Gentle, refined, but bold in
every good cause."
"Oh, yea have said quite enough," replied Alice, who had seemed ready to
laugh outright, during this encomium. "I think I see one of these
paragons now, in a Bloomer, I think you call it, swaggering along with a
Bowie knife at her girdle, smoking a cigar, no doubt, and tippling
sherry-cobblers and mint-juleps. It must be a pleasant life."
"I should think you, at least, might form a more just idea of what women
become," said Middleton, considerably piqued, "in a country where the
rules of conventionalism are somewhat relaxed; where woman, whatever you
may think, is far more profoundly educated than in England, where a few
ill-taught accomplishments, a little geography, a catechism of science,
make up the sum, under the superintendence of a governess; the mind being
kept entirely inert as to any capacity for thought. They are cowards,
except within certain rules and forms; they spend a life of old
proprieties, and die, and if their souls do not die with them, it is
Heaven's mercy."
Alice did not appear in the least moved to anger, though considerably to
mirth, by this description of the character of English females. She
laughed as she replied, "I see there is little danger of your leaving
your heart in England." She added more seriously, "And permit me to say,
I trust, Mr. Middleton, that you remain as much American in other
respects as in your preference of your own race of women.
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