"Will she thy linen wash and hosen darn?"
GAY.
I'm utterly sick of this hateful alliance
Which the ladies have form'd with impractical Science!
They put out their washing to learn hydrostatics,
And give themselves airs for the sake of pneumatics.
They are knowing in muriate, and nitrate, and chlorine,
While the stains gather fast on the walls and the flooring--
And the jellies and pickles fall wofully short,
With their chemical use of the still and retort.
Our expenses increase, (without drinking French wines.)
For they keep no accounts, with their tangents and sines-.
And to make both ends meet they give little assistance,
With their accurate sense of the squares of the distance.
They can name every spot from Peru to El Arish,
Except just the bounds of their own native parish;
And they study the orbits of Venus and Saturn,
While their home is resign'd to the thief and the slattern.
Chronology keeps back the dinner two hours,
The smoke-jack stands still while they learn motive powers;
Flies and shells swallow up all our every-day gains,
And our acres are mortgaged for fossil-remains.
They cease to reflect with their talk of refraction--
They drive us from home by electric attraction--
And I'm sure, since they've bother'd their heads with affinity,
I'm repuls'd every hour from my learned divinity.
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