human
I don't enjoy probing my motives on that subject,
gpt
Why? I am sure they were good.
human
I can't help hoping that that child may live to avenge her mother; to make some man know what it is to be horribly miserable--but, oh, I suppose it's like trying to reach the feelings of a rhinoceros!
gpt
There you are much mistaken, Mrs. Temperley, said the Professor.
human
Men are as sensitive, in some respects, as women.
gpt
So much the better.
human
Then do you think it quite just to punish one man for the sin of another?
gpt
No; but there is a deadly feud between the sexes: it is a hereditary vendetta: the duty of vengeance is passed on from generation to generation.
human
Oh, Mrs. Temperley!
gpt
Yes, it is vindictive, I know; one does not grow tender towards the enemy at the grave of Ellen Jervis.
human
At least, there were _two_ sinners, not only one.
gpt
Only one dies of a broken heart.
human
But why attempt revenge?
gpt
Oh, a primitive instinct. And anything is better than this meek endurance, this persistent heaping of penalties on the scapegoat.
human
No good ever came of mere revenge, however,
gpt
Sometimes that is the only form of remonstrance that is listened to, said Hadria.
human
When people have the law in their own hands and Society at their back, they can afford to be deaf to mere verbal protest.
gpt
As for the child, said Lady Engleton,
human
At least then, she shall have some free and happy hours first; at least she shall not be driven to it by the misery of moral starvation, starvation of the affections. She shall be protected from the solemn fools--with sawdust for brains and a mechanical squeaker for heart--who, on principle, cut off from her mother all joy and all savour in life, and then punished her for falling a victim to the starved emotional condition to which they had reduced her.
gpt
The matter seems complex, said Lady Engleton,
human
It is a passion that has never been eradicated. Oh, if I could but find that man!
gpt
A man is a hard thing to punish,--unless he is in love with one.
human
Well, let him be in love!