No wonder, then, that the lords of the hareem suppose the ground incapable of producing anything better. Under the circumstances perhaps they are right. Hence comes their thought that a woman is a houri, a toy: nothing more. But a toy that is very liable to go wrong: perhaps they are right again under the circumstances: and so must be carefully guarded. All experience, however, teaches that there is nothing so difficult, almost so impossible to guard. This is a case in which no bars or sentinels can save the shrine from profanation, unless the goddess within herself will it. The supple and soured guardians, too, are often useless; often, indeed, the intermediate agents in the very mischief they were to guard against. And so the toy goes wrong. And then it must be ruthlessly crushed. The men have their business, their money-making, their ambition, their society, their religion. In their minds all these implant counteracting ideas. And yet all these we are told are with them sometimes feeble in comparison with the ideas that come from the blood. How, then, can we wonder that the frailer, and more susceptible minds, being absolutely deprived of all counteracting influences, should at times become the victims of their susceptibility and frailty? Nor need we be surprised that, when detected, their brothers, and fathers, and husbands should avail themselves of the permission, given both by law and custom, to wipe out their disgrace, by putting out of sight for ever the cause of it. Disgrace they feel keenly; and pity is not one of their virtues. CHAPTER XLIV. CAN ANYTHING BE DONE FOR THE EAST? Well begun is half-done. Can the oriental mind be roused into new life and activity? Can it be made more fruitful than it has proved of late, in what conduces to the well-being of communities, and of individuals? I see no reason why Egypt and Syria should not, in the future, as they did in the past, support populous, wealthy, and orderly communities, which might occupy a creditable position, even in the modern world, in respect of that moral and intellectual power, which is the distinguishing mark of man. But what might bring about this desirable result among them could only be that which has brought it about among other men.