Second Clown. I tell thee, she is; therefore make her grave straight. The crowner hath set on her and finds it Christian burial.
First Clown. How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defense?
Second Clown. Why,'tis found so.
First Clown. It must be so, se offendendo; it can not be else. For here lies the point. If I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act; and an act has three branches—it is to act, to do, and to perform. Argal, she drowned herself wittingly.
Second Clown. Nay, but hear you good man, deliver.
First Clown. Give me leave. Here lies the water. Good. Here stands the man. Good. If the man goes to this water and drowns himself, it is nil he, will he, he goes. Mark you that. But if the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not himself. Argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.
Second Clown. But is this law?
First Clown. Ay, marry is't, crowner quest law.
It hardly needed any better authority than the above to convince simple-minded people of the truth of the observation made by Blackstone that "law is the perfection of human reason." But if law is great, those who expound it are greater.
The woman suffrage trial came on. The judges endeavored to follow the arguments as far as possible, and to religiously earn their salaries by the attention given, if no more. The arguments were finally finished, and the women of the country waited expectantly to hear their legal status defined.