Fay looked up at him and laughed.
"Well, I am fond of animals as you are fond of books. Is it not an open question whether the live dog or sheepskin is not as good as the dead Morocco or Russian leather?"
"Is it an open question, whether Macaulay's or Arago's brain weighs no more than a cat's or a puppy's?"
"Brain!" said impudent little Fay; "are your great men always as honest and as faithful as my poor little Snowdrop? I have an idea that Sheridan's brains were often obscured by brandy; that Richelieu had the weakness to be prouder of his bad poems than his magnificent policies; and that Pope and Byron had the folly to be more tenacious of a glance at their physical defect than an onslaught on their noblest works. I could mention a good many other instances where brain was not always a voucher for corresponding strength of character."
Keane was surprised to hear a sensible speech from this volatile little puss, and honored her by answering her seriously.
"Say, rather, Miss Morton, that those to whom many temptations fall should have many excuses made. Where the brain preponderates, excelling in creative faculty and rapid thought, there will the sensibilities be proportionately acute. The vivacity and vigorous life which produced the rapid flow of Sheridan's eloquence led him into the dissipation which made him end his days in a spunging-house. Men of cooler minds and natures must not presume to judge him. They had not his temptation; they cannot judge of his fault. Richelieu, in all probability, amused himself with his verses as he amused himself with his white kitten and its cork, as a délassement; had he piqued himself upon his poetry, as they say, he would have turned poetaster instead of politician. As for the other two, you must remember that Pope's deformity made him a subject of ridicule to the woman he was fool enough to worship, and Byron, poor fellow, was over-susceptible on all points, or he would scarcely have allowed the venomed arrows from the Scotch Reviewers to wound him, nor would he have cared for the desertion of a wife who was to him like ice to fire. When you are older, you will learn that it is very dangerous and unjust to say this thing is right, that wrong, that feeling wise, or this foolish; for all temperaments are different, and the same circumstances may produce very different effects. Your puppies will grow up with dissimilar characters; how much more so, then, must men?"
Miss Fay was quiet for a minute, then she flashed her mischievous eyes on him.
"Certainly; but then, by your own admission, you have no right to decide that your love for mathematics is wise, and my love for Snowdrop foolish; it may be quite au contraire. Perhaps, after all, I may have 'chosen the better part.'"
"Fay, go in and dress for dinner," interrupted the General, trotting up; "your tongue would run on forever if nobody stopped it; you're no exception to your sex on that point. Is she?"
Keane laughed.