It wuz a solemn occasion, but I riz up to it and told 'em I laid out in my book to make such a change in public opinion that it would shake the very pillows of society, but sez I, "After the shake and the quake is over, things will settle down in their proper place agin. And then as of old, men will take their position as master and females their proper place as the tenderly governed class, lookin' up agin meekly to male men as their nateral gardeens and protectors."
IN WHICH BETSY BOBBETT BUTTS IN
Owing to the inclemency of the inclement weather, and the hardness of the wood (slippery ellum) I would had to split for extra fires, I did the writin' of my great work of destroyin' Female Suffrage in the common settin' room. I didn't feel above it. As I told Samantha, many a immortal work had been writ in a garret, and even in a prison (namely by Mr. Keats and Mr. J. Bunyan and others).
She didn't dispute me, she kep' right on with her usual housework, bakin', etc., and I almost thought the delicious uroma of her vittles which come in from the contagious kitchen wuz a inspiration to me. So dificult it is to tell what tiny springs feeds the great spoutin' fountain of genius.
On the mornin' I made this memorable remark jest quoted, I hadn't more'n got started on my masterly work and wuz settin' almost drownded in the bottomless sea of Thought while Samantha wuz parin' some apples for pies, havin' fetched her pan into the settin' room, when the magestic onward and upward flow of my thought wuz arrested or dammed up, as you may say figuratively speakin', by the tall awkward obstacle of a onwelcome female figger. It wuz Betsy Bobbett Slimpsey who came in with a red and green plaid shawl wropped round her gant form, and a yeller fascinator on her humbly head.
Fascinator! Who wuz fascinated by it? I wuzn't, no indeed! And so lightnin' quick is my mind to ketch holt of any argument illustratin' wimmen's weakness of inteleck to transcribe in my volume, that I methought instantly how that one article of Betsy's attire showed plain the inferiority of her sect that I wuz tryin' to prove to the world. As I glanced at it, my eager soul questioned my active mind, "Did you ever ketch a man wearin' anything on his head with such vain silly names," and my mind thundered back to my listenin' soul, "No! no sir!" The strong brain within the manly head would spurn such a coverin', and tread it into the dust. A man's fascination consists of sunthin' inside his skull, his powerful brain, his invincible will, not in a flimsy woosted affair knit with a tattin' hook. With what hauty coldness would a man spurn it, if his wife tried to put it onto his noble head to wear to meetin' or to a neighbors.
But to resoom. Betsy passed a few triflin' onimportant remarks about the weather, her hens, her husband, etc., but my keen eye pierced through her outward demeanor, which she tried to make nateral, and I see she had a ulterior object in comin' out so early in the mornin'. And soon it broke forth in speech, and she uttered the bold presumptious request that I would let her insert some of her poetry writ before, and after her marriage, in my great forthcomin' volume.