Rebecca West

The second volume gives an account of the mentality and philosophy of a superbly intelligent woman, whose feminism was above all concerned with the respect for, and the preservation of, true masculinity

At this time, Naomi Mitchison is writing about the bloody events in Vienna that will lead to the Anschluss, and others are experiencing the premonition of impending confrontation in Spain, but for West it is Yugoslavia that is the potentially seismic country.

Impotent and embarrassed, I stood on the high mountain and looked down on the terraced island where my saviors, small and black as ants, ran here and there, attempting to repair their destiny.”

they had all, at different times, betrayed the people of the Balkans, most especially the people of Serbia

And again we encounter her preference, at least on first meeting, for anything that is raw and elemental over anything that is tame or domesticated

It is possible that we have betrayed life and love for more than five hundred years on a field wider than Kosovo, as wide as Europe.

they lack readiness to sacrifice their individual rights for the corporate good, they do not bid the right welcome to the other man’s soul

But they are on the side of life, they love justice, they hate violence

and they respect the truth. It is not always so when they deal with India or Burma; but that is not their fault, it is the fault of Empire, which makes a man own things outside his power to control

Her question made me remember that the word ‘idiot’ comes from a Greek root meaning private person. Idiocy is the female defect: intent on their private lives, women follow their fate through a darkness deep as that cast by malformed cells in the brain. It is no worse than the male defect, which is lunacy: they are so obsessed by public affairs that they