“The demands of feudalism do not explain a woman’s desire for sons.” “That is another question. She hopes _they_ will give her the understanding she never had from their father. In that I _am_ my mother’s son for ever. If there’s a future life, all I care for is to meet _her_. If I could have her back for ten minutes I would gladly give up the rest of my life..... Is heredity really criss-cross? Is it proved?” “Substantially.” “Oh yes. Of course. I know. To prevent civilisation going ahead too fast! I’ve seen that somewhere. Very flattering to men. But it proves there’s no separate race of men and women.” “Exactly.” “Then how have men the face to go on with their generalisations about women?” “You yourself have a generalisation about women.” “That’s different. It’s not about brains and attainments. I can’t make you see. I suppose it’s Christianity.” “What is Christianity? You think Christianity is favourable to women? On the contrary. It is the Christian countries that have produced the prostitute and the most vile estimations of women in the world. It is only in Christian countries that I find the detestable spectacle of men who will go straight from association with loose women into the society of innocent girls. That I find unthinkable...... With Jews womanhood has always been sacred. And there can be no doubt that we owe our persistence as a race largely to our laws of protection for women; _all_ women. Moreover in the older Hebrew civilisation women stood very high. You may read this. To-day there is a very significant Jewish wit which says that women make the best wives and mothers in the world.” “There you are. No Englishman would make a joke like that.” “Because he is a hypocrite.” “No. He may, as you say, think one thing and say another; but long long ago he had a jog. It _was_ Christianity. Something happened. Christ was the first man to see women as individuals.” “You speak easily of Christianity. There is no Christianity in the world. It has never been imagined, save in the brain of a Tolstoy. And he has shown that if the principles of Christianity were applied, civilisation as we know it would at once come to an end.” “There may not be much Christianity. But Christianity has made a difference. It has not given things to women that were not there before. Nothing can do that. But it has shed a light on them _which_ the best women run away from. Never imagine I am speaking of myself. I’m as much a man as a woman. That’s why I can’t help seeing things. But I’m not really interested. Not inside myself. Now look here. You prefer Englishwomen to Jewesses. I can’t bear Jewesses, not because they are not really like other women, but because they reflect the limitations of the Jewish male. They talk and think the Jewish man’s idea of them. It has nothing to do with them as individuals. But they are waiting for the light to go up.”