and are tolerant of his somewhat galling attitude of what has been called—I think by Mr. Bernard Shaw—intellectual condescension. They realize that the punishment which it is in their power to inflict on the offender would be out of all proportion to the unintentional offence—infinitely harder and sharper than it deserves. It is for this reason, I believe, that a woman, unless she is really stirred to strong indignation and consequent loss of self-control, will seldom attempt to "show up" a man or drive him into a corner with unanswerable argument. Under far less provocation she would probably "show up" or corner a woman; not because she bears a natural grudge against her own sex, but because her victory over one of her own sex is a victory over an equal, and does not necessarily involve wounded self-esteem and humiliation on the part of the vanquished. The same decent instinct which prevents a man from striking her with his clenched fist prevents her from striking too hard at his self-esteem.
As far as my experience goes, this need of humouring the belief of the average man in his own essential intellectual superiority is—
