'And, Lizzie,' began Helen, very seriously, 'do not you know that it is a duty to take part in society, that—'
'Oh yes, Helen!' answered Elizabeth; 'I know all that books and wise people say; but what I say is this: if a sumptuary law could decree that wits should be measured by one standard, like the ruffs and rapiers in Queen Elizabeth's time, so that those found wanting might be banished, there might be some use in meeting people; but in the present state of things there is none.'
'But how would you choose your standard?' said Anne; 'everyone would take their own degree of sense as a measure.'
'Let them,' said Elizabeth; 'there would be a set of measures like the bolters in a mill, one for the pastry-flour, one for the bread-flour, one for the blues, one for the bran.'
'I am glad you put the blues after the bread,' said Anne; 'there is hope of you yet, Lizzie.'
Elizabeth was too far advanced in her career of nonsense to be easily checked, even by Anne; and she continued, 'Sir Walter Scott says in one of his letters, that he wishes there could be a whole village of poets and antiquaries isolated from the rest of the world. That must be like what I mean.'
'I do not think he meant what he said there,' said Helen.
'And pray remember,' said Anne, 'that your favourite brown bread is made of all those kinds mixed—bran, and pastry-flour, and all.'
'Yes,' said Helen, 'all the world would turn idiots if there were not a few sensible people to raise the others.'
'Well,' said Elizabeth, 'you know the Veillees du Chateau says, there is a village where all the people do turn idiots at fourteen.'