The wise man honours woman as his friend, his fellow-
labourer, his complement. It is the fool who imagines her unhuman."
"But are we not better," persisted the Old Maid, "for our ideals? I
don't say we women are perfect--please don't think that. You are
not more alive to our faults than we are. Read the women novelists
from George Eliot downwards. But for your own sake--is it not well
man should have something to look up to, and failing anything
better--?"
"I draw a very wide line," answered the Philosopher, "between ideals
and delusions. The ideal has always helped man; but that belongs to
the land of his dreams, his most important kingdom, the kingdom of
his future. Delusions are earthly structures, that sooner or later
fall about his ears, blinding him with dust and dirt. The
petticoat-governed country has always paid dearly for its folly."
"Elizabeth!" cried the Girton Girl. "Queen Victoria!"
"Were ideal sovereigns," returned the Philosopher, "leaving the
government of the country to its ablest men. France under its
Pompadours, the Byzantine Empire under its Theodoras, are truer
examples of my argument.
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