ity men because it made such a lot of
money--Ethnology, Hygiene, Geography, Economic Botany, Regional
Zoology, Germ Diseases, Agriculture, etc., etc.; _and_ the absolute
necessity of giving Woman the same electoral privileges as Man. He
was always well inclined that way, but after he realized that David
was Vivie he became almost an embittered Suffragist.
The Speaker took care that he had little scope for his Anthropology,
Economic Botany, Chemistry, Hygiene, etc., on Votes of Supply: but
he got in some nasty blows in the Woman's cause, and in fact was so
strangely rancorous that Ministers looked at him evilly and arranged
that he was not placed on the committee of the Conciliation Bill;
that amusing farce with which the Liberal Ministry sought in 1910 to
stave off the Suffrage dilemma.
Rossiter and Vivie seldom met except at public receptions. Every now
and again he came to Suffrage meetings when she was going to speak;
and how well she spoke then! How real it all seemed to her! How
handsome she looked (even at 36) and how near she was to tears and a
breakdown; while his eyes burned; and when he got home poor little
Linda was in despair over her poor distraught Michael, who could
find no happiness or contentment in Ten Thousand a year, great fame
as the chief inventor of the Ductless Glands, and the man who had
issued a taxonomic classification of the _Bovidae_ which even
satisfied _me_.
What a cruel force is Love! Or is the cruelty in human disciplinary
laws? Here were two persons eminently suited to be mates, calculated
while still in the prime of life to procreate offspring that would
be a credit to the nation, who asked for nothing more in life than
to lie in each other's arms--after which no doubt they would have
arisen and performed the most wonderful feats in inductive science
or in embroidery or mathematics. And they were inwardly raging,
losing their appetites, sleeping very badly yet eschewing drugs,
pursuing will-of-the-wisps in politics, wasting the best years of
their lives ... from a sense of duty, that sense of duty which has
made the Nordic White man the dominant race on the earth. "We suffer
individually but we gain collectively," Rossiter said to himself.
In May, 1910, King Edward died, and all these gladiators, male and
female, willingly declared a Truce in the Suffrage battle, to obtain
a much needed rest in the weary conflict. As soon as political
activities were resumed, the Conciliation
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