The Task of Social Hygiene

[78] A. Méray, La Vie au Temps des Cours d'Amour, 1876.

[79] Remy de Gourmont, Dante, Béatrice et la Poésie Amoureuse, 1907, p. 32.

[80] Niphus (born about 1473), a physician and philosopher of the Papal Court, wrote in his De Pulchro, sometimes considered the first modern treatise on æsthetics, a minute description of Joan of Aragon, whose portrait, traditionally ascribed to Raphael, is in the Louvre. The famous work of Firenzuola (born 1493) entitled Dialogo delle Bellezze delle Donne, was published in 1548. It has been translated into English by Clara Bell under the title On the Beauty of Women.

[81] See, for example, Edith Coulson James, Bologna: Its History, Antiquities and Art, 1911.

[82] See, for an interesting account of the position of women in the Italian Renaissance, Burckhardt, Die Kultur der Renaissance, Part V, ch. vi.

[83] I may quote the following remarks from a communication I have received from a University man: "I am prepared to show women, and to expect from them, precisely the same amount of consideration as I show to or expect from other men, but I rather resent being expected to make a preferential difference. For example, in a crowded tram I see no more adequate reason for giving up my seat to a young and healthy girl than for expecting her to give up hers to me; I would do so cheerfully for an old person of either sex on the ground that I am probably better fit to stand the fatigue of 'strap-hanging,' and because I recognize that some respect is due to age; but if persons get into over-full vehicles they should not expect first-comers to turn out of their seats merely because they happen to be men." This writer acknowledges, indeed, that he is not very sensitive to the erotic attraction of women, but it is probable that the changing status of women will render the attitude he expresses more and more common among men.

[84]Ante, p. 58.

[85] "Women then were queens," as Taine writes (L'Ancien Régime, Vol. I, p. 219), and he gives references to illustrate the point.

[86] Goethe, Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, Book II, ch. i.

[87] Havelock Ellis, The Soul of Spain, chap. III, "The Women of Spain."

[88] Grete Meisel-Hess, Die Sexuelle Krise, 1909, pp. 148, 168.

[89] "La Morale Sexuelle," Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle, January, 1907.