Like yourself, Miss Dodd, and all our sex, I am not
destitute of tact, and tact, you know, is 'the talent of talents.' I
feel," here she bit her lip, "myself fit for public life. I am
ambitious."
"Oh, you are, are you?"
"Very; and perhaps you will kindly tell me how I had best direct that
ambition. The army? No; marching against daisies, and dancing and
flirting in garrison towns, is frivolous and monotonous too. It isn't
as if war was raging, trumpets ringing, and squadrons charging. Your
brother's profession? Not for the world; I am a coward" [consistent].
"Shall I lower my pretensions to the learned professions?"
"I don't doubt your cleverness, but the learned professions?"
"A woman has a tongue, you know, and that is their grand requisite. I
interrupted you, Miss Dodd; pray forgive me."
"Well, then, let us go through them. To be a clergyman, what is
required? To preach, and visit the sick, and feel for them, and
understand what passes in the sorrowful hearts of the afflicted. Is
that beyond our sex?"
"That last is far more beyond a man at most times; and oh, the
discourses one has to sit out in church!"
"Portia made a very passable barrister, Miss Dodd."
"Oh, did she?"
"Why, you know she did; and as for medicine, the great successes there
are achieved by honeyed words, with a long word thrown in here and
there. I've heard my own mamma say so. Now which shall I be?"
"I suppose you are making fun of me," said Eve; "but there is many a
true word spoken in jest.
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