“I know you can!” said Féraz meaningly, with a slight smile, and then was silent.
“I wonder what the art of criticism is coming to nowadays!” exclaimed El-Râmi presently, taking up the paper again—“Here is a remark worthy of Dogberry’s profundity—‘This is a book that must be read to be understood.’[3] Why, naturally! Who can understand a book without reading it?”
Féraz laughed—then his eyes darkened.
“I saw an infamous so-called critique of one of Madame Vassilius’s books the other day”—he said—“I should like to have thrashed the man who wrote it. It was not criticism at all—it was a mere piece of scurrilous vulgarity.”
“Ah, but that sort of thing pays!” retorted El-Râmi satirically. “The modern journalist attains his extremest height of brilliancy when he throws the refuse of his inkpot at the name and fame of a woman more gifted than himself. It’s nineteenth-century chivalry you know,—above all ... it’s manly!”
Féraz shrugged his shoulders with a faint gesture of contempt.
“Then—if there is any truth in old chronicles—men are not what they were;”—he said.
“No—they are not what they were, my dear boy—because all things have changed. Women were once the real slaves and drudges of men,—now, they are very nearly their equals, or can be so if they choose. And men have to get accustomed to this—at present they are in the transition state and don’t like it. Besides, there will always be male tyrants and female drudges as long as the world lasts. Men are not what they were,—and, certes, they are not what they might be.”
“They might be gods;”—said Féraz—“but I suppose they prefer to be devils.”
“Precisely!” agreed El-Râmi—“it is easier, and more amusing.”