sti-
fling claims on them to become full-grown. Most im-

portant of all, she may recover her own fighting temper.
(For pacifism is the symptom of a weak spine and a weak
head or both, and leads, as we know to our bitter cost, to
bigger and worse wars.) What she will fight for, if and
when she takes the chance, is anybody's guess. But what-
ever she wants enough to fight for she can have. Actually
and potentially she is very strong. Without resorting to
violence — though she must be capable of violence —by
merely refusing to play an idiot Martha to a lunatic Mars,
she can gain her point. I believe it would be a sane one.
Will she or even can she? Habits of mind and body,

centuries old, are not reversed in a decade and the ex-
perience women have had of themselves — as in Great
Britain where they alone fought for their own emancipa-

tion and where, as citizens of the only country which
challenged the enemy and remained undefeated, they have
acquired a new pride in citizenship —may be too limited.
Neither the vote, too easily won, or the war, fought at too
great a distance, have affected American women to any
encouraging extent. Other progressive countries lie under
the paralyzing blight of defeat. Russia, where a more vigor-
ous conception of women's responsibilities seemed in the
making, is reverting to the Woman's Sphere and signifi-
cantly and sinisterly at the same time to a passionate
nationalism.
But we have to hope. If we want to survive —and it
seems we do — we can do no other. We have seen what

j'accuse 167
the unbalanced masculine element has made ofGermany

and Japan and what, in extension, it has done to us. One
more heave, as Churchill would say, and the unknown
star beating its way toward us through uncharted space
need not bother to bump us into eternal nothingness. Our

world will already be an empty, howling waste.
A woman should be good for everything at home, but

abroad good for nothing.
—Euripides
Before going to war say a prayer; before going to sea
say two prayers; before marrying say three prayers.
—Proverb
Tho' Wisdom oft has sought me,

1 scorn d the lore she brought me;
My only boo\s
Were woman's loo\s,
And folly's all they've taught me.

—Thomas Moore
WOMEN ARE INTELLECTUALLY
INFERIOR
by Waverley Root
A,.MERICAN women see red when it is suggested to

them that genius is a phenomenon which does not appear
in their sex. They take this routine observation, which
forces itself inevitably upon anyone who considers the
subject, as a personal insult. Yet they believe it themselves.

You can test that statement at any time by expressing the
opinion that genius is confined to a single sex without
specifying the sex. The ladies who will immediately spring
upon you will assume that you mean genius is confined to
the male. They will be right, of course; but their automatic
assumption of that fact will prove that, however bitterly
they may dispute your thesis, in their heart of hearts they

are convinced you are right. If they were not, it might
occur to them that the sex which has a monopoly of genius
is their own. But that is a theory too patently absurd to be
maintained, even by American women.

Copyright 1949 by The American Mercury
169
The failure of genius to appear among women has been
remarked ever since men began to entertain the idea that
women might, perhaps, be possessed of the intellectual

qualities necessary for its development. One of the earliest
efforts to consider genius in the light of physiological and
psychological principles was the Examen de Ingenios
para las Cienzas, published in 1575 by Juan Huarte de San
Juan, in which the opinion was expressed that all the

higher faculties had been denied to women. His successors
up to and including Havelock Ellis, have for the most part
agreed that genius, at least, has been beyond their scope.
Women who consider this estimate a slur upon their sex
are wont to point out sniffishly that the books which refuse
to concede genius to women have been written by those
self-impressed creatures, men. Unfortunately, no woman
of genius has yet composed a refutation of them.
On the contrary, one of the most conclusive statements
on the relative lack of brilliance among women is the work

of one of them, A Statistical Study of Eminent Women,
by Mrs. Cora Sutton Castle. Mrs. Castle went through six
encyclopedias, two American, two German, one British
and one French, listing all the women, except Biblical

characters, whose names appeared in three or more of
them. There were 868 in all. "It is a sad commentary on

the sex," she commented, "that from the dawn of history
to the present day less than 1000 women have accomplished

anything that history has recorded as worth while." It is
j'accuse 171
even sadder since about half the names were included be-
cause their owners had been eminent as sovereigns, politi-
cians, and the mothers or mistresses of famous men, cate-
gories in which fame might be acquired by means other

than the exercise of genius.
Even the small number of outstanding women exhibit
gifts which cannot compare with those of the giants of

masculine genius. There are absolutely no feminine names,
none at all, which can stand beside those of the really
great —no Beethovens, no Michaelangelos, no Shake-

speares, no Tolstoys.
In music, "at once the most emotional and the most

severely abstract of the arts," as Havelock Ellis pointed
out, there are virtually no feminine names at all. The limit
of feminine accomplishment (contemporaries will not be
cited here or elsewhere) seems to be represented by Cecile

Chaminade. In painting, their achievement goes no higher
than the work of Rosa Bonheur or Mary Cassatt. It is not
belittling the quality of their work to point out that it is
far below the best masculine standards.

Literature is an art which is in many respects unique.
Its medium, language, is one which of necessity we all use
in our everyday lives. A certain amount of technique in
its use is thus available to everyone, as is not the case for
the worker in sound, color or form. Moreover, we tend to
place writing of all sorts in the same category, whereas
words are used for a great variety of purposes —some-
times to compose a work of art, sometimes simply to en-
tertain, sometimes to instruct, and often for all of these
purposes together. In a sense, therefore, writing is the

