"My dear Eva, you have capital reasons for believing and not believing. You believe what seems most agreeable and poetic."
"Exactly, Ida; and in those far-off regions, sixteen million billion ages ago, why shouldn't I? Nobody knows what happened there; nobody has been there to see what made the first particle of jelly take to living, and turn into a germ cell, and then go working on like yeast, till it worked out into all the things we see. I think it a good deal easier to believe the Garden of Eden story, especially as that is pretty and poetical, and is in the dear old Book that is so sweet and comfortable to us; but then Mr. Henderson insists that even if we do hold the Evolution theory, the old book will be no less true. I never saw a man of so much thought who had so much reverence."
"I thought you were going to study Darwin and not think of him," said Ida.
"Well, somehow, almost every thing puts me in mind of him, because we have had such long talks about everything; and, Ida, to tell the truth, I do believe I am intellectually lazy. I don't like rough hard work, I like polishing and furbishing. Now, I want a man to go through all this rough, hard, stupid, disagreeable labyrinth of scientific terms, and pick out the meaning and put it into a few, plain words, and then I take it and brighten it up and put on the rainbows. Look here, now, think of my having to scrabble through a bog like this in the "Origin of the Species":
"'In Carthamus and some other compositæ the central achenes alone are furnished with a pappus; and in Hyoseris the same head yields achenes of three different forms. In certain Umbelliferæ the exterior seeds, according to Tanch, are orthospermous, and the central one cœlospermous, and this difference has been considered by De Candolle as of the highest systematic importance in the family.'
"Now all this is just as unintelligible to me as if it were written in Choctaw. I don't know enough to know what it means, and I'm afraid I don't care enough to know. I want to know the upshot of the whole in good plain English, and then see whether I can believe it or not; and isn't it a shame that things are so that one cannot have a sensible man to be one's guide, philosopher and friend, without this everlasting marriage question coming up? If a woman makes an effort to get or keep a valuable friend, she is supposed to be intriguing and making unfeminine efforts for a husband. Now this poor man is perfectly wretched about something—for I can see he has really gone off shockingly, and looks thin and haggard, and I can't just write him a note and ask him to come and finish his resumé of Darwin for me, without going over the boundaries; and the worst of it is, it is I who set these limits;—I myself who am a world too proud to say the first word or give the slightest indication that his absence isn't quite as agreeable as his presence."
"Well, Eva, I can write a note and request him to call and see me," said Ida, "and if you like, I will. I have no sort of fear what he will think of me."
"I would not have you for the world. It would look like an advance on our part—no indeed. These creatures are so conceited, if they once find out that you can't do without them——"
"I never observed any signs of conceit in Mr. Henderson."