protest. They suffer in silence, correcting as little as they dare, while
all around are appearing women's articles, which, had their authors been
men, would either have met with curt refusal or been returned for thorough
revision.

The root of the evil lies, as I think, in training. The female sex is
prone to be inaccurate and careless of apparently trivial detail, because
that is the general tendency of mankind. In men destined for a business or
a profession, the proclivity is harshly discouraged at an early stage. In
women, who usually are not destined for anything whatever, it enjoys a
merry life, and often refuses to be improved out of existence when the
sudden need arises. No one by taking thought, can deracinate the mental
habits of, say, twenty years.

But some women are as accurate and as attentive to detail as the most
impeccable man, while some men (such as have suffered in training) present
in these respects all the characteristics usually termed feminine. Which
shows that this question at any rate is not one to be airily dismissed
with that over-worked quotation: "Male and female created he them."

* * * * *

Thirdly, a lack of restraint. This, again, touches the matter of literary
style. Many women-writers, though by no means all, have been cured of the
habit of italicising, which was the outcome of a natural desire to atone
for weakness by stridency. (Every writer, of whatever sex, must carry on a
guerilla against this desire.) It is useless, however, to discipline a
vicious instinct in one direction, if one panders to it in another. Women
have given up italics; but they have set no watch against over-emphasis in
more insidious forms. And so their writing is commonly marred by an undue