ously militates against a man's finding
work.' How women can be held responsible for this last injustice was
wisely not stated. It would have been difficult to prove the indictment,
I think.

This document's chief claim to interest was the discussion in _The Daily
Mail_ that followed it, and the curious fact that the writer was married
a few weeks after its publication! The usual abuse on marriage in
general and women in particular followed, until the late Mrs Craigie
joined the discussion, and brought to bear on it that peculiar quality
of tender understanding, that wonderful insight into women's hearts,
which were among the most striking characteristics of her brilliant
work. It would be a pity to quote from such a letter, so I reproduce it
in full.

'Women, where their feelings are in question, are not selfish enough:
they appraise themselves not too dearly, but too cheaply: it is the
suicidal unselfishness of modern women which makes the selfishness of
modern bachelors possible. Bachelors are not all misogynists, and the
fact that a man remains unmarried is no proof that he is insensible to
the charm of woman's companionship, or that he does not have such
companionship, on irresponsible terms, to a most considerable degree.
Why should the average vain young man, egoistic by organism and
education, work hard or make sacrifices for the sake of any particular
woman, while so many are too willing to share his life without joining
it, and so many more wait eagerly on his steps to destroy any chivalry
or tenderness he may have been born with? Modern women give bachelors no
time to miss them and no opportunity to need them. Their devotion is
undisciplined and it becomes a curse rather than a blessing to its
object. Why? Because women have this strange power of concentration and
self-abnegation in their love; they cannot do enough to prove their
kindness; and when they have done all and been at no pains to secure
their own position, they realise they have erred through excess of
generosity and the desire to please. This is the unselfishness shown
towards bachelors.'

In answer to this letter, another woman novelist, Miss Florence Warden,
challenged Mrs Craigie as to the existence of such women, but elicited
no further reply. _The Daily Mail_ commented on it thus: 'Hundreds of
thousands of our readers can give an answer to this remarkable statement
out of their own experience, and we have little doubt as to what the
teno