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Authors: H. G. Wells
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that the world wanted.
Given the power of determining sex that science was slowly winning
today, and why should we have so many women about? A drastic elimination
of the creatures would be quite practicable. A fantastic world to a
vulgar imagination, no doubt, but to a calmly reasonable mind by no
means fantastic. But this was where the case of Sir Richmond became
so interesting. Was it really true that the companionship of women was
necessary to these energetic creative types? Was it the fact that the
drive of life towards action, as distinguished from contemplation, arose
out of sex and needed to be refreshed by the reiteration of that motive?
It was a plausible proposition: it marched with all the doctor's ideas
of natural selection and of the conditions of a survival that have made
us what we are. It was in tune with the Freudian analyses.
"SEX NOT ONLY A RENEWAL OF LIFE IN THE SPECIES," noted the doctor's
silver pencil; "SEX MAY BE ALSO A RENEWAL OF ENERGY IN THE INDIVIDUAL."
After some musing he crossed out "sex" and wrote above it "sexual love."
"That is practically what he claims," Dr. Martineau said. "In which
case we want the completest revision of all our standards of sexual
obligation. We want a new system of restrictions and imperatives
altogether."
It was a fixed idea of the doctor's that women were quite incapable of
producing ideas in the same way that men do, but he believed that with
suitable encouragement they could be induced to respond quite generously
to such ideas. Suppose therefore we really educated the imaginations of
women; suppose we turned their indubitable capacity for service towards
social and political creativeness, not in order to make them the rivals
of men in these fields, but their moral and actual helpers. "A man of
this sort wants a mistress-mother," said the doctor. "He wants a sort of
woman who cares more for him and his work and honour than she does for
child or home or clothes or personal pride."
"But are there such women? Can there be such a woman?"
"His work needs to be very fine to deserve her help. But admitting its
fineness?...
"The alternative seems to be to teach the sexes to get along without
each other."
"A neutralized world. A separated world. How we should jostle in the
streets! But the early Christians have tried it already. The thing is
impossible."
"Very well, then, we have to make women more responsible again. In a
new capacity. We have to educate them far more seriously as sources of
energy—as guardians and helpers of men. And we have to suppress them
far more rigorously as tempters and dissipaters. Instead of mothering
babies they have to mother the race...."
A vision of women made responsible floated before his eyes.
"Is that man working better since you got hold of him? If not, why not?"
"Or again,—Jane Smith was charged with neglecting her lover to the
common danger.... The inspector said the man was in a pitiful state,
morally quite uncombed and infested with vulgar, showy ideas...."
The doctor laughed, telescoped his pencil and stood up.
Section 7
It became evident after dinner that Sir Richmond also had been thinking
over the afternoon's conversation.
He and Dr. Martineau sat in wide-armed cane chairs on the lawn with a
wickerwork table bearing coffee cups and little glasses between them. A
few other diners chatted and whispered about similar tables but not too
close to our talkers to disturb them; the dining room behind them had
cleared its tables and depressed its illumination. The moon, in its
first quarter, hung above the sunset, sank after twilight, shone
brighter and brighter among the western trees, and presently had gone,
leaving the sky to an increasing multitude of stars. The Maidenhead
river wearing its dusky blue draperies and its jewels of light had
recovered all the magic Sir Richmond had stripped from it in the
afternoon. The grave arches of the bridge, made complete circles by the
reflexion of the water, sustained, as if by
Given the power of determining sex that science was slowly winning
today, and why should we have so many women about? A drastic elimination
of the creatures would be quite practicable. A fantastic world to a
vulgar imagination, no doubt, but to a calmly reasonable mind by no
means fantastic. But this was where the case of Sir Richmond became
so interesting. Was it really true that the companionship of women was
necessary to these energetic creative types? Was it the fact that the
drive of life towards action, as distinguished from contemplation, arose
out of sex and needed to be refreshed by the reiteration of that motive?
It was a plausible proposition: it marched with all the doctor's ideas
of natural selection and of the conditions of a survival that have made
us what we are. It was in tune with the Freudian analyses.
"SEX NOT ONLY A RENEWAL OF LIFE IN THE SPECIES," noted the doctor's
silver pencil; "SEX MAY BE ALSO A RENEWAL OF ENERGY IN THE INDIVIDUAL."
After some musing he crossed out "sex" and wrote above it "sexual love."
"That is practically what he claims," Dr. Martineau said. "In which
case we want the completest revision of all our standards of sexual
obligation. We want a new system of restrictions and imperatives
altogether."
It was a fixed idea of the doctor's that women were quite incapable of
producing ideas in the same way that men do, but he believed that with
suitable encouragement they could be induced to respond quite generously
to such ideas. Suppose therefore we really educated the imaginations of
women; suppose we turned their indubitable capacity for service towards
social and political creativeness, not in order to make them the rivals
of men in these fields, but their moral and actual helpers. "A man of
this sort wants a mistress-mother," said the doctor. "He wants a sort of
woman who cares more for him and his work and honour than she does for
child or home or clothes or personal pride."
"But are there such women? Can there be such a woman?"
"His work needs to be very fine to deserve her help. But admitting its
fineness?...
"The alternative seems to be to teach the sexes to get along without
each other."
"A neutralized world. A separated world. How we should jostle in the
streets! But the early Christians have tried it already. The thing is
impossible."
"Very well, then, we have to make women more responsible again. In a
new capacity. We have to educate them far more seriously as sources of
energy—as guardians and helpers of men. And we have to suppress them
far more rigorously as tempters and dissipaters. Instead of mothering
babies they have to mother the race...."
A vision of women made responsible floated before his eyes.
"Is that man working better since you got hold of him? If not, why not?"
"Or again,—Jane Smith was charged with neglecting her lover to the
common danger.... The inspector said the man was in a pitiful state,
morally quite uncombed and infested with vulgar, showy ideas...."
The doctor laughed, telescoped his pencil and stood up.
Section 7
It became evident after dinner that Sir Richmond also had been thinking
over the afternoon's conversation.
He and Dr. Martineau sat in wide-armed cane chairs on the lawn with a
wickerwork table bearing coffee cups and little glasses between them. A
few other diners chatted and whispered about similar tables but not too
close to our talkers to disturb them; the dining room behind them had
cleared its tables and depressed its illumination. The moon, in its
first quarter, hung above the sunset, sank after twilight, shone
brighter and brighter among the western trees, and presently had gone,
leaving the sky to an increasing multitude of stars. The Maidenhead
river wearing its dusky blue draperies and its jewels of light had
recovered all the magic Sir Richmond had stripped from it in the
afternoon. The grave arches of the bridge, made complete circles by the
reflexion of the water, sustained, as if by
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