Persephone and the Pomegranite Tree

Crappy books kill trees. No more crappy books for me. I'm tired of this idiotic mother's book club. It was a frivolous undertaking 2 years ago but enough is enough already. I've wasted untold time reading very badly written books and then have felt snooty and guilty for confessing at book club that I found them awful.

I've renewed my subscription to Persephone Books with a purchase of three more of their marvelous offerings. Today I started William - An Englishman by Cicely Hamilton. It is refreshing to hear someone so matter-of-factly describe the hypocritical inflexibility of many self-described progressive thinkers. In a time of impending war the message is all the more relevant.

It was well for them, therefore, that their creed, like their code of manners and morals, was identical or practically identical. It was a simple creed and they held to it loyally and faithfully. They believed in a large, vague and beautifully undefined identity, called by William the People, and by Griselda, Woman; who in the time to come was to accomplish much beautiful and undefined Good; and in whose service they were prepared meanwhile to suffer any amount of obloquy and talk any amount of nonsense. They believed that Society could be straightened and set right by the well-meaning efforts of well-meaning souls like themselves - aided by the Ballot, the Voice of the People, and Woman. They believed, in defiance of the teachings of history, that Democracy is another word for peace and goodwill towards men. They believed (quite rightly) in the purity of their own intentions; and concluded (quite wrongly) that the intentions of all persons who did not agree with them must therefore be evil and impure....They were, in short, very honest and devout sectarians - cocksure, contemptuous, intolerant, self-sacrificing after the manner of their kind.

Pretty cynical stuff coming from a feminist, a feminist who experienced first-hand the political strategies of the suffragettes in Britain, and who lived and worked through World War I.