st be divorced absolutely from revolutionary conduct. It was to the
neglect of these obvious principles, as the doctor considered them, that
the general muddle in contemporary marital affairs was very largely due.
We left divorce-law revision to exposed adulterers and marriage reform
to hot adolescents and craving spinsters driven by the furies
within them to assertions that established nothing and to practical
demonstrations that only left everybody thoroughly uncomfortable. Far
better to leave all these matters to calm, patient men in easy chairs,
weighing typical cases impartially, ready to condone, indisposed to
envy.

In return for which restraint on the part of the eager and adventurous,
the calm patient man was prepared in his thoughts to fly high and
go far. Without giving any guarantee, of course, that he might not
ultimately return to the comfortable point of inaction from which he
started.

In Sir Richmond, Dr. Martineau found the most interesting and
encouraging confirmation of the fundamental idea of THE PSYCHOLOGY OF A
NEW AGE, the immediate need of new criteria of conduct altogether. Here
was a man whose life was evidently ruled by standards that were at once
very high and very generous. He was overworking himself to the pitch
of extreme distress and apparently he was doing this for ends that
were essentially unselfish. Manifestly there were many things that an
ordinary industrial or political magnate would do that Sir Richmond
would not dream of doing, and a number of things that such a man would
not feel called upon to do that he would regard as imperative duties.
And mixed up with so much fine intention and fine conduct was this
disreputable streak of intrigue and this extraordinary claim that such
misconduct was necessary to continued vigour of action.

"To energy of thought it is not necessary," said Dr. Martineau, and
considered for a time. "Yet--certainly--I am not a man of action. I
admit it. I make few decisions."

The chapters of THE PSYCHOLOGY OF A NEW AGE dealing with women were
still undrafted, but they had already greatly exercised the doctor's
mind. He found now that the case of Sir Richmond had stirred his
imagination. He sat with his hands apposed, his head on one side, and
an expression of great intellectual contentment on his face while these
emancipated ideas gave a sort of gala performance in his mind.

The good doctor did not dislike women, he had always guarded himself
very ca