this generosity, was the strong mortar that clamped the American people together with a grip firmer even than the Roman mortar which was stronger than the stone itself.
America suffers from an exaggerated and almost insane individualism, yet there is slowly growing up an ideal of mutual help that may yet redeem all the races of men.
The slow rate of human progress is what distresses one. It has taken a thousand years for us to get rid of Hell and devils and to distrust prisons and punishments, but now that we believe in sympathy and affection, our progress will be more rapid. It is money now that separates us one from another: greed must be conquered, and case-hardened selfishness, too, by a new sense, a truly Christian sense, of mutual loving-kindness; and so we shall get rid of war and its insane stupidity and cruelty. My quarrel with President Wilson was that he might have done this easily, but any American president could do it in a single term, and win for himself and his land an immortality of renown.
This new ideal was born in the wonderful nineteenth century, the century that has enlarged and enriched life in so many ways.
In 1870, one-third of the globe was unexplored, unknown; as soon as the dark continent was charted and the poles discovered, man took the depths of the sea for his park and the limitless fields of the air for his playground. The XRays, too, and wireless telegraphy have multiplied our spiritual possessions and added, so to speak, the imaginative touch to our new powers. Railways were first used in the late thirties and then in the nineties motor cars to make travel easy and delightful. Instead of having only theatres to amuse us, we have astounding cinema shows as well and can sit in our rooms and listen to the greatest singers in the last half century, or hear the greatest modern actors; statesmen, too, long dead, will make their best speeches for us as if still alive.
And in spite of all our petty squabbles and cowardly selfishness, the pace quickens from year to year; in spite of the World War and poison gasses and infamous blockades that ruined women and children, we have made more progress in science in the last ten years than in any previous decade. We have just begun to understand the infinite power of the atom and are now studying to harness it to our needs. And soon the forces of nature will be enslaved and free us all from the curse of working to supply bodily wants, and so we can turn the whole world into an enchanted place, for we begin to see that everything is possible and wonders indescribable will yet be realized by the awakened spirit of man.
This is my faith, the faith that guides me and directs, and I hope that those who read me may be inspired by it. I believe unshakeably in the holy spirit of man; in his infinite perfectibility; in the divine impulse in him to grow, not only in knowledge, or even ml wisdom, but in goodness, in consideration for others, in loving-kindness and gentle pity, and all the sweet offices of love.
Paul preached Faith, Hope, and Love, but he had no faith such as we have, no hope so well-founded as ours. Think of what we have done in the last hundred years, and forecast, if you will, the transcendent future. Tennyson's words recur to me:
For I looked into the future far as human eye could see, Saw the wonders of the world and all the rapture that would be.
CHAPTER XIII
Like Heine, I have always been puzzled by the sex restraints and prohibitions in men and women, and annoyed by their prudery in confessing their practices and desires. As I have told elsewhere in this volume, I studied medicine in Vienna when I was only twenty-three and devoted especial attention to all sex questions; and some friends now request me to tell what I know of these matters, for they interest everyone.
I was in doubt whether or not to do this when I received an anonymous letter from a girl in America, who, plainly to me, is telling the story of her own experiences, and very sad they are. If the girl had had a little more knowledge, she might have escaped the worst of her suffering, and so I place what little knowledge I have gained at the disposal of men and women who may need and desire it. She begins:
This is the woman's side of your volume two (the writer not having seen volume one). Not that this is meant to be a sermon-nor that 'the writer' doesn't believe in frankness and in truth; (on the contrary, 'the writer' has suffered much because others objected to truth instead of dissimulation).
A young girl born in a Roman Catholic community, where the Blessed Virgin Mary is a great patron, where virginity is considered a priceless jewel.
The girl with a bright mind, anxious to learn, easily surpassing classmates, liking to 'think'-beginning to think about Catholic dogmas, until that culminated long afterwards in leaving the Church. Born poor, the girl had enough to do to work in order to be able to study, to go to a 'select' (it happened) preparatory school, business school, Roman Catholic College, then a larger, leading women's college. Never had an opportunity to meet boys as social equals. Consequently had an idealized version of mankind in her mind. A good-looking girl, not of the 'pretty' type, she did attract men, and it was a new land of not-known possibilities to her. However, she never met 'eligible' people, nor naturally was she very 'eligible' to 'worthwhile' people, having no background but herself, no money but what she earned, etc.
Full of energy, enthusiasm, zeal for service, etc., after college, (during the senior year, met an impecunious, brilliant young man, who loved her ardently, brilliantly, youthfully, and exploringly, with much interchange of brilliant correspondence, exploring ideas, etc.-he was an irresponsible intellectual hero — the girl wanted strength and daring in every way in a man-a break, and the boy died of the flu).
Another plunge into an unknown group: uneducated, very young girl-nurses thrown into a knowledge of sex and bestiality. Our girl read up on surgery, watched operations, etc., got to know the 'wise and kindly' older housephysician, a good surgeon, kindly and sometimes untiring. And this older house-physician had your view of sex, Frank Harris; and every virgin was an attraction to him, and no harm was ever done a girl (in his estimation) unless she were made pregnant, and of course he never did that. He was a pleasant kindly man, and new minds, with to-her-new experiences always interested 'our girl.' He gave lectures on anatomy to the half-fledged nurses with no education, which gave him a delightful opportunity to instill veiledly and very sinuously the idea that the sex organs must be used or they atrophy. He knew so much of what a virgin did not know, that when he showed strong emotion at the girl's telling him she was leaving the next day or so, he did persuade her to let him 'have' her, after he had soothed her conscience by asking her to marry him; she with her zeal for service, thought of getting him to be a missionary, or such, with her. So the next night they registered as Mr. and Mrs.- in a small New York hotel he knew.
It was an anatomical experiment to her with a dear friend. When he wanted her to play with his 'sex', she loved and fondled his dear head instead. It was a new knowledge to her that when she stroked his nude back, his 'sex' throbbed with each stroke as he asked her to hold it. And he-afterwards- having kissed her with seeming reverence, deeply, lovingly on the mouth as she lay there, in the morning, insisted on putting a ten dollar note in her dress, when she said, surprisedly, 'Why, darling, why don't you get me some dear little remembrance if you must.' He had explained to her as a friend that servant girls 'pick up' ten dollars or so a night from a pick-up on the street, and it helps out their income! And the unsuspecting 'kid' (and she was over twenty-one) never dreamed he was a very loose liver.
That ended it for the man, or any man-n'est-ce pas? Not so with any woman, or this woman. As you know, sex in woman is very close to deep friendship and tenderness, and not a passing thing. They wrote. His idea was to have her spend week-ends with him as often as possible. With the education she had had-just that, with no idea of further responsibility-a life in common, interchange of ideal, and so on, was very cheapening. When a friend at the hospital (the only one not of the 'cheap' gang of loose-nurses) wrote her that the Doctor had said in a class the reason he had not married was that he could not be faithful to any one woman-the girl wrote a letter to end the thing. And the Doctor did not come back!
Just before that, the girl had her first experience in 'loving up.' 'Loving up' was a term new to her used by the hospital nurses. The friend, abovementioned, had asked her to join her in a party, three men and three girls, to take a ride in a big limousine. One man had the car, the other two were brothers, one of the girls was an ex-patient of hers. She dressed up 'our girl' in some attractive clothes of her sister's, and rouged her, and 'our girl' seemed to