"easiest" of the arts, at least on its lower levels. For that
reason, we might expect a greater success in it from lesser
talents; and it is, indeed, precisely in this art that women

come closest to genius.
They come closest; but they do not attain it. There are
not, even in literature, any feminine names which can
stand beside those of the real titans among the men. Who
are the greatest women novelists? Jane Austen, the
Brontes, George Eliot, George Sand ? This is virtually the
pinnacle of feminine literary achievement, yet it is easy to
recall offhand dozens of male authors who surpass them

to an extent that defies argument. Many women write with
charm, style, wit, sympathy, sensitivity, grace —but they
do not write with greatness.
11
When we turn to poetry, we approach a form of litera-
ture more often scaled to the feminine mind. This was not
true in the days when poetry used to perform the functions
later taken over by the novel; there never has been a
woman epic poet. But insofar as poetry has become re-
duced to the artistic arrangement of words and to the ex-
pression of finely nuanced emotion, it has come within

the scope of women. Even so, the names of women poets
j'accuse 173
comparable even with the third-rate men are few. Antiquity

gives us a single name, Sappho. There is a trail blazer in
Amy Lowell. Many critics might say there was genius in

Emily Dickinson. But even Emily Dickinson worked in
miniatures, incisively chiseled, but still, by their very limi-
tation of size, not capable of being measured against the

majestic standards of the indisputable geniuses.
In science, the achievements of women have been even

more meager. There is, indeed, only one name of an emi-
nence which entitles it to be ranked with the leading

men of science, that of Mme. Curie. We might willingly
leave to women this single exception, but there are at least
two reasons for wondering whether it is an exception at
all. Mme. Curie worked in such close cooperation with

her husband that it is difficult to evaluate their respective
contributions separately; and there are some authorities
who feel that even in her own field there have been mascu-
line workers who made greater contributions, such as
Lord Rutherford, whose research established the existence
and nature of radioactive transformations. Because it was
astonishing and unprecedented that such an achievement
should have been attained by a woman, the romantic pub-
lic tended to magnify that achievement to a point which
overshadowed the parallel work of masculine scientists,
whose successes were less surprising.
What constitutes genius in government is rather diffi-
cult to say; nor is it easy to determine whether rulers with

a reputation of greatness won it for their own skill in
governing, or for the capacities of their ministers, or simply

for their good luck in coming along at a time when their
countries were headed for greatness. Among the women

whom the accident of birth placed upon thrones, there
are very few likely to be accorded greatness —Elizabeth

and perhaps Victoria of England, Catherine of Russia,
Christina of Sweden. In Elizabeth's case, we may suspect
that luck played a considerable part. Victoria's personal
qualities possibly had less effect on the government of Eng-

land than those of her consort, Albert; and if she gave
her name to an era, it was due in large part to the length
of her reign and the excellence of her Prime Ministers.

Catherine did deserve the epithet "the Great," but Chris-
tina ruled in so eccentric a fashion that she was forced to
abdicate.
When we examine this list, small as it is, of the women

who might by lenient standards be described as geniuses,
we can hardly fail to be struck by the unusual degree of
masculinity many of them display. The popular concep-
tion of sexuality is, of course, erroneous — that is, the theory
that most persons are "normal," meaning completely heter-
osexual, while a few individuals are homosexual through

and through. Actually we are all mixtures of the two sexes,
in varying blends. Therefore, though indisputable genius
seems restricted to those physically and definitely mascu-

line, we might reasonably expect the disputable cases in
j 'accuse 175
women to appear, if genius is indeed a male monopoly,

among those women whose psychological make-up in-
cluded a strong male factor. That is, indeed, the case.
Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen." Christina, who was

educated in masculine fashion, never married in spite of
constant pressure upon her to do so, and when she abdi-
cated she left Sweden in male attire and under a male
title. Catherine's physical love life was, as everyone knows,
expended lavishly upon the opposite sex, but her mental
attitude towards her favorites and her treatment of them
was of a nature usually displayed by men towards women,
rather than the other way around.
Emily Dickinson never married and the one love of her
life seems to have been exclusively cerebral. Amy Lowell
smoked large black cigars. George Sand and George Eliot
took masculine pseudonyms. Rosa Bonheur and George
Sand liked to wear male attire. Jane Austen remained un-
married, and, of the three Bronte sisters, only Charlotte
married, at the age of 38, and died a year later. And
Sappho of Lesbos gave her name to female homosexuality.
These facts are not cited with the intention of fixing upon
these women the stigma, in many cases unjustified, of that
complete homosexuality which present-day public opinion

regards unfavorably, but simply because they suggest that
in those rare individual cases where women approach
genius they also approach masculinity.
This observation forces itself on us again when we look
at the minor or half-arts, those of interpretation rather
than of pure creation. Here women have made a much

more notable record, as actresses, dancers (more rarely as
choreographers) and musicians. Even in this category,
the attainment decreases as the more rarefied heights are
reached. In music, for instance, there have been a few

first-rate pianists and singers, but there the ladies stop.
There has never been a really topnotch woman violinist.
in
It is interesting to note that the intermediate arts and the

intermediate sexual mixtures seem to have an affinity for
each other, with the exception of that largely masculine
preserve, musical execution. It seems that women mount
the artistic scale as the element in their make-up of the
opposite sex increases and men descend it. It might be
suggested that the relation of, for instance, the actress to
the playwright is very much like the biological and psy-

chological relation of woman to man: the actress gives
concrete life to the abstract creation of the playwright;
the woman is the instrument who serves the purpose of
the man.
The difference between the true arts and the half-arts,
the arts of creation and the arts of interpretation, consists

in the finality of the former. Genius exemplified in art
writes itself down. It demands media capable of notation,
of preservation in invariable form. Its ideal is a stern per-

j'accuse 177
fection, discarding defects in the personality of its creator
and often achieving impersonal heights, worthy of being

cast in immutable form. But the interpretative half-arts
are personal and variable. They demand not so much

genius as craftsmanship.
It seems clear that genius is a monopoly of the male.
But why ? The favorite argument of apologists for women

used to be that genius had not manifested itself in that sex
because the inferior position in which woman had been

