WOMAN AS THE DESTROYER.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 25, 31 January 1911, Page 11

WOMAN AS THE DESTROYER.

FUTURIST LEADER'S FIERCE DENUNCIATION. POISON OF LOVE. Signor Marinetti, the leader of the Futurist movement in Italy, was in his most audacious mood when he gave an address at the Lyceum Club (remarked the London Chronicle recently). It was in many way a remarkable seene — remarkable as showing the extraordinary tolerance of opinion among women of today, and the absolute candour with which they are prepared to face the problems of their sex and life. If Signor Marinetti had been speaking to Early Victorian women they would have swooned in horror at his words or fallen into violent hysterics. If he had spoken to Mid-Victorian women xhey would have risen in righteous indignation and left tha room as a protest against this blasphemy. But yesterday the ladies of the Lyceum Club sat very still, smiled at the most daring utterances of this young Italian philosopher, and actually applauded some of his most violent phrases. He did not mince his words. It was well indeed that he spoke in French, for in that laaguage one may utter phrases which would not be tolerated in hard plain English. A NEW BRUTALITY. He stood before these refined women of the intellectual class— these Jiterary and artistic ladies — as the champion of a new brutality, and as the enemy of their sex. Swiftly and vividly he began by describing the spirit of the Futurist movement and its active warfare against classical ideas in art and life, against the beauty of old dead things, against philosophers, archaeologists, professors, and antiquaries who live in the old traditions, against old ideals and old conventions. He told them how the new movement is sweeping the young men of Italy into its ranks, he described the free fights which have taken place in Venice, Florence, and Rome between the "Antiqnipte" and the Futurists — fights in which some heads and many canes have been broken — and he gloried in the awakening of the modern industrial spirit in Italy, where he. alleges that tho old-world cities are stagnant with the worm-eaten grandeur of a dead and decs dent past. Then Signor Marinetti came to the influence of women on life, and his voice rose with passion as he denonneed the \ place of woman in history, and the evil j blight of that "romantic love" of which > she has been the object throughout the centuries. •This romantic love, he says, has been a poison in which all the vice of men ! has been bred. The woman of beauty | with her amorous desires, her erotic I nature, her utter selfishness, her cruelty, I her greed, her frailty, has been like the ! infamous woman of the Bible, of whom young men were bidden to beware. THE SERPENT'S POWER. Her snake-like coils have crushed and choked the noblest ideals of manhood. I By this infamous and romantic love men \ have lost their virility and their moral i health. Poets and painters and artists of every kind have been seduced by its evil spell, and modern life in all. its aspects is made foul by this romanticism. "We must get free of this infamous womanhood," cried Signor Marinetti, gazing fiercely at the amiable ladies of the Lyceum Club, who smiled at him. The Futurist, he declared, will put the love of woman away from him. His machine will be his mistress. The grand I ideals of mechanical progress will influence his heart. He will become more like a machine himself, as regards order, perfect adaptability to the object to be obtained, in power, and single purpose. Perhaps the time "will come when men may do without women altogether, and when the human races may be continued by mechanical means. To the Futurist this is the one grand hope. PRAISE FOR SUFFRAGE? IES. With apparent inconsistency, Signor Marinetti praised the Suffragettes. He admired them for adopting violent j methods, for braving ridicule^ for break- 1 ing down that snobbishness which is the curse of the English people, and for destroying that Parliamentary system, which, he says, he willingly delivers over ' to the claws of the Suffragettes. But j let them make no mistake. The men of the future will not tolerate the equality of women. They are going to assert I their greatest strength of manhood and liberate themselves from the debasing and debilitating influence of the old ; romantic love. j There was much more of this passionate defiance of womanhood and the old idealism, but enough has been given to show that Signor Marinetti has peculiar views which he expresses in the most forcible language.

Abd-el-Aziz, the ex-Sultan of Morocco, has left Algeciras en route for Lisbon. He was delighted with his visit to Gibraltar. Before leaving (says Reuter) he forwarded a donation of £10 to the Boys Scouts' Fund.