sentimental nonsense to pretend that they are. But they can be splendid
companions when men help them towards the attaining of that
relationship. Often we have seemed to want of them only sentimental
dalliance, with the result that they often grant it. But many women
would rather pass men by altogether than meet them in that way,
although most really long for some relationship that will call into
exercise the mental, aesthetic, and spiritual powers of both men and
women. Indeed there is ground for this charge against both men and
women, that often in social intercourse with one another they suspend
the exercise of the finer parts of their natures. We have all known men
of great intellectual gifts and wide experience who when "the ladies"
appear promptly put on the garb of mere triflers. And we have also
known women with very real literary, or artistic, or intellectual gifts
who treat men primarily as beings to be played with. And so do many
people miss the enriching joys of companionship, and make social
intercourse petty and wearisome. I believe most women want to know
whatever is big and strong and efficient in men and not merely to find
out whether they are good at badinage. And though many men think they
are afraid of serious and clever women, they really in their hearts
want to discover the responsible and sincere qualities in the
personalities of girls and not merely the surface ones.

God forbid that we should banish chaff and jest from our common life,
or pretend to be old while still we are young! God forbid that we
should be prim and Puritan when the sun shines and life calls! There
are no sillier things in life than the mere affectations of
intellectuality. Mere solemnity is both an ugly and a futile thing, and
nothing is duller than a constant enforced earnestness. I remember a
dear old celibate professor of mine who, having met a number of
self-consciously intellectual women, became so annoyed that at last