kept by the tyranny of man had deprived her of opportu-
nities for demonstrating the qualities latent within her.
This theory is in conflict with the fact that many male
geniuses succeeded in displaying their gifts before the
world in spite of obstacles as forbidding as any facing
women. Nor does it explain the failure of women to do
notable work in any of the arts in which, from time to
time, they were carefully educated, in order that pro-
ficiency in painting or in music might add to their natural
charms. It also ignores the ability of outstanding women
to exercise considerable influence on dieir times, usually
through men, in domains where genius is not required for

success, an ability which some of them, surely, could have
used to secure opportunities for the expression of their
genius, if they had had any. This argument has been pretty
well disposed of by Havelock Ellis and his successors, but
even without this it has rapidly lost force since opportuni-
ties have been open to women long enough to have allowed
genius to show itself (a single generation should suffice
for the development of what is an individual phenome-

non).
Convinced of the inadequacy of this explanation for the
lack of genius in women, biologists and psychologists have
cast about for some physiological explanation. Elie Met-
chnikoff, the Russian biologist, thought it lay in a sec-
ondary sexual character, like the beard and the bass voice.
"Poetic genius is intimately associated with sexual power,
and castration inhibits it," he wrote. "A man of genius
loses much of his quality with the sexual function. Among

the eunuchs on record, Abelard is the only poet; but
Abelard was forty years old when he ceased to be a man,
and at the same time he ceased to be a poet."
The trouble with this theory is that secondary sexual
characteristics are shared by virtually all the members of
the sex which possesses them, and it requires no argument

to prove that all men are not geniuses. Havelock Ellis sug-
gested instead the theory that genius appears in men rather
than in women, because men, like the males of other

animals, show greater individual variability than women.
This is true enough. Other abnormalities appear in women
less frequently than in men, but they do appear. Genius,
however, virtually does not appear at all.
With the investigation of the mechanism of heredity,
whose results were not available to Ellis at the time he

wrote, a new theory began to appear —that genius is a sex-
j'accuse 179
linked characteristic, one of those factors, that is, which

do not appear in all males, and, indeed, not even in many
males, but which appear much more regularly in the male
sex than the female sex because they are inherited through
bodies appearing in the X-chromosome.
rv
For those readers not familiar with the mechanism of

heredity, it must be explained that the genes which carry
inheritable characteristics are grouped into chromosomes,
microscopic bodies in the germ cells, which vary in num-
ber in different species. Man, generically, posesses 48 chro-
mosomes; but man individually has only 47. Women

possess the full complement of 48, but men are short one
(or possess a rudimentary Y-chromosome in its place).
The 48 chromosomes are paired —that is, one of each kind

comes from the mother and one from the father. But in
the male, the X-chromosome is unpaired.
Now the relationship of many inheritable characteristics
to one another is that of recessive to dominant —that is, if
an individual receives a gene from one parent which

would tend to give him blue eyes and one from another
which would tend to give him brown eyes, his eyes will be
brown. Brown eyes are dominant, blue eyes recessive, in
relation to each other. Thus such recessive characteristics
as are carried by genes on the X-chromosome will appear

in a male because he possesses no complementary chromo-
l8o MAN AGAINST WOMAN
some to overcome their effect ; but they will not appear in
a female except in the rather rare case that both parents

have contributed the same recessive gene to her heredity. It
is nature's sage custom to make advantageous traits domi-

nant over disadvantageous ones, which are thus normally
eliminated in the individual, if not from the germ cell, in
all matings except those in which both parents are so un-

fortunate as to carry a disadvantageous gene and to con-
tribute precisely that gene to the new individual. The fe-
male, with two X-chromosomes, has a good chance of

having the unfavorable recessive genes of that chromo-
some canceled by favorable dominant genes of the other;
but the male who picks up a bad gene is out of luck.

There are, in fact, a choice selection of such undesirable
characteristics on the X-chromosome, of which the best
known are color blindness and haemophilia (inability of
the blood to clot to stop bleeding), which appear chiefly

in men and rarely in women.
If genius results from genes on the X-chromosome, what
exactly is inherited? It can hardly be genius full-blown.
All that the genes could carry would be some physiological
factor which might predispose the organism to manifest
genius.
I am going to be bold enough to suggest a possible

answer to this question. To present it here is somewhat
premature, for it is a by-product of a theory which I have
been developing for many years but which has not yet
j'accuse 181
been published; nor is there space here for any exposition
of the main theory. Briefly, I had been attempting to find
out exactly what happens within the central nervous sys-

tem during the aesthetic processes of creation and appreci-
ation, and, in elaborating my hypothesis, I found myself
obliged, as a corollary of it, to accept a conclusion discon-
certing to admirers of genius but perhaps consolatory to
those excluded from it
It was that genius results from a degenerative pattern of
the nervous system which, if accentuated, produces, not
genius, but insanity. This pattern, a sheer physiological or,
for that matter, physical matter, might very well be in-
herited; and as it amounts to incipient insanity, nature in
her automatic wisdom might well have made it a recessive

characteristic and filed it with other undesirable qualities
in that trash-basket for defects, the X-chromosome. Man
may have acquired a perverted taste for the manifesta-
tions of genius, as he has acquired a perverted taste for
the manifestations of putrescence in game, but nature

abhors it.
There are certain intriguing confirmations of this theory,

first in the remarkable number of cases in which genius
has shaded off into insanity or has even existed concur-
rently with it. In the tertiary stage of syphilis, a classic
symptom is a period of superficial intellectual brilliance
which leads to insanity; what happens is that, under the
attacks of the disease, the nervous system degenerates and
1 82 MAN AGAINST WOMAN
in the process assumes temporarily the pattern which the
genius inherits and the syphilitic acquires. It is also a fact
that idiocy is more common among men than among
women, who may well consider themselves happy to rank
lower in genius for the sake of ranking higher in sanity.
This is the consolation which I offer to any ladies who

have considered it a mark of inferiority in their sex that
it has failed to produce geniuses. You are indeed,

mesdames, barred from genius. But what of it? Genius,
from nature's point of view, is a dangerous abnormality;
and she has dealt handsomely by the women in exempting

