human
Only the traditional ideas carried out by a woman of narrow mind and strong will,
gpt
Oh those traditional ideas! They might have issued fresh and hot from an asylum for criminal lunatics.
human
You are deliciously absurd, Hadria.
gpt
It is the criminal lunatics who are absurd, she retorted.
human
Do you remember how those poor girls used to bewail the restrictions to their reading?
gpt
Yes, it was really a _reductio ad absurdum_ of our system. The girls seemed afraid to face anything. They would rather die than think. (I wonder why Professor Theobald lingers so up there by the chancel? The time must be getting on.)
human
What became of their personality all that time I cannot imagine: their woman's nature that one hears so much about, and from which such prodigious feats were to be looked for, in the future.
gpt
Yes, _that_ is where the inconsistency of a girl's education strikes me most, said Lady Engleton.
human
If she were intended for the cloister one could understand it. But since she is brought up for the express purpose of being married, it does seem a little absurd not to prepare her a little more for her future life.
gpt
Exactly, cried Hadria,
human
Yes, I agree with you there,
gpt
And if they _don't_ really in their hearts think it sacred and so on (and how they _can_, under our present conditions, I fail to see), why do they deliberately bring up their girls to be married, as they bring up their sons to a profession? It is inconceivable, and yet good people do it, without a suspicion of the real nature of their conduct, which it wouldn't be polite to describe.