“I agreed that the thought of stealing is so abhorrent to me that I could not imagine any temptation strong enough to make me a thief. I might have some reserves about killing, however, in fact I have once or twice felt a sympathy for ... well, no!
“'All right,' he went on. 'Now, if women were on the level in guarding their virtue and always had been, just as they are on the level in regard to stealing, don't you see that it would be utterly impossible for any man under any circumstances (barring violence which does not happen once in ten thousand times) to have his way with a woman? This habit of virtue would be so deeply ground into you women, into the very depth of your being, that nothing could overcome it. But as we look about us and observe women in all classes of society, we see that there is no such condition, no such habit, which proves that women are not and never have been on the level. What do you say to that, speaking as a pretty woman?'
“I did not say anything, I was so indignant—speechless—at his impertinence, and while I was searching for some answer to this outrageous statement, my poet friend proceeded:
“'You know how strong habits are, Penelope, all habits. Take smoking, or drinking cocktails, or even coffee. I swore off coffee six weeks ago. During the first week I was nearly crazy for it—had headaches, felt rotten, but I stuck it out. In the second week it was much easier for me not to take coffee. At the end of a month the habit was established and now I have no more craving for coffee. If I leave it alone for six months the chances are that nothing will ever make me drink coffee again, especially if I hypnotize myself with the idea that coffee is bad for my heart action, that I'm a nice little hero to have cut it out and that now I am going to live to be over ninety. You see?
“'Now then, the drift of all this is that the habit of virtue in women if it really was an on-the-level habit that they believed in with all their souls and would fight for with all their strength, would be utterly and absolutely unbreakable—no man could overcome it. The only reason why men in all times and in all lands have overcome women's virtue is because women themselves have never attached the importance to it that they pretend to attach. That isn't a very gallant speech, but it is true.'”
As I said, I became angry at Kendall's accusations and refused to continue the discussion, but if I were to answer the poet now, after my wider experience of life, especially after my sufferings, I should feel obliged to acknowledge that he struck a hard blow at feminine complacency. The trouble with women is that there is an increasing tendency among them, especially among those who live in cities full of pleasures and excitements, to compromise with evil, to go as near the danger line as possible, so long as they do not cross it. And this cowardly, dallying virtue is almost no virtue at all. There was a time when women prayed sincerely: “Lead us not into temptation”; now it seems as if they pray to be led into temptation, with just this reservation: that they may come out of it unscathed. Demi-vierges!
I have watched many attractive women treading the primrose path and I have seen that it always leads them to unhappiness. Not that they are disgraced or openly degraded—life goes on with many of them very much as before, but gradually their faces change, their souls change. They could have done so much better; they could have been useful, respected and self-respecting figures in the world through loving service. After all, life is very short and the only things that really matter are the things that happen in our own souls. No one can fail in life who does not fail inside, and no one can succeed in life who only succeeds outside. I learned that from Dr. Leroy.
IS PLATONIC FRIENDSHIP POSSIBLE TO AN ATTRACTIVE WOMAN?
In telling the truth about my life and my innermost feelings I must quote passages from my diary that were written in a light and often flippant spirit, that being my mood at the time; but the lesson is there just the same and in many instances tears follow close behind the laughter. Furthermore, I thank God that my regeneration has not taken away my sense of humor. One of the great troubles with neurasthenic women is that they do not laugh enough.
I wrote the following about a year after my husband's death: