o this is
"Socialism." But before the rest of us can swallow Socialism it must
spew out its present Socialists and get new ones. Socialists never
open their mouths that they do not do their cause harm; and whatever
virtues their doctrine may contain we are blinded to it at present.
This war may solve the problem. If Socialism should be the inevitable
outcome it would at least come from the top and so be sufferable.

V

It is all very well to do your duty by your sex and keep up the
birth-rate, and there are compensations, no doubt of that, when the
husband is amiable, the income adequate, and the children are dears
and turn out well; but the second life is one's very own, the duty is
to one's self, and, such is the ineradicable selfishness of human
nature after long years of self-denial and devotion to others, there
is a distinct, if reprehensible, satisfaction in being quite natural
and self-centered. If, on the other hand, circumstances are such that
the capable middle-aged woman, instead of living entirely for herself,
in her clubs, in her increasing interest in public affairs, and her
chosen work, finds herself with certain members of her family
dependent upon her, she also derives from this fact an enormous
satisfaction, for it enables her to prove that she can fill a man's
place in the world, be quite as equal to her job.

Instead of breaking down, this woman, who has outlived the severest
handicap of sex without parting with any of its lore, grows stronger
and more poised every year, retaining (or regaining) her looks if she
has the wisdom to keep her vanity alive; while the girl forced to
spend her days on her feet behind a counter (we hear of seats for
these girls but we never see them occupied), or slave in a factory
(where there is no change of shift as in the munition factories of
the European countries in war time), or work from morning until night
as a general servant--"one in help"--wilts and withers, grows pasee,
fanee, is liable to ultimate breakdown unless rescued by some man.

The expenditure of energy in these girls is enormous, especially if
they combine with this devitalizing work an indulgence in their
natural desire to play. Rapid child-bearing would not deplete them
more; and it is an intensely ignorant or an intensely stupid or, in
the United States, an exceptionally sensual woman who has a larger
family than the husband can keep in comfort. Moreover, unless in the
depths of poverty, e