them from it.
FACT OR FICTION?
VI
Men are women s playthings;
women are the devil's.
—Victor Hugo
A PAIR OF SEXES
by Franklin P. Adams
A MAN TELEPHONES
"Ed? . . . Lunch at one. Whyte's. Right."
ii
a woman telephones
Hello, operator. Operator? I want Caledonia five eight
six seven, please. Oh, this is Caledonia five eight six seven ?
Oh, I beg your pardon, I'm terribly sorry. I thought it
was the operator. I've had so much trouble with the tele-
phone lately. May I speak to Miss Lucille Webster, please ?
Oh, speaking? Oh, I'm terribly sorry. Is this Miss Webster ?
Is this you, Lucille ? I didn't recognize your voice at first.
First I thought it was the operator and then I thought

it was somebody answering for you, Lucille. I didn't
recognize your voice at first. Got a cold or something?
Copyright 1928 by Doubleday & Company, Inc.
185
Oh, you sound as though you had. There's so much
of it around this wretched weather. I never saw any-
thing like it in my whole life. Well, I'm glad you
haven't got a cold, though at first you certainly sounded
like it. ... I was just talking to Ethel for a second, and
she had such a cold she could hardly talk. That's the
reason I asked you. There's an awful lot of it around this
wretched weather. . . . Oh, nothing particular Oh, yes,
there is too. How silly of me ! I was so interested in what

you were saying, I almost forgot. Lucille, what are you
doing tomorrow? . . . No, about lunch time. Or a little
earlier. Or a little later. It doesn't matter. Because I expect

to be in your part of town about that time, around lunch
time, oh, maybe one or one-thirty or so, I have an appoint-

ment at twelve-thirty, and it oughtn't to take me more
than half an hour, or at the most three quarters, surely
not over an hour, I'm almost certain, and probably I'll
be through in half an hour, but, anyway, I ought to be

all through by one-thirty, and I could meet you anywhere
you say. . . . Oh, I know, but Maillard's is pretty crowded
about that time, and isn't there some place nearer? My
appointment is on Forty-seventh Street near Madison
no, it's near Fifth, I guess. But that doesn't matter. I'll
take a cab. If I can get one. Did you ever see anything
like how hard it is to get a cab nowadays ? My dear, last
night I was twenty-five minutes trying to get one, and it
got me late for dinner, and I \now they didn't believe

FACT OR FICTION? 1 87
me. But if I can't get one I'll walk. It's only a block. And
I guess a little exercise wouldn't do me any harm. . . .
Maillard's. . . . How about the Ritz? No, there's such a

jam there. And it's hard to meet. Well, any place you say.
. . . Oh, Lucille, that's a dreadful place. The food's so-

on, I don't know. You know. So —bad, if you know what
I mean. Well, let's take a chance on Maillard's. Only it's
so crowded. . . . Oh, no, I never heard that. . . . No, I
haven't. I haven't read a thing in months, absolutely

months. Where the time goes to I don't know. / simply
do not know where the time goes to. Lucille, you're sure
you've got tomorrow at lunch free ? Because if you haven't,
or there's something you'd rather do, just say so and we'll
try again. Well, suppose we say Maillard's at —oh, do you

know that little tea shop on Forty-seventh? I think it's
between Park and Madison on the — let's see —on the down-
town, that's the south side of the street. I'll be there by one,
or anyway one-thirty, and if I'm there first I'll get a table,
and you do the same if you are. But I ought to be there
by one. My appointment is for half-past twelve, and it may
take me only a few minutes. I might be there before one.
But surely by quarter past, and certainly by one-thirty
All right, then. Suppose we say about one, at Maillard's.
. . . Oh, no, what am I thinking of? We decided that
would be too crowded, didn't we? Unless you'd rather
go there. That little tea shop is very nice. . . . Well, yes,
I'd just as soon go to Maillard's. It doesn't matter much.

It's seeing you I care about. There's a lot I want to talk
to you about. These little snatches at the telephone are so,
well, so sort of unsatisfactory, know what I mean. if you

. . .All right, suppose we say Maillard's, then. And then
if we don't like the looks of things we can go somewhere
else. . . . All right, then, at . . . oh, let's go to the tea
room. It's quieter. . . . All right, then. I'm longing to see

you, Lucille. . . . Tomorrow, then. At the tea shop, that's
on Forty-seventh between Park and Madison, on the
downtown, that's the south side of the street. Tomorrow,
then, about one. That's Wednesday. . . . What ? Is it Tues-
day? . . . Well, I'm all turned around. I thought it was
Wednesday. I'm terribly sorry, Lucille. I can't possibly
meet you tomorrow if it's Tuesday. I've got a luncheon

appointment I've had for ages, simply for weeks, and I've
postponed it so often I don't dare do it again. . . . You

can't Wednesday? I'm terribly sorry. . . . Well, I'll try
again. Ring me up. I'll be in all afternoon until five

twenty-five, and then I have to go uptown. . . . Yes. . . .
Well, I'm glad we had a nice little talk, anyway. . . . And

I'll see you soon. . . . What? No, soon — S for Sam. . . .
Yes, soon. . . . Good-bye, Lucille. . . . Good-bye. Good-bye.

Good-bye."
WHY, SOME OF MY BEST
FRIENDS ARE WOMEN!
by Phyllis McGinley
I learned in my credulous youth

That women are shallow as fountains.
Women ma\e lies out of truth
And out of a molehill their mountains.
Women are giddy and vain,
Cold-hearted or tiresomely tender;
Yet, nevertheless, I maintain
I dote on the feminine gender.
For the female of the species may be deadlier than the

male,
But she can make herself .a cup of coffee without reducing
The entire kitchen to a shambles.
Copyright 1941 by Phyllis McGinley
189
Perverse though their taste in cravats
Is deemed by their lords and their betters,
They hjiow the importance of hats

And they write you the news in their letters.
Their minds may be lighter than foam,

Or altered in haste and in hurry,
But they seldom bring company home

When you're warming up yesterday's curry.
And when lovely woman stoops to folly,
She does not invariably come in at four a.m.

