There is, of course, a reason for this. The young are more reckless and lawless, they do more and go further than the last generation, and this is but an outward expression of disorder within, in my opinion, to be traced back to the passionate need felt by the young for love. So that whenever this love-desire is unsatisfied, or falsely satisfied, the dynamic need causes a kind of ferment, which sours love so that it becomes _desire to be considered_. If a woman is not important to others, she becomes important to herself, and this unconscious self-glorification is so devouring, so little based on anything that can possibly satisfy the need that is its cause, that it creates a hunger that can never be appeased, so constant are its demands for nourishment. It is difficult to say how far this insatiable egomania will take our young women. Some men are also empoisoned with it.
Both these types are modern; opposed to them is another type of young woman, more feminine, easier to explain, but also thwarted, restlessly demanding an outlet. These women do not want to furl their sex, they seek lovers to whom they may surrender themselves, but they suffer from a formless discontent that rots into every love and prevents them finding satisfaction. Eternally they are unsatisfied, without knowing why.
It is another modern disease and has little connection with flirting and lightness of character, though often the two are confused. Too restless to be faithful, born spiritual adventurers, these worshipers of emotionalism set up elaborate pretenses of pure friendships, ignoring the hot glow within: they love romantically, but rarely are strong enough to obey their inclinations. Such women are out on an eternal quest, and every now and again, they believe they have found what they are seeking. Then they discover they have not found it, so their search is taken up anew; while often the social scheme drives them into dangerous corners, forces them to turn from their quest or to use mean weapons of deceit, does not give them a chance.
These romantic seekers of love, suffering continual frustration from the evaporation of emotional interest that defies their own needs; the many types of efficient workers, alert, hard, self-satisfied, not wholly cynical, yet with a touch of something that borders on cynicism, submitting almost with a secret repugnance to the mysterious but supreme bond which holds the sexes miserably together; and the prostitute woman of all kinds, out to seize every advantage from men, ruthless, living upon sex--these are, it seems to me, the three main types of women resulting in our so-called civilization of to-day, from our repressions and falsehoods, our indefinite wills, from our confused ideals and failure in living; and it is hard to say which is the most harmful, which is the most wronged, which is the most unhappy, the furthest removed from the type that is eternal--the ideal woman, satisfied and glad, whom a happier future may again permit to live.