At the base, no doubt, we shall find unchanged a solid block ...

At the base, no doubt, we shall find unchanged a solid block of what some may call convention, some instinct, and some prejudice; a dislike of disturbance, a real care for the finer qualities of women, and a genuine fear of the consequences if they are led out of their proper sphere into a world where, if they are unsuited to it, they will be wasted; if suited, they may undersell the men. But at a higher level we encounter the philosophic man, like Mill and Fawcett, who will admit no inequality of status unless some utilitarian cause can be shown: an attitude shared by many plain men who cannot see why Miss Nightingale should not have a vote, and secretly hold that even in the House of Commons a Women's party could not possibly be a greater nuisance than an Irish party.

There are the professional men, like Sean Sidgwick,' scholars and physicians, for who sex is irrelevant to the work in hand.

And there are, most effective perhaps of all, the social observers, of who Meredith is the type, to who a society with women on the secondary plane, without, therefore, the collisions from which the purifying spark of comedy flies, is a society half finished.