human
I do think that women want breadth of view,
gpt
They sometimes want accuracy of statement,
human
It seems to me they lack concentration. They are too versatile,
gpt
They want a sense of honour,
human
And a sense of humour,
gpt
They want a feeling of public duty.
human
They want a spice of the Devil!
gpt
Why, it is a commonplace, that if a woman _is_ bad, she is always _very_ bad,
human
A new and intoxicating experience, said Professor Fortescue.
gpt
I sympathize.
human
New?
gpt
You distress me,
human
This is strange teaching!
gpt
To the best men, observed Valeria,
human
Pray, don't call us a subject race!
gpt
Ah, yes, the truth, cried Hadria,
human
You are courageous, Mrs. Temperley.
gpt
Like the Lady of Shallott, I am sick of shadows.
human
The bare truth, on this subject, is hard for a woman to face.
gpt
It is harder, in the long run, to waltz eternally round it with averted eyes.
human
But, dear me, why is the truth about ourselves hard to face?
gpt
I am placed between the horns of a dilemma: one lady clamours for the bare truth: another forbids me to say anything unpleasing.
human
I withdraw my objection,
gpt
The ungracious task shall not be forced upon unwilling chivalry, said Hadria.
human
If our conditions have been evil, some scars must be left and may as well be confessed. Among the faults of women, I should place a tendency to trade upon and abuse real chivalry and generosity when they meet them: a survival perhaps from the Stone Age, when the fittest to bully were the surviving elect of society.
gpt
Freedom alone teaches us to meet generosity, generously, said Professor Fortescue;
human
Then do you describe women's virtues as horizontal?
gpt
In so far as they follow the prevailing models. Women's love, friendship, duty, the conduct of life as a whole, speaking very roughly, has been lacking in the quality that I call perpendicular; a quality implying something more than _upright_.
human
You seem to value but lightly the woman's acknowledged readiness for self-sacrifice, said Lady Engleton.
gpt
That, I suppose, is only a despised horizontal virtue.
human
Very frequently.
gpt
Because it is generally more or less abject, Hadria put in.
human
The sacrifice is made because the woman is a woman. It is the obeisance of sex; the acknowledgment of servility; not a simple desire of service.
gpt
The adorable creature is not always precisely obeisant,
human
No; as I say, she may be capricious and cruel enough to those who treat her justly and generously (Hadria's eyes instinctively turned towards the distant Priory, and Valeria's followed them);
gpt
Where one expects to meet her!
human
Then, Mrs. Temperley, you _do_ feel rather wicked yourself, although you don't admire our nice, well-behaved, average woman.
gpt
Oh, the mere opposite of an error isn't always truth,
human
The weather has run to your head!
gpt
Yes, it is like wine; clear, intoxicating sparkling wine, and its fumes are mounting! Why does civilisation never provide for these moments?
human
What would you have? A modified feast of Dionysius?
gpt
Why not? The whole earth joins in the festival and sings, except mankind. Some frolic of music and a stirring dance!--But ah! I suppose, in this tamed England of ours, we should feel it artificial; we should fear to let ourselves go. But in Greece--if we could fancy ourselves there, shorn of our little local personalities--in some classic grove, on sunlit slopes, all bubbling with the re-birth of flowers and alive with the light, the broad all-flooding light of Greece that her children dreaded to leave more than any other earthly thing, when death threatened--could one not imagine the loveliness of some garlanded dance, and fancy the naïads, and the dryads, and all the hosts of Pan gambolling at one's heels?
human
Really, Mrs. Temperley, you were not born for an English village. I should like Mrs. Walker to hear you!
gpt
Mrs. Walker knows better than to listen to me. She too hides somewhere, deep down, a poor fettered thing that would gladly join the revel, if it dared. We all do.