fferent from friendship, and to a man of normal
instincts this is an alarming proposition. It is certainly far more
exhausting than an intrigue and far less interesting than a rationally
controlled friendship with a person of the same sex. And here it
is pertinent to put forward what the author conceives to be the
fundamental trouble with the Imogenes of both sides of the Atlantic.
It is pertinent because he was, at the time of writing this book,
under the influence of a very potent and inspiring friendship for a
man now dead, a friendship which moulded his ideas and inspired him to
hammer out for himself a characteristic philosophy of life. And one of
the most important determinations of that philosophy deals with the
common errors concerning friendship and love. The mistake of the
bachelor girl and her prototypes lies in their failure to recognize
the principle of sex as universal. It is not so much that men and
women cannot meet without the problem of sex arising between them as
that no two human beings can have any interchange of thoughts at all
without involving each other in a complex of which masculine and
feminine are the opposite poles. The most fascinating of all
friendships are those in which the protagonists alternate, each one,
owing to freshly revealed depths or shallows in his character,
assuming the masculine or feminine role. The Latin recognises this by
instinct. Just as his nouns are always either masculine or feminine,
so are his ideas. And his women, who have never heard of "bachelor
girls" or "palship," have achieved with consummate skill all and more
than the Imogenes have ever imagined. Any one who has ever enjoyed the
friendship of such women will recall that subtle aroma of sex which
informs the whole affair. The coarse-grained northerner is prone to
attribute the abundant vitality, the exquisite graces of body and mind
to a deftly concealed vampirism or sensuality. Nothing is further from
the truth. If you can play up to it, if your emotions and instincts
are under the control of a traditional and finely tempered will, a
notable experience is yours. Friendship, in fact, is the divinity
whose name must not be uttered or he will vanish. She will not inform
you, as Imogene does, that you are not in love with her and she is not
in love with you and therefore a palship is under way. On the
contrary, she will never let you forget that love is a possibility
always just out of sight, where it will alwa