heads hanging from his
waist. She was the advertisement of his riches. Before long woman
became happy in her golden slavery. Wisely so, perhaps, for in the end
she was able to make use of the man's fatuous love of boasting to
exact high terms for aiding him in his conspiracy of magnificence. She
studied the science of surprise, and applied it to the labour of
dressing herself in such a way as to make him slavishly regard her as
the most wonderful being on earth. If we may trust the testimony of
Mrs Edith Wharton's novels, woman has so subjugated man with this
chameleon brilliance of hers in modern America that he thinks himself
quite happy if she makes use of him as the hodman of her charms. Thus
in the spring fashions we may see the triumph of a sex rather than a
hymn of colour to the revival of Nature. It is a lamentable declension
in theory, and therefore I do not entirely believe it. I still hold to
the conviction that the gaiety of women's Easter dress is in some
manner allied to the gaiety of the earth. It is but a decrepit gaiety
compared to what it might be. But that is because of its long
association with all sorts of alien things--the necessity of the
man--hunt, the pride of the church parade, and the rest of it. When
woman meets man on equal terms she will, one hopes in one's credulous
moments, cultivate beauty more and fashion less. She will no longer be
estranged from the morning stars that sing together and the little
hills that clap their hands. Her feet will be beautiful in Bond
Street, and Regent Street shall have cause to shout for joy.

XVII

ON BLACK CATS

It is easy to imagine the enthusiasm of the audience at Manchester
when a black cat walked on to the platform at a meeting of Sir Edward
Carson's. Lord Derby, who presided, hailed it as an omen of the
success of the Ulster cause. He went on to tell the audience that the
last Unionist victory in Manchester had been presaged by the
appearance of a black cat in some polling booth or other. That, you
may be sure, was the most convincing argument in the night's
speech-making. People who will stumble over the logic of politics for
a lifetime can appreciate the logic of the black cat in a fraction of
a second. Black cats, indeed, are one of the very few things in which
a good many unbelievers nowadays believe. These are the substitute for
the angels and devils of our grandfathers. We are sceptics in
everything but our superstitions. The most