Furthermore, the instinctive effort which every woman will make, in cases of vague physiological distress, to conceal her bodily misery from her friends and relatives, frequently leads to consistent affectation. It is not necessary that the nature of the bodily misery should have reached consciousness in order that affectation, as a means of concealment, should be indulged in. It is sufficient that the physiological distress should have been communicated vaguely as _distress_ to the brain. From the moment this has occurred there will be a tendency in all brave women, who incline to show a bold and happy face to the world, to practise every kind of affectation. Their speech, their voice and even their laugh will strike their friends as over-strained or peculiar. Some will habitually make strange grimaces, others will smile in a set, exaggerated way, or over-emphasize their horror at objects disliked and their pleasure at objects approved. The affectation may even affect their gait, so that they will walk with a bold manly stride in which an unconscious attempt will be made to demonstrate to the outside world excessive self-assurance and happy adaptation, in order to conceal the reverse of these feelings which are agitating their spirits. As time goes on these affectations will become fixed habits that no training and no changes in environment can remove. There may be attempts at sterile compensation, taking the form of an excessive fondness for children, or a desire to fondle or to have power over them. This is particularly obnoxious, and entirely justifies psychologists like Dr. E. Jones in strongly deprecating the too exclusive teaching of children by unmarried teachers.[109] It may look very sweet to behold the spinster of from twenty-five to forty manifesting her affection for a child and kissing, nursing or instructing it. But when it is remembered that the spinster in question is not merely giving herself very well-defined pleasure by the immediate touch of the soft downy skin of the child, or by the sense of power over it, but may also be rousing in the child itself certain pleasurable feelings, or certain notions, that do not fail to become registered on its memory, and may induce either regrettable sexual precocity or a distorted view of life,[110] the behaviour of the spinster appears in a less innocuous light. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that such attempts at sterile compensation by unmarried women are hard to prevent; for the spinster’s action at such times is quite unconscious, and she is usually so far from realizing what she is doing, that if you were to enlighten her upon her conduct she would be both indignant and disgusted. There can be little doubt, however, that the spinster’s strong predilection in favour of the teacher’s calling is largely due to this blind pursuit of some kind of power over the young.