“‘Come around,’ Professor? You mean sink back into the Slough of Idolatry. I feel it in my bones that in spite of a gleam of intelligent interrogation as to the wisdom of pampering the American girl, I am going to keep right on—”
“You mean, if you will be honest,” blurted the Professor, “that you will keep on letting her alone as you do the boy child. That is all. Own up. The most that you have done is cease the special repression of the girl. For better or for worse the American has done simply that: forget sex in rearing his young.”
“Ah, Professor! when we forget sex are we not in danger of a costly transgression? Are we not combating nature?”
“On the contrary, my friend, you are ceasing to combat nature. There is nothing nature is more definitely certain to do than to look out for sex on her own account. Is not all of creation trying to teach us this lesson? Is not all of creation trying to teach us the folly and the futility of meddling? Let nature alone. She knows her business. Sex duality is universal. No amount of sitting up nights will help you to think out a way of successfully interfering.”
I looked at the Professor. She is very much a woman. She suggested a type that had been “let alone.” She is not a freak. Both her body and her mind are well dressed, and she is good to look upon. To look upon her sometimes fills me with a certain misgiving. But it is not a misgiving for her.
“And yet,” it came to me to say, though not precisely in rebuke, “there is such a thing as human humility.”
“Humility?” The Professor looked over at me with affected scorn. “Then illustrate it, please. I cannot see the humility of interference. The American does not repress his daughter. You admit that you like the result. Why wrinkle your brow in contemplation of the future? Why not believe that what seems to be true is true, that the American girl flourishes agreeably in her freedom? Give her the natural privileges bestowed elsewhere throughout creation. Let her grow. She is not like Jupiter, without seasons. And you must take one of her seasons at a time.”
“Professor,” I said solemnly, “you remember Artemis?”