ure. Thinking women--and there are a few hundred thousands of
them--may emerge from this hideous reversion of Europe to barbarism
with an utter contempt for man. They may despise the men of affairs
for muddling Europe into the most terrible war in history, in the very
midst of the greatest civilization of which there is any record. They
may experience a secret but profound revulsion from the men wallowing
in blood and filth for months on end, living only to kill. The fact
that the poor men can't help it does not alter the case. The women
can't help it either. Women have grown very fastidious. The sensual
women and the quite unimaginative women will not be affected, but how
about the others? And only men of the finest grain survive a long
period of war with the artificial habits of civilization strong upon
them.

The end of this war may mark a conclusive revulsion of the present
generation of European women from men that may last until they have
passed the productive age. Instead of softening, disintegrating back
to type, they may be insensibly hardening inside a mould that will
eventually cast them forth a more definite third sex than any that
threatened before the war. Woman, blind victim of the race as she has
been for centuries, seldom in these days loves without an illusion of
the senses or of the imagination. She has ceased, in the wider avenues
of life, lined as they are with the opulent wares of twentieth century
civilization, to be merely the burden-bearing and reproductive sex.
Life has taught her the inestimable value of illusions, and the more
practical she becomes, the more she cherishes this divine gift. It is
possible that man has forfeited his power to cast a glamour over all
but the meanest types of women. If that should be the case women will
ask: Why settle down and keep house for the tiresome creatures, study
their whims, and meekly subside into the second place, or be eternally
on the alert for equal rights? As for children? Let the state suffer
for its mistakes. Why bring more children into the world to be blown
to pieces on the field of battle, or a burden to their women
throughout interminable years? No! For a generation at least the
world shall be ours, and then it may limp along with a depleted
population or go to the dogs.

Few, no doubt, will reason it out as elaborately as this or be so
consciously ruthless, but a large enough number are likely enough to
bring the light of their logic to be