than women: the German
atrocities, for instance, largely proceed from extreme excitement. But
men have but slender bonds to break, being nearly all ready to take
their pleasure where they can, while women are more fastidious. Woman
needs a more highly charged atmosphere, the whips of fear or grief, the
intoxication of glory. When these are given her, her emotions more
readily break down her reserves; and it is not remarkable that in times
of war there should be an increase in illegitimate births as well as an
increase in marriages. Woman's intellect under those pressures gives
way. A number of the marriages contracted by British soldiers about to
leave for the front are simple manifestations of hysteria.

As for caprice, it has long been regarded as woman's privilege, part of
her charm. Man was the hunter, and his prey must run. Only he is annoyed
when it runs too fast. He is ever asking woman to charm him by
elusiveness and then complaining because she eludes him. There is hardly
a man who would not to-day echo Sir Walter Scott's familiar lines,--

"O Woman! in our hours of ease
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade
By the light quivering aspen made."

It is not woman's fault. The poetry of the world is filled with the
words "to win" and "to woo"; one cannot win or woo one who does not
baffle; one can only take her, and men are not satisfied to do only
that. Man loves sincerity until he finds it; he can live neither with it
nor without it; this is true most notably in the lists of love. He is
for falsehood, for affectation, lest the prize should too easily be won.
Both sexes are equally guilty, if guilt there be.

More true is it that many women lie and curvet as a policy because they
believe thus best to manage men. They generally believe that they can
manage men. They look upon them as "poor dears." They honestly believe
that the "poor dears" cannot cook, or run houses, or trim hats, ignoring
the fact that the "poor dears" do these things better than anybody, in
kitchens, in hotels, and in hat shops. Especially they believe that they
can outwit them in the game of love. This curious idea is due to woman's
consciousness of having been sought after in the past and told that she
did not seek man but was sought by him. Centuries of thraldom and
centuries of flattery have caused her to believe this--the poor dear!

In ordinary times, when no world-movements stimulate, the chief
exaspe