_ OF course we're out of town for the summer --
EVERYBODY'S out of town, now -- but
I motor in once or twice a week to keep in
touch with some of my committees.
Sociological work, for instance, keeps right up
the year around.
Of course, it's not so interesting in the winter.
You see more striking contrasts in the winter, don't
you think?
A couple of girl cousins of mine from Cincinnati
have been here. They're interested in welfare work
of all sorts.
"Hermione," they said, "we want to see the
bread line."
"My dears," I said, "I don't mind showing it to
you, but it's nothing much to see in summer. It's
in the winter that it arouses one's deepest sympathies."
And one must keep one's sympathies aroused.
Often I say to myself at night: "Have I been
sympathetic today, or have I FAILED?"
Mamma often lacks sympathy. She objects to
having me reopen my Salon this winter.
"Hermione," she said, "I don't mind the subjects
you take up -- or the people you take up with -- if
you only take them up one at a time. And I am
glad when your own little group meets here, be-
cause it keeps you at home. But I will NOT have
all the different kinds of freaks here at the SAME
TIME, sitting around discussing free love and sex
education."
I was indignant. "Mamma," I said, "what right
have you to say they would discuss that all the
time?"
"Because," she said, "I have noticed that no matter
whether they start with sociology or psychology,
they always get around to Sex in the end."
Isn't it funny about pure-minded people? -- in the
generation before this anything that shocked a pure-
minded person like Mamma was sure to be bad.
But now its only the evil-minded people who
ever get shocked at all, it seems.
The really PUREST of the pure-minded people don't
get shocked by anything at all these days.
I think Mamma is either getting purer-minded all
the time or is losing some of it -- I can't tell which --
for she isn't shocked as easily as she was a few
months ago.
But I got a shock myself recently.
I found out that plants have Sex, you know.
Just think of it -- carrots, onion, turnips,
potatoes, and everything!
Isn't it frightful to think that this agitation has
spread to the vegetable kingdom?
I vowed I would never eat another potato as
long as I lived!
And, after all, what GOOD does it do -- letting the
vegetable kingdom have Sex, I mean?
Even a good thing, you know, can be carried too far.
"Mamma," I told her, "you are hopelessly behind
the times. Sex is a Great Fact. Someone must
discuss it. And who but the Leaders of Thought
are worthy to?"
I intend to say nothing more about it now -- but
when the time comes I WILL reopen my Salon.
And as far as talking about Sex is concerned --
the right sort of mind will get GOOD out of it, and
the wrong sort will get HARM.
I don't really LIKE discussions of Sex any more
than Mamma does. No really nice girl does.
But we advanced thinkers owe a duty to the race.
Not that the race is grateful. Especially the
lower classes.
It was only last week that I was endeavoring to
introduce the cook to some advanced ideas -- for her
own good, you know, and because one owes a spiritual
duty to one's servants -- and she got angry and gave notice.
The servant problem is frightful. It will have to
be taken seriously. _