work and into the effort to conceal their underpayment by “respectable” clothing, or else lose their positions. In everything else they must economise to the utmost and perhaps in addition be laughed at because of their economy. They succeed, often admirably, in maintaining themselves in proud fair struggle, in rejecting “erotic” perquisites to add to their income and in fulfilling conscientiously the requirements of their work. Yet to do this with lively interest, with preserved spiritual elasticity, with quiet amiability—for this their strength does not suffice, exhausted by insufficient nourishment, insufficient sleep, still more insufficient recreation, and strained daily to the utmost. Their nervousness finds vent in either hard or hysterical expression and the public, annoyed by their ill-humour, divines little of the tragedies enacted in offices, business houses, cafés or similar places. If a suicide concludes the tragedy, the public shudders for a moment and—all goes on as before. Thus “emancipation” presents itself in reality for millions of women. To what extent the middle-class woman movement is indirectly to blame for this fact has already been emphasised. The essential reason is however the prevailing economic condition of society. By the uninterrupted fever of competition and the accumulation of riches, it dries up the soul and robs it of goodness as well as of joy. When the great, beautiful, eternal sources of joy are exhausted, the life stimulus is sought in exclusively physical pleasures, which are always made more exciting in order to be able to arouse still, in the languid nervous system, feelings of desire. Moreover, there is the neurosis and weariness of life of the overworked, of those continually quaking about their material safety, of those who _could_ be revived by the noble and simple joys of life, to which those jaded with riches are already not susceptible; but for all these millions and millions such joys are not accessible because hunger for profit depresses wages. If in addition to that we take into account the increasing suffering of the best because of the ever developing feeling of solidarity; and if finally we consider that women, who through the protection of the home could preserve something of warmth-irradiating energy, are now in increasing numbers driven out of the home, then we have some of the reasons which—in higher degree than the religious and philosophic reasons which _also_ exist—contribute to the joylessness of our time. * * * * *