The enthusiast in unprofitable causes, with no sense of proportion in her composition, is rather the victim of circumstance than a deliberate sinner. The remedy for her is simply a matter of providing a more fitting channel for her energy and her superfluous emotion. This is difficulty which we have still to face, for the country which, having a large surplus of women over men, gives the former nothing, or not enough to do, is asking for trouble and encouraging the development of its girls into “wild, wild women” in a different sense to that of the song. If it could only be secured that no young Englishwoman entered adult life without a solid interest or a definite direction for her unexpended energy we should neither see the crazy excesses of the suffragettes nor the abysmal apathy which settles on the young in too many suburban drawing rooms, country towns and seaside apartments. The Englishwoman shines far more in activity than in repose: she is most herself with a flush in her cheek and motion in her limbs, and she can never successfully imitate the becoming languour appropriate to the women of sunnier climates. She will move more, I fancy, in the future with less hesitation and a surer sense of direction. The English girl, as a rule, marries for love. French people say that this is an inadequate reason for marriage, but I doubt if the results in this country are any worse than those of the arranged marriage in France. As a nation we seem to be suited by a certain youthful irresponsibility in this, as in other matters. Also there is the fact that young English folk are not very desperate lovers. They like to believe that they are, of course, and the authors of sentimental fiction encourage the belief, but they take care to combine a good dose of practical sense with their passion. Mistakes occur, it cannot be denied, but they are due rather to flightiness and self-indulgence than to the mad lash of real passion. Juliet may have been a typical English maiden of Shakespeare’s day, but she is not so now, or it would not need an Englishwoman of fifty to play the part properly; and it would be ridiculous to imagine one of our nation assuming in real life the rôle of Carmen or of a D’Annunzianesque heroine, alternately blazing and languishing in a vapour of eloquence. Rosalind is far more the true English type: she takes some interest in the physical as well as the emotional development of her lover.