gher culture is
almost entirely a growth of the classes which (unlike the journalistic
class to which I belong) have always a reasonable amount of money. One
odd thing I specially notice. Those who write like this seem entirely to
forget the existence of the working and wage-earning classes. They say
eternally, like my correspondent, that the ordinary woman is always a
drudge. And what, in the name of the Nine Gods, is the ordinary man?
These people seem to think that the ordinary man is a Cabinet Minister.
They are always talking about man going forth to wield power, to carve
his own way, to stamp his individuality on the world, to command and to
be obeyed. This may be true of a certain class. Dukes, perhaps, are not
drudges; but, then, neither are Duchesses. The Ladies and Gentlemen of
the Smart Set are quite free for the higher culture, which consists
chiefly of motoring and Bridge. But the ordinary man who typifies and
constitutes the millions that make up our civilisation is no more free
for the higher culture than his wife is.

Indeed, he is not so free. Of the two sexes the woman is in the more
powerful position. For the average woman is at the head of something
with which she can do as she likes; the average man has to obey orders
and do nothing else. He has to put one dull brick on another dull brick,
and do nothing else; he has to add one dull figure to another dull
figure, and do nothing else. The woman's world is a small one, perhaps,
but she can alter it. The woman can tell the tradesman with whom she
deals some realistic things about himself. The clerk who does this to
the manager generally gets the sack, or shall we say (to avoid the
vulgarism), finds himself free for higher culture. Above all, as I said
in my previous article, the woman does work which is in some small
degree creative and individual. She can put the flowers or the furniture
in fancy arrangements of her own. I fear the bricklayer cannot put the
bricks in fancy arrangements of his own, without disaster to himself and
others. If the woman is only putting a patch into a carpet, she can
choose the thing with regard to colour. I fear it would not do for the
office boy dispatching a parcel to choose his stamps with a view to
colour; to prefer the tender mauve of the sixpenny to the crude scarlet
of the penny stamp. A woman cooking may not always cook artistically;
still she can cook artistically. She can introduce a personal and
imperceptible a