“Woman is a very sacred subject,” Dar Hyal enunciated solemnly.
“There is the Madonna,” Graham suggested, stepping into the breach to Paula’s aid.
“And the cérébrale,” Terrence added, winning a nod of approval from Dar Hyal.
“One at a time,” Hancock said. “Let us consider the Madonna-worship, which was a particular woman-worship in relation to the general woman-worship of all women to-day and to which Leo subscribes. Man is a lazy, loafing savage. He dislikes to be pestered. He likes tranquillity, repose. And he finds himself, ever since man began, saddled to a restless, nervous, irritable, hysterical traveling companion, and her name is woman. She has moods, tears, vanities, angers, and moral irresponsibilities. He couldn’t destroy her. He had to have her, although she was always spoiling his peace. What was he to do?”
“Trust him to find a way—the cunning rascal,” Terrence interjected.
“He made a heavenly image of her,” Hancock kept on. “He idealized her good qualities, and put her so far away that her bad qualities couldn’t get on his nerves and prevent him from smoking his quiet lazy pipe of peace and meditating upon the stars. And when the ordinary every-day woman tried to pester, he brushed her aside from his thoughts and remembered his heaven-woman, the perfect woman, the bearer of life and custodian of immortality.
“Then came the Reformation. Down went the worship of the Mother. And there was man still saddled to his repose-destroyer. What did he do then?”
“Ah, the rascal,” Terrence grinned.
“He said: ‘I will make of you a dream and an illusion.’ And he did. The Madonna was his heavenly woman, his highest conception of woman. He transferred all his idealized qualities of her to the earthly woman, to every woman, and he has fooled himself into believing in them and in her ever since... like Leo does.”
“For an unmarried man you betray an amazing intimacy with the pestiferousness of woman,” Dick commented. “Or is it all purely theoretical?” Terrence began to laugh.