“Then can you help us to the history of our sphynx?” asked Miss Williams, with her pleasant look.
“I will see if I have his portrait,” said Rachel, “but I doubt it. I prefer general principles to details.”
“Don’t you find working out details the best way of entering into general principles?”
It was new to Rachel to find the mention of a general principle received neither with a stare nor a laugh; and she gathered herself up to answer, “Naming and collecting is not science.”
“And masonry is not architecture, but you can’t have architecture without it.”
“One can have broad ideas without all the petty work of flower botanists and butterfly naturalists.”
“Don’t you think the broad ideas would be rather of the hearsay order, at least to most people, unless their application were worked out in the trifle that came first to hand?”
“Experimental philosophy,” said Rachel, in rather a considering tone, as if the notion, when presented to her in plain English, required translation into the language of her thoughts.
“If you like to call it so,” said Miss Williams, with a look of arch fun. “For instance, the great art of mud pie taught us the porous nature of clay, the expansive power of steam, etc. etc.”
“You had some one to improve it to you?”