e, and ascertain if
there is any remedy for it. If it is only a literary creation, we ought
to know it. Science could tell, for instance, whether there is a
peculiarity in the nervous system, any complications in the nervous
centres, by which the telegraphic action of the will gets crossed, so
that, for example, in reply to a proposal of marriage, the intended "Yes"
gets delivered as "No." Is it true that the mental process in one sex is
intuitive, and in the other logical, with every link necessary and
visible? Is it true, as the romancers teach, that the mind in one sex
acts indirectly and in the other directly, or is this indirect process
only characteristic of exceptions in both sexes? Investigation ought to
find this out, so that we can adjust the fit occupations for both sexes
on a scientific basis. We are floundering about now in a sea of doubt. As
society becomes more complicated, women will become a greater and greater
mystery, or rather will be regarded so by themselves and be treated so by
men.

Who can tell how much this notion of mystery in the sex stands in the way
of its free advancement all along the line? Suppose the proposal were
made to women to exchange being mysterious for the ballot? Would they do
it? Or have they a sense of power in the possession of this conceded
incomprehensibility that they would not lay down for any visible insignia
of that power? And if the novelists and essayists have raised a mist
about the sex, which it willingly masquerades in, is it not time that the
scientists should determine whether the mystery exists in nature or only
in the imagination?

THE CLOTHES OF FICTION

The Drawer has never undervalued clothes. Whatever other heresies it may
have had, however it may have insisted that the more a woman learns, the
more she knows of books, the higher her education is carried in all the
knowledges, the more interesting she will be, not only for an hour, but
as a companion for life, it has never said that she is less attractive
when dressed with taste and according to the season. Love itself could
scarcely be expected to survive a winter hat worn after Easter. And the
philosophy of this is not on the surface, nor applicable to women only.
In this the highest of created things are under a law having a much wider
application. Take as an item novels, the works of fiction, which have
become an absolute necessity in the modern world, as necessary to divert
the mind loaded wi