But what actually happened was this: Dr. W. A. Evans opened the meeting by reading a short paper on Havelock Ellis—a paper full of pompous phrases and of real interest in its utter lack of thought. He gave some biographical data which everyone knew, told the dates of Mr. Ellis’s various publications, repeated the chapter titles of one of his less important works, and really said nothing at all. Then Mrs. Ellis read a paper which her husband had written especially for the occasion—the most uninteresting thing that wonderful man has ever written, I am sure. It had a lot of abstractions about masculinism and feminism, and really said nothing at all. (I use the word “nothing” on a basis of Ideas.) Then Mrs. Ellis read her own paper, which was beautifully written and charmingly delivered, and which said nothing at all. She said in brief that there should be no war between body and soul, and that Oscar Wilde should have been understood rather than sent to jail. These things are not ideas; they are common sense. They are all quite simply recognized by thinking people; and most of Mrs. Ellis’s audience was composed of thinking people who wanted her individual philosophy on these matters. They were not asking her for art but for thought—not for expression but for meaning. Her failure was of the sort of which prophets are never guilty. Of course, Mrs. Ellis may not wish to be considered a prophet or a philosopher. Then there should not have been so much talk of offering a completely new view of sex. She may regard herself as a poet, an interpreter. Very well; then she should have given a substantial vision of a future state when love in all its aspects is valued and understood. Mrs. Ellis cannot be blamed for the sensational stories in the paper. Her suggestion that men be admitted to the lecture because they need education in this field as much as women need it, was made simply and without any thought of sensation. Everybody knows what the press will make of such material as that. And everybody knows how an organization managed exclusively by women is likely to be twisted into silly, sentimental, or malicious issues. But Mrs. Ellis _can_ be blamed for that attitude which promises more than it has to give, and very seriously blamed for that spirit which hints that there may be cause for shame where there is no cause. There has been something altogether too suggestive of “Did my lecture shock you?” in Mrs. Ellis’s attitude. These things are not _shocking_; they are beautiful or terrible, according as they are understood or misrepresented, but so long as the truth about them is faced squarely they should carry no hint of shock. The only test of an “emerged personality” is its arrival at a point where it is not shocked by anything human beings may do or be. You may be deeply moved or terribly hurt, but you are not merely offended or embarrassed or startled. All that brings things down to such a little scale. I don’t know just why, but Mrs.