"If you'll not repeat it, to injure the child's character: in philosophy. To be sure it didn't last long."
"In philosophy? Is that a suitable study for us women? I thought it was only fit for men."
"So most men think, and that's why my little philosopher would find it hard to get a husband, if it should be noised abroad that she had taken lessons from me."
"That danger, as you know, would not frighten me, if you would take me for a pupil. But I fear I should disgrace you. I've learned too little and read too many novels."
"Novels are not the worst introduction to philosophy. Don't you think that Père Goriot affords more food for the thought, than many a text book placed in the higher schools for girls and which does not contain a syllable about what is called life?"
"It depends upon who reads it. I've had a great many thoughts. But they were so sad that they cannot have been the right philosophy, at least not yours; for you're always cheerful, so the world must wear quite a different aspect to you in your wisdom, from what it does to me in my stupidity."
"Very possibly," he said smiling. "But we must first prove it. You must tell me your thoughts, and I will tell you mine. Afterwards we'll see against which there are the fewest objections."
"And is there nothing more in philosophy? Did you make no farther progress in your lessons to that young lady?"
"Oh! no. I began with her at the A. B. C, told her how, from the most ancient times, thoughtful men had demonstrated the relations of things in the world and what singular dreams about origin and decay, soul and body, gods and spirits they had had. I'll wager that if you had listened, you would not have been bored; for you have a tendency toward melancholy, and philosophy is like a magic lantern; the clear outlines of the pictures of the world it conjures up can only appear on a dark background, but on that dark background is thrown the real brightness, the light that brings cheerfulness and peace, while the common every day sunlight, like ordinary human reason, is only sufficient for the every day restless flickering dawn."
She made no reply and gazed steadily into vacancy with a charmingly thoughtful expression.