"What is the difference between them? How shall one know which is which?"
"The dunce subjective is the dunce from his own point of view,—the dunce with his eyes turned inward,—confining his duncehood to the bosom of his family. The dunce objective is the dunce butting against his neighbor's study-door,—intruding, obtruding, protruding his insipid folly and still more insipid wisdom at all times and seasons. He is a creature utterly devoid of shame. He is like Milton's angels, in one respect at least: you may thrust him through and through with the two-edged sword of your satire, and at the end he shall be as intact and integral as at the beginning. Am I sufficiently obvious?"
"It is very obvious that I am both, according to your definition."
"It is very obvious that you are neither, I beg to submit, but a sensible young girl,—with no great quantity of the manufactured article, perhaps, but plenty of raw material, capable of being wrought into fabric of the finest quality."
"Do you really think I can learn?" asked Ivy, with a bright blush of pleasure.
"Demonstrably certain."
"As much as if I went to school?"
"My dear miss, as the forest oak, 'cabined, cribbed, confined' with multitudes of its fellows, grows stunted, scrubby, and dwarfed, but, brought into the open fields alone, stretches out its arms to the blue heavens and its roots to the kindly earth, so that the birds of the air lodge in the branches thereof, and men sit under its shadow with great delight,—so, in a word, shall you, under my fostering care, flourish like a green bay-tree; that is, if I am to have the honor."
"Yes, Sir, I mean—I meant—I was thinking as if you were teaching me—I mean were going to teach me."
"Which I also mean, if time and the favoring gods allow, and your parents continue to wish it."