the least effect.  It seemed as permanent as the Pyramids.  At every male attack it expanded, and became more aggressive and took up more room.  Women have such an exquisite sense of things—­just as they have now in regard to big obstructive hats in the theatres.  They know that most of the plays are inferior and some of them are immoral, and they attend the theatres with head-dresses that will prevent as many people as possible from seeing the stage and being corrupted by anything that takes place on it.  They object to the men seeing some of the women who are now on the stage.  It happened, as to the private Bastiles, that the women at last recognized a change in the sociological and political atmosphere of the world, and without consulting any men of affairs or caring for their opinion, down went the Bastiles.  When women attacked them, in obedience to their political instincts, they collapsed like punctured balloons.  Natural woman was measurably (that is, a capacity of being measured) restored to the world.  And we all remember the great political revolutionary movements of 1848.

Now France is still the arbiter of the modes.  Say what we may about Berlin, copy their fashion plates as we will, or about London, or New York, or Tokio, it is indisputable that the woman in any company who has on a Paris gown—­the expression is odious, but there is no other that in these days would be comprehended—­“takes the cake.”  It is not that the women care for this as a mere matter of apparel.  But they are sensitive to the political atmosphere, to the philosophical significance that it has to great impending changes.  We are approaching the centenary of the fall of the Bastile.  The French have no Bastile to lay low, nor, indeed, any Tuileries to burn up; but perhaps they might get a good way ahead by demolishing Notre Dame and reducing most of Paris to ashes.  Apparently they are on the eve of doing something.  The women of the world may not know what it is, but they feel the approaching recurrence of a period.  Their movements are not yet decisive.  It is as yet only tentatively that they adopt the mode of the Directoire.  It is yet uncertain—­a sort of Boulangerism in dress.  But if we watch it carefully we shall be able to predict with some assurance the drift in Paris.  The Directoire dress points to another period of republican simplicity, anarchy, and the rule of a popular despot.

It is a great pity, in view of this valuable instinct in women and the prophetic significance of dress, that women in the United States do not exercise their gifts with regard to their own country.  We should then know at any given time whether we are drifting into Blaineism, or Clevelandism, or centralization, or free-trade, or extreme protection, or rule by corporations.  We boast greatly of our smartness.  It is time we were up and dressed to prove it.

THE MYSTERY OF THE SEX