Singing Sweet Adeline.
Oh, women are frail and they weep.

They are recklessly given to scions.
But, wakened unduly from sleep,
They are milder than tigers or lions.
Women hang clothes on their pegs
Nor groan at the toil and the trouble.
Women have rather nice legs

And chins that are guiltless of stubble.
Women are restless, uneasy to handle,
But when they are burning both ends of the scandal,
They do not insist with a vow that is votive,
How high are their minds and how noble the motive.
190
;
As shopping companions they're heroes and saints;
They meet you in tearooms nor murmur complaints;

They listen, entranced, to a list of your vapors
At breakfast they sometimes emerge from the papers;
A Brave Little Widow's not apt to sob-story 'em,
And they keep a cool head in a grocery emporium.
Yes, I rise to defend
The quite possible She.
For the feminine gend-
Er is o.k. by me.
Besides, everybody admits it's a Man's World.

And just look what they've done to it!
iqi
To the open view of all men they paint and embellish
themselves with counterfeit and borrowed beauties. I have
seen them swallow gravel, ashes, coals, dust, tallow can-
dles, and for the nonce, labour and toil themselves to

spoil their stomach, only to get a pale-blea\ colour; to
beco?ne slender in waist, and to have a narrow spagnolised

body, what pinching, what girding, what cingling will
they not endure; yea, sometimes with iron plates, with
whalebones and other such trush.
—Montaigne
THE SEXES
by Dorothy Parser
JL HE young man with the scenic cravat glanced ner-
vously down the sofa at the girl in the fringed dress. She
was examining her handkerchief; it might have been the

first one of its kind she had seen, so deep was her interest
in its material, form, and possibilities. The young man
cleared his throat, without necessity or success, producing
a small, syncopated noise.

"Want a cigarette ?" he said.
"No, thank you," she said. "Thank you ever so much

just the same."
"Sorry I've only got these kind," he said. "You got any
of your own?"
"I really don't know," she said. "I probably have, thank
you."
"Because if you haven't," he said, "it wouldn't take me
a minute to go up to the corner and get you some."
"Oh, thank you, but I wouldn't have you go to all that
Copyright 1927, 1944 by Dorothy Parker
193
trouble for anything," she said. "It's awfully sweet of you
to think of it. Thank you ever so much."
"Will you for God's sakes stop thanking me?" he said.
"Really," she said, "I didn't know I was saying anything

out of the way. I'm awfully sorry if I hurt your feelings. I
know what it feels like to get your feelings hurt. I'm sure
I didn't realize it was an insult to say 'thank you' to a
person. I'm not exactly in the habit of having people

swear at me because I say 'thank you' to them."
"I did not swear at you!" he said.
"Oh, you didn't?" she said. "I see."
"My God," he said, "all I said, I simply asked you if I
couldn't go out and get you some cigarettes. Is there any-
thing in that to get up in the air about?"

"Who's up in the air?" she said. "I'm sure I didn't know
it was a criminal offense to say I wouldn't dream of giving
you all that trouble. I'm afraid I must be awfully stupid,
or something."
"Do you want me to go out and get you some cigarettes;
or don't you?" he said.

"Goodness," she said, "if you want to go so much, please
don't feel you have to stay here. I wouldn't have you feel
you had to stay for anything."
"Ah, don't be that way, will you ?" he said.
"Be what way?" she said. "I'm not being any way."
"What's the matter?" he said.
"Why, nothing," she said. "Why?"

FACT OR FICTION ? 195
"You've been funny all evening," he said. "Hardly said
a word to me, ever since I came in."
"I'm terribly sorry you haven't been having a good

time," she said. "For goodness' sakes, don't feel you have
to stay here and be bored. I'm sure there are millions of
places you could be having a lot more fun. The only

thing, I'm a little bit sorry I didn't know before, that's
all. When you said you were coming over tonight, I
broke a lot of dates to go to the theater and everything.

But it doesn't make a bit of difference. I'd much rather
have you go and have a good time. It isn't very pleasant to

sit here and feel you're boring a person to death."
"I'm not bored!" he said. "I don't want to go any
place! Ah, honey, won't you tell me what's the matter?
Ah, please."
"I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about,"

she said. "There isn't a thing on earth the matter. I don't
know what you mean."
"Yes, you do," he said. "There's something the trouble.
Is it anything I've done, or anything?"
"Goodness," she said, "I'm sure it isn't any of my busi-
ness, anything you do. I certainly wouldn't feel I had any

right to criticize."
"Will you stop talking like that?" he said. "Will you,

please?"
"Talking like what?" she said.
"You know," he said. "That's the way you were talking

over the telephone today, too. You were so snotty when
I called you up. I was afraid to talk to you."
"I beg your pardon," she said. "What did you say I
was?"
"Well, I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to say that.
You get me so balled up."

"You see," she said, "I'm really not in the habit of
hearing language like that. I've never had a thing like

that said to me in my life."
"I told you I was sorry, didn't I?" he said. "Honest,

honey, I didn't mean it. Iknow how I came
don't to say
a thing like that. Will you excuse me? Please?"

"Oh, certainly," she said. "Goodness, don't feel you have
to apologize to me. It doesn't make any difference at
all. It just seems a little bit funny to have somebody you

were in the habit of thinking was a gentleman come to
your home and use language like that to you, that's all.
But it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference."
"I guess nothing I say makes any difference to you,"
he said. "You seem to be sore at me."

"I'm sore at you?" she said. "I can't understand what
put that idea in your head. Why should I be sore at you?"
"That's what I'm asking you," he said. "Won't you tell
me what I've done ? Have I done something to hurt your

feelings, honey? The way you were, over the phone, you
had me worried all day. I couldn't do a lick of work."
"I certainly wouldn't like to feel," she said, "that I was

FACT OR FICTION? 1 97
interfering with your work. I know there are lots of
girls that don't think anything of doing things like that,

but I think it's terrible. It certainly isn't very nice to sit
here and have someone tell you you interfere with his
business."
"I didn't say that!" he said. "I didn't say it!"
"Oh, didn't you?" she said. "Well, that was the impres-
sion I got. It must be my stupidity."
"I guess maybe I better go," he said. "I can't get right.
Everything I say seems to make you sorer and sorer.
Would you rather I'd go?"
"Please do just exactly whatever you like," she said.
"I'm sure the last thing I want to do is have you stay

here when you'd rather be some place Why don't else.
you go some place where you won't be bored ? Why don't

you go up to Florence Learning's? I know she'd love to
have you."
"I don't want to go up to Florence Learning's!" he said.
"What would I want to go up to Florence Learning's for ?
She gives me a pain."
"Oh, really?" she said. "She didn't seem to be giving

you so much of a pain at Elsie's party last night, I notice.
I notice you couldn't even talk to anybody else, that's
how much of a pain she gave you."
"Yeah, and you know why I was talking to her?" he

said.
"Why, I suppose you think she's attractive," she said.

"I suppose some people do. It's perfectly natural. Some
people think she's quite pretty."
know whether she's pretty or not," he said. "I
"I don't
wouldn't know her if I saw her again. Why I was talking

to her was you wouldn't even give me a tumble, last
night. I came up and tried to talk to you, and you just
said, 'Oh, how do you do' —just like that, 'Oh, how do
you do' —and you turned right away and wouldn't look
at me."
"I wouldn't look at you?" she said. "Oh, that's awfully
funny. Oh, that's marvelous. You don't mind if I laugh, do
you?"
"Go ahead and laugh your head off," he said. "But you
wouldn't."
"Well, the minute you came in the room," she said,
"you started making such a fuss over Florence Learning,

I thought you never wanted to see anybody else. You two
seemed to be having such a wonderful time together,
goodness knows I wouldn't have butted in for anything."
"My God," he said, "this what's-her-name girl came
up and began talking to me before I even saw anybody
else, and what could I do ? I couldn't sock her in the nose,
could I?"
"I certainly didn't see you try," she said.
"You saw me try to talk to you, didn't you?" he said.
"And what did you do? 'Oh, how do you do/ Then
FACT OR FICTION? 199
this what's-her-name came up again, and there I was,
stuck. Florence Learning! I think she's terrible. Know

what I think of her? I think she's a damn little fool.
That's what I think of her."

"Well, of course," she said, "that's the impression she
always gave me, but I don't know. I've heard people say
she's pretty. Honestly I have."
"Why, she can't be pretty in the same room with you,"
he said.
"She has got an awfully funny nose," she said. "I really
feel sorry for a girl with a nose like that."

"She's got a terrible nose," he said. "You've got a beauti-
ful nose. Gee, you've got a pretty nose."
"Oh, I have not," she said. "You're crazy."

"And beautiful eyes," he said, "and beautiful hair and
a beautiful mouth. And beautiful hands. Let me have one
of the little hands. Ah, look atta little hand! Who's got
the prettiest hands in the world ? Who's the sweetest girl
in the world?"
"I don't know," she said. "Who?"
"You don't know!" he said. "You do so, too, know."
"I do not," she said. "Who? Florence Learning?"
"Oh, Florence Learning, my eye!" he said. "Getting sore
about Florence Learning! And me not sleeping all last
night and not doing a stroke of work all day because you
wouldn't speak to me! A girl like you getting sore about
a girl like Florence Learning!"
"I think you're just perfectly crazy," she said. "I was not
sore!What on earth ever made you think I was? You're
simply crazy. Ow, my new pearl beads! Wait a second till
I take them off. There!"
We are educated in the grossest ignorance and no art
omitted to stifle our reason.

—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
A FAMILY QUARREL
by Jane Austen
IT IS A TRUTH universally acknowledged, that a
single man in possession of a good fortune must be in

want of a wife.
However little known the feelings or views of such
a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this

truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding
families, that he is considered as the rightful property of
some one or other of their daughters.
"My dear Mr. Bennet," said his lady to him one day,
"have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?"
Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.
"But it is," returned she; "for Mrs. Long has just been
here, and she told me all about it."
Mr. Bennet made no answer.

"Do not you want to know who has taken it?" cried his
wife impatiently.
"You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hear-
ing it."
201
This was invitation enough.
"Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that
Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune
from the north of England; that he came down on Mon-

day in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so much
delighted with it, that he agreed with Mr. Morris im-
mediately; that he is to take possession before Michaelmas,

and some of his servants are to be in the house by the
end of next week."
"What is his name?"
"Bingley."
"Is he married or single?"
"Oh ! single, my dear, to be sure ! A single man of large
fortune; four or five thousand a-year. What a fine thing
for our girls!"
"How so? how can it affect them?"

"My dear Mr. Bennet," replied his wife, "how can you
be so tiresome! you must know that I am thinking of his
marrying one of them."
"Is that his design in settling here?"
"Design! nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very
likely that he may fall in love with one of them, and there-
fore you must visit him as soon as he comes."

"I see no occasion for that. You and the girls may go,
or you may send them by themselves, which perhaps will

be still better, for as you are as handsome as any of them,
Mr. Bingley might like you the best of the party."

"My dear, you flatter me. I certainly have had my share
of beauty, but I do not pretend to be anything extraor-
dinary now. When a woman have five grown-up daugh-

ters, she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty."
"In such cases, a woman has not often much beauty to
think of."
"But, my dear, you must indeed go and see Mr. Bingley
when he comes into the neighbourhood."
"It is more than I engage for, I assure you."

"But consider your daughters. Only think what an estab-
lishment it would be for one of them. Sir William and

Lady Lucas are determined to go, merely on that account,
for in general, you know, they visit no new-comers. In-
deed, you must go, for it will be impossible for us to visit
him if you do not."

"You are over-scrupulous, surely. I dare say Mr. Bingley
will be very glad to see you; and I will send a few lines
by you to assure him of my hearty consent to his marry-

ing whichever he chuses of the girls: though I must
throw in a good word for my little Lizzy."
"I desire you will do no such thing. Lizzy is not a bit
better than the others; and I am sure she is not half so
handsome as Jane, nor half so good-humoured as Lydia.
But you are always giving her the preference."
"They have none of them much to recommend them,"
replied he; "they are all silly and ignorant, like other
girls; but Lizzy has something more of quickness than

her sisters."
"Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in

such a way You
! take delight in vexing me. You have no
compassion on my poor nerves."
"You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for
your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you
mention them with consideration these twenty years at
least."
"Ah you do
! not know what I suffer."
"But I hope you will get over it, and live to see many
young men of four thousand a-year come into the neigh-
bourhood."
"It will be no use to us, if twenty such should come,
since you will not visit them."
"Depend upon it, my dear, that when there are twenty,
I will visit them all."
Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts,
sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, that the experience
of three-and-twenty years had been insufficient to make

his wife understand his character. Her mind was less dif-
ficult to develop. She was a woman of mean understand-
ing, little information, and uncertain temper. When she
was discontented, she fancied herself nervous. The busi-
ness of her life was to get her daughters married ; its solace
was visiting and news.

—
Mr. Bennet was among the earliest of those who waited

on Mr. Bingley. He had always intended to visit him,
though to the last always assuring his wife that he should
not go; and till the evening after the visit was paid she
had no knowledge of it. It was then disclosed in the fol-
lowing manner: —Observing his second daughter em-

ployed in trimming a hat, he suddenly addressed her
with
"I hope Mr. Bingley will like it, Lizzy."
"We are not in a know what Mr. Bingley likes,"
way to
said her mother resentfully, "since we are not to visit."
"But you forget, mamma," said Elizabeth, "that we

shall meet him at the assemblies, and that Mrs. Long
has promised to introduce him."
"I do not believe Mrs. Long will do any such thing.
She has two nieces of her own. She is a selfish, hypocritical
woman, and I have no opinion of her."

"No more have I," said Mr. Bennet; "and I am glad to
find that you do not depend on her serving you."
Mrs. Bennet deigned not to make any reply, but, unable
to contain herself, began scolding one of her daughters.

"Don't keep coughing so, Kitty, for Heaven's sake!
Have a little compassion on my nerves. You tear them

to pieces."
"Kitty has no discretion in her coughs," said her father;
"she times them ill."
"I do not cough for my own amusement," replied Kitty

fretfully. "When is your next ball to be, Lizzy?"
"To-morrow fortnight."
"Aye, so it is," cried her mother, "and Mrs. Long does

not come back till the day before ; so it will be impossible
for her to introduce him, for she will not know him her-
self."
"Then, my dear, you may have the advantage of your

friend, and introduce Mr. Bingley to her."
"Impossible, Mr. Bennet, impossible, when I am not

acquainted with him myself; how can you be so teaz-
ing?"
"I honour your circumspection. A fortnight's acquaint-
ance is certainly very little. One cannot know what a man

really is by the end of a fortnight. But if we do not ven-
ture somebody else will; and after all, Mrs. Long and her
nieces must stand their chance; and, therefore, as she will
think it an act of kindness, if you decline the office, I will
take it on myself."
The girls stared at their father. Mrs. Bennet said only,
"Nonsense, nonsense!"
"What can be the meaning of that emphatic exclama-
tion?" cried he. "Do you consider the forms of introduc-
tion, and the stress that is laid on them, as nonsense? I
cannot quite agree with you there. What say you, Mary?
for you are a young lady of deep reflection, I know, and
read great books and make extracts."
;
Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew

not how.
"While Mary is adjusting her ideas," he continued, "let
us return to Mr. Bingley."

"I am sick of Mr. Bingley," cried his wife.
"I am sorry to hear that; but why did not you tell me
so before ? If I had known as much this morning I cer-
tainly would not have called on him. It is very unlucky;

but as I have actually paid the visit, we cannot escape the
acquaintance now."
The astonishment of the ladies was just what he wished
that of Mrs. Bennet perhaps surpassing the rest; though,
when the first tumult of joy was over, she began to declare
that it was what she had expected all the while.
"How good it was in you, my dear Mr. Bennet! But I
knew I should persuade you at last. I was sure you loved

your girls too well to neglect such an acquaintance. Well,
how pleased I am! and it is such a good joke, too, that you
should have gone this morning and never said a word
about it till now."
"Now, Kitty, you may cough as much as you chuse,"
said Mr. Bennet; and, as he spoke, he left the room,
fatigued with the raptures of his wife.
"What an excellent father you have, girls!" said she,
when the door was shut. "I do not know how you will
ever make him amends for his kindness; or me either,
for that matter. At our time of life it is not so pleasant,
I can tell you, to be making new acquaintance every day;
but for your sakes, we would do anything. Lydia, my
love, though you are the youngest, I dare say Mr. Bingley
will dance with you at the next ball."
"Oh!" said Lydia stoutly, "I am not afraid; for though
I am the youngest, I'm the tallest."
The rest of the evening was spent in conjecturing how

soon he would return Mr. Bennet's visit, and determining
when they should ask him to dinner.
Man has his will —but woman has her way!

