when asked whether he did not rejoice in the higher education of women
he broke out with the sentence, "No! I don't like clever women--I like
silly girls." The story may be apocryphal. The man at least was human
enough to have said it. All that I am pleading for is that men and
women should cease to hide from one another the deeper interests and
concerns that really are present in their lives--that they should not
merely play together but should also think together.

As to the detailed manners and customs which should control comradeship
I claim no authority to speak dogmatically, and, as I have said, I am
sure the rising generation will have to settle these things for itself.
I am at least sure that both the stately coldness of Lady Vere de Vere
and the familiarity in which dignity is forgotten are fatal. I confess
to the hope that the linking of arms and the slapping of one another on
the shoulder are not going to be characteristics of social intercourse
in the future. And as to kissing I confess myself unblushingly
conservative--Victorian if you will. Nine times out of ten it may not
be a thing worth making any fuss about. But it is a mistake. Partly, to
put it bluntly, because kissing sometimes arouses desires which kissing
cannot satisfy; and partly because it is, I believe, a fine instinct
which suggests to both men and women that they should keep their kisses
for the one person who will or may some day have love's right to them.

And here I think I ought to put down for the sake of girls a fact of
which they are often ignorant. When you allow men to embrace and kiss
you--even when you allow them lesser familiarities--you may go your way
thinking no more about it and undisturbed. The whole thing may not
really have stirred you. But with men it is not so. Often by such
things tumults are raised in them whereby the way of self-control and
chastity is made cruelly difficult. Only some of you do it, and you