"Why Eve's experience, of course. A ton of gunpowder would not have blown up the garden of Eden more effectually, than did her light touch upon an outside branch of the tree of knowledge. I should say Genesis was acceptable authority to a young minister of the Gospel."
"That is a violation of the truce, Elise. You are skirmishing with his picket line. Go on, Douglass."
"It is evidently a remnant of despotic barbarism, a fungoid growth from Oriental bondage——"
"Bishop, may I be allowed to ask if you are referring to Genesis?"
"Dear little mother, I refer to the popular fallacy, that in the same ratio that you thoroughly educate women, you unfit them for the holy duties of daughter, wife, and mother. Is there an inherent antagonism between learning and womanliness?"
"Indeed, dear, how can I tell? I am not a 'Della-Cruscan.' I only 'strain' milk into my dairy pans."
"Elise, do be quiet. You break the thread of his argument."
"Then it is entirely too brittle to hold the ponderous propositions he intends to string upon it. Proceed, my son."
"Are we to accept the unjust and humiliating dogma that the more highly we cultivate feminine intellect, the more un-feminine, unlovely, unamiable the individual certainly becomes? Is a woman sweeter, more gentle, more useful to her family and friends, because she is unlearned? Does knowledge exert an acidulating influence upon female temper, or produce an ossifying effect on female hearts? Is ignorance an inevitable concomitant of refinement and delicacy? Does the knowledge of Greek and Latin cast a blight over the flower-garden, or a mildew in the pantry and linen closet; or do the classics possess the power of curdling all the milk of human-kindness, all the streams of tender sympathy in a woman's nature, as rennet coagulates a bowl of sweet milk? Can an acquaintance with literature, art, and science so paralyze a lady's energies, that she is rendered utterly averse to and incapable of performing those domestic offices, those household duties, so pre-eminently suited to her slender, dexterous busy little fingers? Why, my own wise precious little mother is a living refutation of so grossly absurd and monstrous a dogma! Have not you boxed my ears, because, when stumbling through the 'Anabasis,' my Greek pronunciation tortured your fastidious and correct taste? Did not you tell me that you read nearly the whole of Sallust by spreading the book open on the dairy shelf while you churned, thus saving time? And did not that same sweet golden butter, made under the shadow of a Latin dictionary, win you the State Fair Premium, of that very silver cup, from which I drank my milk, as long as I wore knee-pants and round jackets? Was it not my father's fond boast that his wife's proficiency in music was equalled only by her wonderful skill in making muffins, pastry, and omelette soujflée?"
With genuine chivalric tenderness in look and tone he inclined his head; but though a tear certainly glistened in Mrs. Lindsay's bright eyes, she answered gayly: