20 A DIFFICULT SUBJECT 



may be common or rare — as rare, say, as the sense 

 of direction in civilised man; or, rarer still, the 

 " sense of polarity." A difficult subject! The attempt 

 to deal with it is like trying to grasp the wind in one's 

 hand, and perhaps my best plan is to approach it 

 in a roundabout way, with little tentative crawlings, 

 springs and dashes, like a kitten trying to capture an 

 elusive bit of thistledown on a windy polished floor. 



A man I am acquainted with, the author of many 

 books, once said to me: " All I know about the wind 

 is that it is an infernal nuisance! " 



Undoubtedly this is an extreme view for a man, 

 but it is one almost universal in women. The natural 

 man who works out of doors is not put out by the 

 wind, although he knows when it is blowing, just 

 as he knows when the sun is shining or is behind a 

 cloud, and when it is raining. It is different with 

 the man whose time is mostly spent indoors, whose 

 skin is thinner and softer, his nerves of touch more 

 sensitive. Yet even in such a one, despite the physical 

 degeneracy caused by a sheltered sedentary existence, 

 there is ever coming out a quick glad response to 

 Nature's influence, a sense of something restorative, 

 even in its rudest assaults. The man by himself or 

 with other men feels this; but no sooner does a 

 woman come on the scene than a change, a different 

 attitude, is produced in him out of sheer sympathy. 

 The wind distresses her, and he becomes infected with 

 her feeling ; and that feeling, after he has experienced 

 it a dozen or a hundred times, becomes permanently 

 associated with the wind and with the very thought 



