6
There was nothing to turn to. Books were poisoned. Art. All the achievements of men were poisoned at the root. The beauty of nature was tricky femininity. The animal world was cruelty. Humanity was based on cruelty. Jests and amusements were tragic distractions from tragedy. Religion was the only hope. But even there there was no hope for women. No future life could heal the degradation of having been a woman. Religion in the world had nothing but insults for women. Christ was a man. If it was true that he was God taking on humanity—he took on male humanity ... and the people who explained him, St. Paul and the priests, the Anglicans and the non-Conformists it was the same story everywhere. Even if religion could answer science and prove it wrong there was no hope, for women. And no intelligent person can prove science wrong. Life is poisoned, for women, at the very source. Science is true and will find out more and more and things will grow more and more horrible. Space is full of dead worlds. The world is cooling and dying. Then why not stop now?
7
“Nature’s great Salic Law will never be repealed.” “Women can never reach the highest places in civilisation.” Thomas Henry Huxley. With side-whiskers. A bouncing complacent walk. Thomas Henry Huxley. (Thomas Babington Macaulay.) The same sort of walk. Eminent men. Revelling in their cleverness. “The Lord has delivered him into my hand.” He did not believe in any future for anybody. But he built his life up complacently on home and family life while saying all those things about women, lived on them and their pain, ate their food, enjoyed the comforts they made ... and wrote conceited letters to his friends about his achievements and his stomach and his feelings.