logist's theorizings. Those facts are supported, in the field
of animal behaviour, by the almost unanimous evidence of zoologists,
including that of Dr. Gamble herself. They are supported, in the field
of human behaviour, by a body of observation and experience so colossal
that it would be quite out of the question to dispose of it. Women, as
I have shown, have a more delicate aesthetic sense than men; in a world
wholly rid of men they would probably still array themselves with vastly
more care and thought of beauty than men would ever show in like case.
But with the world what it is, it must be obvious that their display of
finery--to say nothing of their display of epidermis--has the conscious
purpose of attracting the masculine eye. Anormal woman, indeed, never
so much as buys a pair of shoes or has her teeth plugged without
considering, in the back of her mind, the effect upon some unsuspecting
candidate for her "reluctant" affections.

19. The Actual Husband

So far as I can make out, no woman of the sort worth hearing--that is,
no woman of intelligence, humour and charm, and hence of success in
the duel of sex--has ever publicly denied this; the denial is confined
entirely to the absurd sect of female bachelors of arts and to the
generality of vain and unobservant men. The former, having failed to
attract men by the devices described, take refuge behind the sour grapes
doctrine that they have never tried, and the latter, having fallen
victims, sooth their egoism by arrogating the whole agency to
themselves, thus giving it a specious appearance of the volitional,
and even of the audacious. The average man is an almost incredible
popinjay; he can think of himself only as at the centre of situations.
All the sordid transactions of his life appear to him, and are depicted
in his accounts of them, as feats, successes, proofs of his acumen. He
regards it as an almost magical exploit to operate a stock-brokerage
shop, or to get elected to public office, or to swindle his fellow
knaves in some degrading commercial enterprise, or to profess some
nonsense or other in a college, or to write so platitudinous a book as
this one. And in the same way he views it as a great testimony to his
prowess at amour to yield up his liberty, his property and his soul
to the first woman who, in despair of finding better game, turns her
appraising eye upon him. But if you want to hear a mirthless laugh, just
present this masculi