SUPERWOMEN

ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE

INTERNATIONAL FICTION LIBRARY
CLEVELAND, O.      NEW YORK, N.Y.

Copyright, MCMXVI
By Moffat Yard & Company

Printed in the United States of America
by
THE COMMERCIAL BOOKBINDING CO.
CLEVELAND

FOREWORD

Find the Woman.

You will discover her in almost every generation, in almost everycountry, in almost every big city—the Super-Woman. She is not thetypical adventuress; she is not a genius. The reason for her strangepower is occult. When psycho-vivisectionists have thought they hadsegregated the cause—the formula—what you will—in one particularSuper-Woman or group of Super-Women, straightway some new member ofthe clan has arisen who wields equal power with her notable sisters,but who has none of the traits that made them irresistible. And theseekers of formulas are again at sea.

What makes the Super-Woman? Is it beauty? Cleopatra and Rachel werehomely. Is it daintiness? Marguerite de Valois washed her hands buttwice a week. Is it wit? Pompadour and La Valliere were avowedlystupid in conversation. Is it youth? Diane de Poictiers and Ninon del'Enclos were wildly adored at sixty. Is it the subtle quality offemininity? George Sand, who numbered her admirers by the score—poorChopin in their foremost rank—was not only ugly, but disgustinglymannish. So was Semiramis.

The nameless charm is found almost as often in the masculine,"advanced" woman as in the ultrafeminine damsel.

Here are stories of Super-Women who conquered at will. Some of themsmashed thrones; some were content with wholesale heart-smashing.Wherein lay their secret? Or, rather, their secrets? For seldom didtwo of them follow the same plan of campaign.

ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE

"Sunnybank,"
    Pompton Lakes,
        New Jersey
1916

CONTENTS