"Yes, love, for instance. I declare, Mr. Ridgeley, you think as a woman."
"Do women really think? I thought their minds were so clear and strong that thought was unnecessary, and they were always blest with intuitions."
"Well, sir, some of them are obliged to think—when they want to be understood by men, who don't have intuitions, and can't go at all without something to hold up by—and a woman would think, perhaps, that if Sartliff could fall in love—"
"And if he can't he isn't worth the saving," interjected Bart.
"Exactly; and if he could, that through its medium he might be brought back to a healthy frame of mind, or a healthy walk of mind. There, Mr. Ridgeley, I have got out with that, though rather limpingly, after all."
"And a forcible case you have made. Here is a man crazy about Nature; you propose as a cure for that, to make him mad about a woman. And what next?"
"Well, love is human—or inhuman," said Miss Giddings; "if the former, marriage is the specific; if the latter, his lady-love might get lost in a wood, you know."
"Yes, I see. Poor Sartliff had better remain where he is, winking and blinking for the lights of Nature," said Bart.
"I remember," interposed Ida, "that he and your brother, among the matters they used to discuss, disagreed in their estimate of authors. Sartliff could never endure N.P. Willis, for instance."
"A sign," said Miss Giddings, "that he was sane then, at least.
Willis, in Europe, is called the poet's lap-dog, with his ringlets and
Lady Blessingtons."