Women have learned the lesson of the cat too thoroughly to jump
immediately from the back-yard of Deception to the front porch of
Truth.

In this one respect at least, however much she may indulge her desire
for frankness in other directions, a woman will lie valiantly,
self-protectingly, and continually, even though she follow in secret
the example of the cat, which (seeing its master come home from the
hunt with a string of birds, and displaying, with much pride and
satisfaction, the results of his prowess), conceived the idea that it
would also be a fine thing for her to go forth and kill the canary.
But to tabby's surprise, her ability was rewarded with chastisement;
whereupon she pondered the question over and over: "How can it be,
that what is virtue in man is vice in a cat?"

We are not told in the story what conclusion she arrived at, but we
can imagine that her conclusion was that which women have arrived at,
in a similar situation, to wit: man is unjust and unreasonable, but he
is also stronger than I am, and therefore, while I shall follow his
example, I shall take good care to hide the feathers.

In the meantime, we are crossing the bridge that leads from the
jungles of our animal nature, where prowl the beasts of deceit; greed;
selfishness; sensuality; vanity; avarice; and domination; to the
Heights, illumined by Love set free.

Let us not jostle and crowd each other too harshly, while we are en
route.

But, of course, we are confronted with the pertinent query as to what,
if any, absolute standard of morality there can be in matters of the
sex relation. Freedom is so easily misconstrued into implying
sex-promiscuity; and monogamy, the final survival of the various
systems of marriage, has in its modern as well as in its ancient
aspect so much of coercion; and coercion is cited as the insuperable
obstacle to attainment of the supreme state of spiritual sex-union,
that the would-be initiate becomes confused, and is lost in a maze of
paradoxes.

Moral distinctions are too fine for the undeveloped man-animal, and
that is the reason why man-made laws have been necessary. The
objection to them is not in their original intention, but in their
failure to die after they have become senile.

Moral standards are as unstable as the shifting sands of the sea.

"Our moral sentiments," say Letourneau, "are simply habits incarnate
in our brain, or instincts artificially created; and thus an act
reputed culp