for great physical, mental, or emotional activities, and that without
any of the evil results that follow from mere repression. In fact by
living an abundant life in natural, useful, and absorbing ways the
problem becomes capable of a truly happy solution.

I have written the word "happy" deliberately. But I am not sure that at
first this way out will seem happy. Useful it certainly will be, but
all said and done I fancy that some residue of regret will be apt to
remain, and that because of it women will be tempted to indulge in
self-pity. And self-pity both for men and women is the most enervating
of all emotional luxuries. Therefore, I wish to insert here a word of
grateful testimony. If the sublimation of sex instinct seems to some
women a poor and pale substitute for the normal career of marriage and
motherhood, I am at least sure that for society at large it is a very
blessed substitute. My chief experience of life has been in those
places called slums, where life is always seen in its most drab and
pitiful guise, and I can speak with certainty about this problem in
relation to them. In the districts in which I have worked there have
always been at least a few unmarried women who were spending with
lavish generosity their whole life force in practical service and
sympathy for needy children, harassed mothers, wayward men, and the
sufferers of the district in general. No members of the human race are
living anywhere with greater effect. No other women are called blessed
with greater sincerity. Half a dozen in particular I can think of who
in this way have done more for the redemption of society in such places
than a score of happily married mothers could have accomplished. I do
not know whether they feel that the sublimation of their instincts has
been a complete success, but I do know that hundreds of grateful people
have no doubt about it whatever. The whole world in its modern guise is
crying out for such services as women alone can render, and if, on the