These practical difficulties might well be overcome were it felt
that the specifically feminine qualities of zeal, sympathy and intuition were useful qualities for a diplomatist to possess. I assert that these' three qualities, unless kept under the firmest control, are dangerous qualities in international affairs. When Talleyrand (one of the most brilliant and experienced diplomatists that the world has ever known) inculcated into his attaches the motto " surtout pas de zele " he was not Taking an epigram but condensing into four words the lessons which he himself had learnt. Sympathy, again, is a quality which tempts people to identify themselves with the passions and causes of the countries in which they live, and thereby to diminish the value of the counsel which they supply to their home Government. And intuition all too often leads diplomatists to jump to conclusions which are subsequently falsified by events. I should aver even that the feminine type of man (by which I mean something wholly different from the effeminate type of man) does not in practice make the best diplo- matist. He is apt to identify himself, in terms either of love or hatred, with the people among whom he lives, and to espouse their causes and rivalries to an extent which is detrimental to his function of representing British interests in a particular area of the world's surface. The ideal diplomatist should be impartial, imperturbable and a trifle inhuman. These are not feminine qualities ; they are male qualities.
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