—Oliver Wendell Holmes
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following authors and

publishers for material included in this volume:
The American Mercury and Waverley Root for "Women Are

Intellectually Inferior" in The American Mercury, October, 1949
Brandt & Brandt for "The Little Woman" by I. A. R. Wylie in
Harper's Magazine, November, 1945
Dodd, Mead & Company, Inc. for "Are Witty Women Attractive
to Men?" from Last Leaves by Stephen Leacock

Doubleday & Company, Inc. for "A Pair of Sexes" from The
Column Boo\ of F.P.A. by Franklin P. Adams
Duell, Sloan & Pearce, Inc. for "Why, Some of My Best Friends
Are Women!" from Husbands Are Difficult by Phyllis McGinley
Harper & Brothers for "Ladies' Wild" from After 1903— What?
by Robert Benchley, "Woman, God Bless Her!" by Mark
Twain, and "Getting Along With Women" from Quo Vadimus?
by E. B. White, originally in The New Yorker, December 7,
1935
John Fischer and Harpers Magazine for "The Loving Care of
Determined Women" by John Fischer in Harpers Magazine,
August, 1955
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. for "Women Are Playthings" from The
World of George Jean Nathan, edited by Charles Angoff, and
209
"The War Between Man and Woman" and "The Incomparable
Buzz-Saw" from A Mencken Chrestomathy by H. L. Mencken
J. B. Lippincott Company for "Women and Drinks" and "You
Never Tell Me Anything" from How to Protect Yourself
Against Women by Charles W. Morton
McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. for "What You Don't Know
Won't Hurt You Till Later" and "Lady, Your Claws Are
Showing" from Light Armour by Richard Armour. These poems
first appeared in the Saturday Evening Post.
Ogden Nash "What Almost Every Woman Knows Sooner
for
or Later" from The Face Is Familiar by Ogden Nash, published

by Little, Brown & Company
James Thurber and The New Yorker for ''The Case Against
Women" originally in The New Yorker, October 24, 1936
Viking Press, Inc. for "Unfortunate Coincidence" and "The Sexes"
from The Portable Dorothy Parser
Set in Linotype Granjon
Format by Stephen King
Manufactured by The Haddon Craftsmen, Inc.
Published by Harper & Brothers, New Yor\
(Continued from front flap)
Benchley, et a I. —are mainly modern,

but often echo the sigh of Semonides
of Amorgus two millenniums ago:
"Every man is ready to praise his own
wife while condemning another man's
—we are unable to see that we are all
in the same boat."

Although definitive in its scope, this
volume is not likely to settle many
questions to the satisfaction of both
parties. It will doubtless raise a num-
ber of controversies, and doubtless
drown these in waves of laughter. Die-
hard bachelors and spinsters may

have confirmation of some of their
worst suspicions; those in wedded bliss
may find some doubtful matters given,

at last, a hilarious airing. Those in
neither of the above statuses will need

all the wisdom offered herein.
A glance on any page may find
comment possibly vicious, perhaps

wrongheaded, frequently amoral, yet
always with a refreshing humor. Is
there any other sane way to approach

the problem?
No. 7323A
Charles Neider and his wife, Joan, share one of those moments of calm
reflection which occasionally punctuated the preparing of man against
woman for the press.
No. 4895

Man Against Woman A Vade Mecum For The Weaker Sex, and A Caution To Women, by Charles Neider

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Man Against Woman A Vade Mecum For The Weaker Sex, and A Caution To Women, by Charles Neider

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MAN

Dorothy Parker John Fischer

Ogden Nash James Thurber

Robert Benchley George Jean Natii

H. L. Mencken Phyllis McGinley

Franklin P. Adams Cato the Elder

Charles W. Morton and Others...

Here is a wonderfully entertaining

of the sexes. A great variety of wit

The authorities testifying— Mencken,

(Continued on back flap)

THE WHITE CITADEL, a novel

THE AUTHENTIC DEATH OF HENDRY JONES, a novel

THE FROZEN SEA, a study of franz kafka

Edited by Charles Neider:

THE STATURE OF THOMAS MANN

HARPER & BROTHERS H publishers newyork

Printed in the United States of America

All rights in this book, ore reserved.

Library of Congress catalog card number: 56-8758

Part Still Inordinately Menacing

Artificial Beauty, by Lucianus 25

Part II: Certain Social Problems

Part III: The Old Guard

Women, by Semonides of Amorgus 79

Part IV: The New Look

Part VI: Fact or Fiction?

In the following pages you are going to read some

I didn't like them at first, but if you give them a chance

thou wast made a devil!

N,OT many men, worthy of the name, gain anything

their most inflated worth, they are plainly overborne by

it is all one: the two things, in their symptoms and effects,

are almost identical. In the first case he marries because

is the chief weapon in the hand of his opponent. It

makes him cherish the fiction of his enterprise, and even

bold playacting that women always excel at, and at no

at its best, contains almost as much gross trafficking, at

nature commonly apportions to him is at least far enough

which he seldom wants all that taking a wife offers and

He may desire, let us say, a housekeeper to protect his

dream of a beautiful and complaisant mistress, less

exigent and mercurial than any bachelor may hope to

discover — and stand aghast at admitting her to his bank-

business, or a partner in his business and not a cook.

But in order to get the precise thing or things that he

almost Armenian bargain that the woman of his "choice''

out his weaknesses with the utmost delicacy and accuracy,

disaster that is called falling in love —he is hers to do

Men usually get their mates by this process of falling in

a hundred men marry "beneath" them to every woman

inevitable, by enshrouding it in a purple maze of romance

ately in the most important adventure of her life, and with

moony and almost disembodied creature,

preposterous doctrine, the defeat and enslavement of the

flattering naughtiness. The sheer horsepower of his woo-

images of God cloak their shackles proudly, and divert

sisters. With them, falling in love thus appears in the light

of an afterthought, or, perhaps more accurately, in the

light of a contagion. The theory, it would seem, is that

the love of the man, laboriously avowed, has inspired it

instantly, and by some unintelligible magic; that it was

This theory, it must be acknowledged, has a certain ele-