The Eternal Feminine
Book Excerpt
"I can't figure that woman out no way in the world," admitted Mrs. Wiles. "She's as plausible as a salted claim. You never know if she's a straight proposition or if she's selling you out. You can't go back of what she says without seeming to go back on your own sex scandalous, and you can't agree with her without-- without--"
"Appearing to fix the ideal position of woman somewhere between that of an odalisk and a squaw!"
"That's the time you struck it rich!" applauded the other, while Esther added: "Mrs. Herritt has got more sex than strength of character. You might say that though the weft of her humanity is sleazy, the feminine qualities are splashed on it large, as in fresco, with a scene-painter's brush. She makes a cult of the pattern, and if we admit that the design is good, it is hard to object to the ritual of worship. That's why she's so baffling. Her conventionalism amounts to hetero