Such a condition of affairs is mischievous. It works injustice to both
parties, but more particularly to the woman, since it sets an arbitrary
limit to healthy competition, while putting a premium on mediocrity. Is
there any sexual reason why a woman should be a less accomplished
journalist than a man? I can find none. Admitted that in certain fields--
say politics--he will surpass her, are there not other fields in which she
is pre-eminent, fields of which the man will not so much as climb the
gate? And even in politics women have excelled. There are at least three
women-journalists in Europe to-day whose influence is felt in Cabinets and
places where they govern (proving that sex is not a bar to the proper
understanding of _la haute politique_); whereas the man who dares to
write on fashions does not exist.

* * * * *

That women-journalists as a body have faults, none knows better than
myself. But I deny that these faults are natural, or necessary, or
incurable, or meet to be condoned. They are due, not to sex, but to the
subtle, far-reaching effects of early training; and the general remedies,
therefore, as I shall endeavour to indicate in subsequent chapters, lie to
hand. They seem to me to be traceable either to an imperfect development
of the sense of order, or to a certain lack of self-control. I should
enumerate them thus:--

First, a failure to appreciate the importance of the maxim: Business is
business. The history of most civil undertakings comprises, not one
Trafalgar, but many; and in journalism especially the signal _Business
is business_--commercial equivalent of _England expects_--must
always be flying at the mast-head. _On ne badine pas avec l'amour_--
much less with a newspaper. Consider the effects of any lapse from the