ds, "what do you now
think of England?"

"Too much woman," answered the grave Orientalist, and descended to his
cabin.

The young diplomatist returned to the shore thoughtful, and later in the
day a few of us discussed the matter in a far-off, dimly-lighted corner
of the club smoking-room.

Has the pendulum swung too far the other way? Could there be truth in
our Oriental friend's terse commentary? The eternal feminine! The
Western world has been handed over to her. The stranger from Mars or
Jupiter would describe us as a hive of women, the sober-clad male being
retained apparently on condition of its doing all the hard work and
making itself generally useful. Formerly it was the man who wore the
fine clothes who went to the shows. To-day it is the woman gorgeously
clad for whom the shows are organized. The man dressed in a serviceable
and unostentatious, not to say depressing, suit of black accompanies her
for the purpose of carrying her cloak and calling her carriage. Among
the working classes life, of necessity, remains primitive; the law of the
cave is still, with slight modification, the law of the slum. But in
upper and middle-class circles the man is now the woman's servant.

I remember being present while a mother of my acquaintance was instilling
into the mind of her little son the advantages of being born a man. A
little girl cousin was about to spend a week with him. It was impressed
upon him that if she showed a liking for any of his toys, he was at once
to give them up to her.

"But why, mamma?" he demanded, evidently surprised.

"Because, my dear, you are a little man."

Should she break them, he was not to smack her head or kick her--as his
instinct might prompt him to do. He was just to say:

"Oh, it is of no consequence at all," and to look as if he meant it.

Doctor says she is not to be bothered.

She was always to choose the game--to have the biggest apple. There was
much more of a similar nature. It was all because he was a little man
and she was a little woman. At the end he looked up, puzzled:

"But don't she do anything, 'cos she's a little girl?"

It was explained to him that she didn't. By right of being born a little
girl she was exempt from all duty.

Woman nowadays is not taking any duty. She objects to housekeeping; she
calls it domestic slavery, and feels she was intended for higher things.
What higher things she does not condescend to explain. One or