We rowed on the river, we
played in the cricket-field, we lounged in the billiard-rooms, we
ran up to town for the day, we had wine in one another's rooms
after hall in the evening, and behaved like young fools, and threw
oranges wildly at one another's heads, and generally enjoyed
ourselves. It was all very silly and irrational, no doubt, but it
was life, it was reality; while the pretended earnestness of those
pallid Somerville girls is all an affectation of one-sided
culture."
"That's just it," Herminia answered, leaning back on the rustic
seat like David's Madame Recamier. "You put your finger on the
real blot when you said those words, developing equally every fibre
of your natures. That's what nobody yet wants us women to do.
They're trying hard enough to develop us intellectually; but
morally and socially they want to mew us up just as close as ever.
And they won't succeed. The zenana must go. Sooner or later, I'm
sure, if you begin by educating women, you must end by emancipating
them."
"So I think too," Alan answered, growing every moment more
interested.
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