Meanwhile in what measure propagandism of various sorts may be a perversion of sex or a sublimation remains speculative; and in applying theory one should be thoroughly aware that from the day of Sappho and before to the day of Elizabeth Blackwell and after, even to the Russian Revolution, sex failure of one kind or another, the kind considered at the time most despicable, has commonly been imputed to persons or groups disapproved of on other grounds or reprobated. Some sublimation of sex in the United States there must be, of course, not only, in propaganda movements, but in other expressions of American culture, in American art and letters and science, in philanthropy, in politics, finance, and business. By and large, however, in all these cultural expressions does one see any conspicuous measure of sex sublimation? Is not the concern practical rather than devotional, a matter of getting rather than giving, of self-advancement or family support rather than of interest in ideas and their forms or in the values of taste or of faith? Interest in impersonal subjects in general is not an American trait. Personal concrete terms are the terms commonly used. Americans, as we say, are not given to abstract thought or philosophy. They are interested in facts as facts, not as related to other facts. How expect of Americans, therefore, that kind of curiosity about sex which leads to a philosophy of sex? Sex curiosity in American life does not lead past curiosity about isolated facts, and that means that it leads not to philosophy but to gossip and pruriency. Not long ago I was talking with a woman about a common acquaintance to whom I referred as singularly free through sophistication and circumstance to please any man she liked. “What do you mean? Have you heard any scandal about her?” snapped out my companion, not at all interested in the general reflection, but avid of information about illicit affairs.