as hard to know how to act, and when, in dealing with
the situation, tact and judgment were required, he found it a good rule
to consult a woman about what had happened, and a man about what would
happen. Women had as a rule a finer instinct about characters and
motives, but their advice about how to act was generally too vehement
and rash; a woman could often divine the complexities of a situation
better, a man could advise one better how to proceed. But what he
could seldom follow was the intellectual processes of women; they
intermingled too much of emotion with their logic; they made birdlike,
darting movements from point to point, instead of following the track;
they tended to be partisans. They forgave nothing in those they
disliked; they condoned anything in those they loved. Hugh lived so
much himself in the intellectual region, and desired so constantly a
certain equable and direct quality in his relations with others, that
he seldom felt at ease in his relations with women, except with those
who could give him the sort of sisterly camaraderie that he desired.
Women seemed to him to have, as a rule, a curious desire for influence,
for personal power; they translated everything into personal values;
they desired to dominate situations, to have their own way in
superficial matters, to have secret understandings. They acted, he
thought, as a rule, from personal and emotional motives; and thus Hugh,
who above all things desired to live by instinct rather than by
impulse, found himself fretted and entangled in a fine network of
shadowy loyalties, exacting chivalries, subtle diplomacies, delicate
jealousies, unaccountable irritabilities, if he endeavoured to form a
friendship with a woman. A normal man took a friendship just as it
came, exacted neither attendance nor communication, welcomed
opportunities of intercourse, but did not scheme for them, was not hurt
by apparent neglect, demanded no effusiveness, and disliked sentiment.
Hugh, as he grew older, did not desire very close relationships with
people; he valued frankness above intimacy, and candour above sympathy.
He found as a rule that women gave too much sympathy, and the result
was that he felt himself encouraged to be egotistical. He used to
think that when he spoke frankly to women, they tended to express
admiration for the way he had acted or thought; and if he met that by
saying that he neither deserved or wanted praise, he received further
admirat