smoking. Smoking soothes the nerves. Women's nerves occasionally
want soothing. The tiresome idiot who argues that smoking is
unwomanly denounces the drinking of tea as unmanly. He is a wooden-
headed person who derives all his ideas from cheap fiction. The
manly man of cheap fiction smokes a pipe and drinks whisky. That is
how we know he is a man. The womanly woman--well, I always feel I
could make a better woman myself out of an old clothes shop and a
hair-dresser's block.

But, as I have said, the question does not impress me as one
demanding my particular attention. I also like the woman who does
not smoke. I have met in my time some very charming women who do not
smoke. It may be a sign of degeneracy, but I am prepared to abdicate
my position of woman's god, leaving her free to lead her own life.

[Woman's God.]

Candidly, the responsibility of feeling myself answerable for all a
woman does or does not do would weigh upon me. There are men who are
willing to take this burden upon themselves, and a large number of
women are still anxious that they should continue to bear it. I
spoke quite seriously to a young lady not long ago on the subject of
tight lacing; undoubtedly she was injuring her health. She admitted
it herself.

"I know all you can say," she wailed; "I daresay a lot of it is true.
Those awful pictures where one sees--well, all the things one does
not want to think about. If they are correct, it must be bad,
squeezing it all up together."