AUGUST 427 



One of the ideas I find most common in women, and 

 not only young ones, is that in starting a Platonic affec- 

 tion with a man, sometimes at a certain sacrifice to 

 themselves, they believe they do it for his sake, and that 

 they are raising his moral nature. I am very doubtful 

 whether the influence that comes through that kind of 

 love between men and women, which in these days is 

 called 'friendship,' ever works very much for good, as 

 the influence savours of that old-fashioned education I 

 have already condemned, which tries to make persons 

 what we wish them to be, in contradistinction to making 

 them understand that their only possible growth or 

 improvement must come through their own self -develop- 

 ment. Self-deception comes in when the woman per- 

 suades herself that she is helping the man to do that 

 which he could not do alone. This means that at best 

 she is only a temporary prop, which never yet strength- 

 ened anybody. The man who sees the position, and 

 wishes to continue the 'friendship,' always uses the 

 argument ^that the matter rests with the woman, but 

 that if she gives him up things will be worse with him 

 than they ever were before. In a publication I have 

 already mentioned, called 'The London Year-Book,' 

 there is a long poem on social life with the title ' Flagel- 

 lum Stultorum'(The Flogging of Fools). In it I find a 

 passage which once more lays bare the absurdity and 

 false sentiment of such a position : 



. . . Woman's saddest mental dower 

 Is not to know the limits of her power. 

 And thus 'tis chief of woman's wild intents 

 To know men's motives and their sentiments. 

 Believe me, gentle sex, there's not a man, 

 However mean his intellectual scan, 

 But comprehends us hetter far than do 

 The wisest, keenest, cleverest of you. 

 The street-boy understands, upon my life, 

 The Lord High Chanc'Uor, better than his wife. 



