Now it is true that Schoolcraft is a very unreliable witness in such matters, as we shall see in the chapter on Indians. He had a way of taking coarse Indian tales, dressing them up in a fine romantic garb and presenting them as the aboriginal article. An Indian girl would not be likely to compare a man's hair to a blackbird's feathers, and she certainly would never dream of speaking of a "tall and graceful pine waving on the hill." She might, however, compare his swiftness to a deer's, and she might admire his sharp sight, his fearlessness, his strong arm in a fight; and that is enough to illustrate what I have just said--that her preference, though utilitarian, is less sensual than the man's. It includes mental elements, and as moreover her duties as mother teach her sympathy and devotion, it is not to be wondered at that the earliest approximations to a higher type of love are on the part of women. SEX IN BODY AND MIND As civilization progresses, the sexes become more and more differentiated, thus affording individual preference an infinitely greater scope. The stamp of sex is no longer confined to the pelvis and the chest, but is impressed on every part of the body. The women's feet become smaller and more daintily shaped than the men's, the limbs more rounded and tapering and less muscular, the waist narrower, the neck longer, the skin smoother, softer, and less hairy, the hands more comely, with more slender fingers, the skeleton more delicate, the stature lower, the steps shorter, the gait more graceful, the features more delicately cut, the eyes more beautiful, the hair more luxuriant and lustrous, the cheeks rounder and more susceptible to blushes, the lips more daintily curved, the smile sweeter. But the mind has sex as well as the body. It is still in process of evolution, and too many individuals still approximate the type of the virago or the effeminate man; but the time will come for all, as it has already come for many, when a masculine trait in a woman's character will make as disagreeable an impression as a blacksmith's sinewy arm on the body of a society belle would make in a ball-room. To call a woman pretty and sweet is to compliment her; to call a man pretty and sweet would be to mock or insult him. The ancient Greeks betrayed their barbarism in amorous matters in no way more conspicuously than by their fondness for coy, effeminate boys, and their admiration of masculine goddesses like Diana and Minerva. Contrast this with the modern ideal of femininity, as summed up by Shakspere: Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth, Unapt to toil and trouble in the world, But that our soft conditions and our hearts Should well agree with our external parts? TRUE FEMININITY AND ITS FEMALE ENEMIES