d she resorts to the literary
equivalent for hysterics. If the controversialist ventures to ask some
questions about the share which women have had in bringing about the
great wars known to history, he draws on himself more and more
hysterical abuse. What a strange being is this! Her life is one long
squabble, she is the most reckless and violent of fighters, and yet
she is always crying out that Men are brutal and bloodthirsty, and
that she and her sisters would introduce the elements of peace and
goodwill to political relations. We may have a harmless laugh at the
literary shrew so long as she confines herself to haphazard
scribbling, because no one is forced to read; but it is no laughing
matter when she transfers her literary powers to some public body, and
inflicts essays on the members. Her life on a School Board may be
summarised as consisting of a battle and a screech; she has the bliss
of abusing individual Men rudely--nay, even savagely--and she knows
that chivalry prevents them from replying. But she is worst when she
rises to read an essay; then the affrighted males flee away and rest
in corners while the shrew denounces things in general. It is
terrible. Among the higher products of civilisation the literary shrew
is about the most disconcerting, and, if any man wants to know what
the most gloomy possible view of life is like, I advise him to attend
some large board-meeting during a whole afternoon while the literary
shrew gets through her series of fights and reads her inevitable
essay. He will not come away much wiser perhaps, but he will be
appreciably sadder.

And so this long procession of shrews passes before us, scolding and
gibbering and dispensing miseries. Is there no way of appealing to
reason so that they may be led to see that inflicting pain can never
bring them anything but a low degree of pleasure? No human creature
was ever made better or more useful by a shrew, for the very means by
which the acrid woman tries to secure notice or power only serves to
belittle her. Take the case of a vulgar schoolmistress who is
continually scolding. What happens in her school? She is mocked,
hated, tricked, and despised; real discipline is non-existent; the
bullied assistants go about their work without heart; and the whole
organisation--or rather disorganisation--gradually crumbles, until a
place which should be the home of order and happiness becomes an ugly
nest of anarchy. But look at one of the lovel