"Analogy is not argument!" Eliza pounced upon her in the voice that said, "I take your pawn."
It will be noticed, I fear, that in Stowel we are not altogether original in our arguments—many of them can be traced, alas! to the "Encyclopædia Britannica," and they are not often the outcome of original thought.
Frances Taylor's king was once more in check, and she became a little nervous and irritable. "I do not think we need go into definitions," she said; but Eliza had gone indoors to "look it up." She returned presently with a dictionary, walking across the lawn towards us with its pages held close to her near-sighted eyes. "A genius," she began, and then she glanced disparagingly at the title of the book, and said, "according to Webster, that is—but I do not know if we ought to accept him as a final authority—is explained as being 'a peculiar structure of mind which is given by Nature to an individual which qualifies him for a particular employment; a strength of mind, uncommon powers of intellect, particularly the power of invention.' A crank," she went on, "in its modern meaning, seems hardly to have been known to the writer of this dictionary; the word is rendered literally, as meaning 'a bend or turn.'"
"Then I submit," said Miss Taylor, "that Coleridge was a genius."
Miss Tracey said in a very sprightly manner—she often astonished us by showing a subtle turn of mind, and a graceful aptitude for epigram which, it was believed, could only have found its proper field in those salons which are now, alas! things of the past—"Let us write him down a genius and a crank! The two"—she advanced her daring view bravely—"the two are often allied." She had a volume of Coleridge on her bookshelves, and prided herself upon her appreciation—unusual in a woman—of the "Ancient Mariner."
"A genius in italics, and a crank followed by a mark of interrogation!" said Eliza in a brilliant fashion; and Miss Taylor, not to be beaten in a matter of intellect, said at once, "Did Bacon write Shakespeare's plays?"
Mrs. Gallup and Mr. Lee were quoted extensively.
Miss Taylor could only suggest, with a good deal of quiet dignity, that she could write to The Uncle and find out who is right. This of course closes the controversy for the present.
George Jamieson, who goes to town every day, gains advanced views from the magazines which he reads during his dinner-hour in the City, and he is a great assistance to the Reading Society. I contribute the use of my library, and I have heard the members of the Reading Society say that "women are the true leaders of the present movement, and already their influence is being felt by the male mind."
George brought with him the current number of the Nineteenth Century when he came home last Friday, instead of Pearson's or the Strand, and already there are whispers of a Magazine Club in Stowel. Miss Frances Taylor received nothing but books on her last birthday, and Palestrina told me a pathetic little story of how Gracie Jamieson went without a pair of shoes to buy a copy of Browning. Perhaps the climax of culture and learning was felt only to have been reached when Eliza introduced the expression "Hypothesis of Purpose" into an ordinary conversation at the conclusion of one of the meetings of the Reading Society.