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FOR centuries, men and women have reiterated an offensive and defensive surface, and this reiteration has given variety and a dramatic interest to a monotonous and undramatic sameness. No actual need has ever compelled man to be the hunter and master of woman, or woman to be the ruler of man, but the monotone of their sexual contact demanded an important masquerade: a triumphant hallucination since each could not be content with his eager, unobstructed taking: imaginary obstacles were needed to give zest to the process. By determinedly setting aside one woman and throwing the halo of their need around her, men could struggle with other men for her possession and lend drama and interest to their monotonous sexual desires and their duplicate in women. The success of this departure, of course, hinged upon their creating a sincere, workman-like delusion. The average man used the drama of physical movement to erase the monotone of sexual magnetism and the submissive ardency of sexual contact. This concealing physical drama assumed many forms: the abduction of the woman; the slaying of rivals, if necessary, an alert sword defending the imaginary radiance which gave special value to one woman; the suicide of the man or his murder of the woman, in orderto provide the drama with a plausible climax, etc. The average man, lacking a highly developed imagination, needed this physical, concrete turmoil to preserve the sincerity of his dominant delusion. Having given the woman her halo, he could not stand and idly survey it. He lacked that imagination which could have, without assistance, preserved the halo's lustre.

The exceptional man guarded his goddess in a painting or poem; protected her memory by becoming a brooding hermit; or used his imagination to lend colour and an enticing variety to his prolonged pursuit or possession of the woman wearing the halo of his need. When the exceptional man used violence, at rare intervals, it was only to defend that grief which had expanded, in his imagination, to an overwhelming size.

Through centuries of reiteration, this desperate drama saturated