UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



pauses at no obstacles. It sends races of men and 

 animals to seek new lands; it fills nations with the 

 desire for expansion, kindles in them the earth- 

 hunger, and is often the chief factor in devastating 

 wars. 



In man the sexual passion is stronger than all 

 others; it rules his life, it has made his history. 

 Consciously or unconsciously, he lives for his pos- 

 terity. He wages wars to plant colonies or to con- 

 quer territory from his enemies, in which his race 

 may expand and increase. His eye is ever on the 

 future; he is looking out for his children and his chil- 

 dren's children. Nine tenths of the life of woman 

 centres around the idea of making herself attractive 

 to the opposite sex. This is the meaning of aU the 

 modes and fashions — of the monstrous hats, the 

 hobble-skirts, the preposterous shoes, the paint, the 

 jewelry, the feathers, the frippery and the fm-belows, 

 the immodest exposures, the exaggerations and ac- 

 centuations, and aU the bewildering arts and devices 

 by which woman seeks to enhance her feminine 

 charms. 



The social dances, old and new, though the par- 

 ticipants maybe all unconscious of it, are as literally 

 sexual, and have as direct reference to the old com- 

 mand to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the 

 earth, as do the dances and aerial evolutions of the 

 birds and the wild fowl. Fine clothes, like fine 

 feathers, all point in the same direction. Male pride 

 72 



