irls, and at once acceded to their request.

CHAPTER II

WOMAN'S INFLUENCE FOR GOOD AND EVIL

A woman at the beginning--The first love-story--Different
versions--'Cherchez la femme'--The influence of woman on national
characteristics.

If we look back into the dawn of the world, we see that, from her first
appearance, woman has always been a great power. Indeed, she had the
leading part in the first great drama of which the literature of the
world gives any account. A snake and a poor weak man had the minor
parts, the snake playing the villain and the poor man the fool. I
have never read that story without feeling ashamed of the first
representative of my sex. If I had been Adam, I would have stuck to
Eve through thick and thin. To save, even only to shield, a woman
(especially one I loved, or one who would have been as kind to me as
Eve had been to Adam), I would tell lies by the yard and by the hour,
and I admire that English judge who, being told so by a male
co-respondent in a divorce case, replied, 'And so would I.'

How I prefer that story of our first parents as related in the sacred
books of the Buddhists! There, as in the version that we know, man is
tempted by woman, and, as in our version, and as he has done ever
since, and will do for ever and ever, he succumbs. But when he is found
out and sentence is to be passed on him, what a difference! He does not
turn around and say, 'Please, it was not I who tempted her; it was she
who tempted me.' No, he acknowledges his guilt, affirms that he alone
disobeyed, and that he alone should be punished. Then Eve intervenes,
and she, too, confesses her guilt. There is a regular attempt each at
shielding the other. Then both fall on their knees and beg to be
punished together, and their request is granted, and they go forth hand
in hand into exile. This is the first record of love and devotion, not,
as in our version, a first record of man's cowardice and selfishness.

From that memorable day to this, Her Royal Highness Woman has been the
greatest power for good and evil that the world has known, for ever
since Adam and Eve there have been men and women--especially women.

A beautiful woman was the cause of the Trojan War; the cause of David's
single sin, a woman; the cause of Solomon's decadence, a woman, or
rather, many women. A woman was the instigator of the greatest crime
ever recorded in history, the terrible massacre of St. Bartholomew. A