Plainness is a mark of abnormality. The victim may be normal in other respects. But in this, he or she is abnormal. And more particularly _she_--since Woman is both medium and Creatrix of living harmony and grace. So is comeliness declining, however, that one of the specifications of a recent Baby-Competition was that beauty would not be a necessary qualification. Yet Beauty is the natural birthright and The Normal of all babes and children. VIII The Male cult is impressed now at the earliest age. Some of our hapless little girls, in consequence of having been subjected early to strain of masculine drill, hockey, cricket and other rough and strenuous exertions, are more like colts or smaller-sized bullocks in their crude conformation and ungainly movements, as also in their crude mentality and manners, than they are like charming human maids. Few developments in life are prettier or more engaging than is a natural little girl. The sex of her, with its fair Woman-attributes, reveals itself early in children of high organisation. Crowned by her curls, in her simple white frock, she is as fresh and dainty, as winsome and elusive as a fairy. Her little Woman-soul begins to make for beauty ere ever she can walk. Ere ever she can walk, she moves her limbs in rhythm of the dance. She tries to sing. She stretches out a tiny finger and reverently touches a bright colour--a blue ribbon, a gold button, a pink flower on a chintz. Set her in a field, she runs to cram her hands with daisies. She fills, within the House of Life, an exquisite small niche that nothing else can fill. Yet now they are cropping her fair curls, are exchanging her white frock for masculine knickers. They are training her soft limbs and exquisite elastic movements to the hard and rigid action of the soldiers' drill and march; are teaching her to stride her pony that once she sat as prettily and lightly as a bird; are making a hard, boisterous tom-boy of her, with lusty, hairy limbs and uncouth manners; perverting all her natural highly-differentiated delicate attributes and graces to clumsy lower-grade form and activities. They have robbed her of her Doll, whose helplessness and wax perfection fostered sentiments of worship, tenderness and ministry in her. They have given her a whipping-top, which--unlike the boy, who pleasures in the skill and mechanism of its handling--she lashes with contorted features and neurotic spitefulness. With characteristic scorn of physical disability, Feminism contemns old age as disease or degeneracy--a weakness to be combated with latter-day strenuousness, cloaked by a counterfeit youthfulness, forced exertions (even games!) simulated youthful zests and gaieties. Beyond all things, women are exhorted not to allow themselves to "grow old" as their grandmothers did, sitting, comely and tranquil and wise, at their quiet firesides.