"Women who know how to make us happy, make happiness for themselves also. What other knowledge can equal this upon the earth? The toils of men, the callings conquered by civilization, go to achieve slowly and painfully what woman performs at once and without endeavor, making life more supportable, and alleviating its woes. Being, as she is, the repository of charity and of the gentle and beneficent sentiments, she guards in her heart the secret of the destiny of humanity, and transmits it by heredity and education to her sons, contributing to progress in this way more truly than ourselves."
"That is more gallant than exact," interrupted Castell, impertinently. "Woman is not the repository of progress, and has contributed nothing to it. You may study the history of the arts, the sciences, and the industries, and you will not find a single useful discovery that we owe to the genius or the industry of a woman. This demonstrates clearly that her mind is incapable of elevation to the sphere wherein move the high interests of civilization. Woman is not the repository of progress. She is solely the repository of being; and as this is the case, two things only ought to be demanded of her, health and beauty."
"You would be right," I replied, "if the unique phase of progress lay in useful discoveries. But there are others; and, as I understand them, more important ones—the brotherhood of man, the moral law. This is the true goal of the world."
Castell smiled, and, without looking at me, said in a low voice:
"For all that, I believe that I could name about fifty-seven other goals, if I know the world."
And lifting his voice he added: "I have discussed life with many men, and I can declare that scarcely one has failed to assign his own especial goal to the world. Among clergymen it is the triumph of the Church; among democrats, political liberty; among musicians, music; and among dancers, the dance. And yet the poor world contents itself with existing, laughing once in a while at so much folly, and trampling everybody under foot as it goes its way."
He paused and settled himself more comfortably in his arm-chair. I felt annoyed at those words, and especially at the scornful tone in which they were uttered. I was going to reply with energy, but Castell continued his discourse, tranquilly expounding his thoughts in a series of reasonings held together with logic, and expressed in elegant and precise fashion. I could not help admiring the varied qualities of his erudition, his penetrative talent, and, above all, the clarity and grace of his choice of words. Like submissive slaves, all of those in the dictionary came trooping to his tongue's end, to express his thoughts easily and harmoniously.
His theories seemed strange and sad to me. The world bears its goal in its own existence. Morality is the result of especial conditions that life has unfolded for itself upon our planet. If the human race had been produced under conditions of life like those of the bees, it would be a duty for unmarried women to deal out death to their brothers, as the workers do. All manifestations of life, even to the highest, are ruled by instinct. The virtuous man, like the degenerate, is moved by an irresistible impulse of his nature. Morality, which the religious man admires as a divine revelation, is nothing more than an invention destined to satisfy this or that instinct.
I really found myself without enough courage to contradict successfully his audacious assertions. My reading was wide, but desultory, as I had read more for entertainment than for instruction.
Then, too, I had never cultivated expression; because my profession did not require it, and I wrestled with great difficulties whenever I tried to express my thoughts.