explain, _in response to her own request_, the case that Germany makes
for having declared war. She asks one or two questions, and then
suddenly interrupts me to ask what I have been doing with myself lately
in the evenings.

This is a case of interest in the particular as opposed to the general.
It is an instance of what I want to show,--that woman drifts toward the
particular because she has been driven away from the general. To
concentrate too long upon the general is to her merely fatiguing.
Doubtless because of this, many middle-aged women become exceedingly
dull to men. So long as they are young all is well, for few men care
what folly issues from rosy lips. But once the lips are no longer rosy,
then man fails to find the companion he needs, because companionship, as
differentiated from love, can rest only on mental sympathy. Middle-aged
man is often dull too; while the middle-aged woman may concern herself
overmuch with the indigestion of her pet dog, the middle-aged man is
often unduly moved by his own indigestion. But, broadly speaking, a
greater percentage of middle-aged and elderly men than of such women
are interested in political and philosophical questions.

These men are often dull for another reason: they are more conventional.
The reader may differ from me, but I believe that woman is much less
conventional than man. She does all the conventional things and attacks
other women savagely for breaches of convention. But you will generally
find that where a man may with impunity break a convention he will not
do so, while, if secrecy is guaranteed, a woman will please herself
first and repent only if necessary. It follows that a man is
conventional because he respects convention; woman conventional because
she is afraid of what may happen if she does not obey convention. I
submit that this shows a greater degree of conventionality in man. The
typical Englishman of the world, wrecked on a desert island, would get
into his evening clothes as long as his shirts lasted; I do not think
his wife, alone in such circumstances, would wear a low-cut dress to
take her meal of cocoanuts, even if her frock did up in front.

It is this unconventionality that precipitates woman into the so-called
new movements in art or philosophy. She reacts against what is, seeking
a new freedom; even if she is only seeking a new excitement, a new
color, a new god, unconsciously she seeks a more liberal atmosphere,
while man is near