Page:The world set free.djvu/302

 "In America," said Edwards,"'men are fighting duels over the praises of women and holding tournaments before Queens of Beauty."

"I saw a beautiful girl in Lahore," said Kahn, "she sat under a golden canopy like a goddess, and three fine men, armed and dressed like the ancient paintings, sat on steps below her to show their devotion. And they wanted only her permission to fight for her."

"That is the men's doing," said Edith Haydon.

"I said," cried Edwards, "that man's imagination was more specialised for sex than the whole being of woman. What woman would do a thing like that? Women do but submit to it or take advantage of it."

"There is no evil between men and women that is not a common evil," said Karenin. "It is you poets, Kahn, with your love songs which turn the sweet fellowship of comrades into this woman-centred excitement. But there is something in women, in many women, which responds to these provocations; they succumb to a peculiarly self-cultivating egotism. They become the subjects of their own artistry. They develop and elaborate themselves as scarcely any man would ever do. They look for golden canopies. And even when they seem to react against that, they may do it