deepest human interests that
it is hard to pursue it with that even poise of the intellect which is
demanded by science. I want knowledge pure and simple,--I do not fancy
having it mixed. Neither do I like the thought of passing my life in
going from one scene of suffering to another; I am not saintly enough
for such a daily martyrdom, nor callous enough to make it an easy
occupation. I fainted at the first operation I saw, and I have never
wanted to see another. I don't say that I wouldn't marry a physician,
if the right one asked me, but the young doctor is not forthcoming at
present. Yes, I think I might make a pretty good doctor's wife. I could
teach him a good deal about headaches and backaches and all sorts of
nervous revolutions, as the doctor says the French women call their
tantrums. I don't know but I should be willing to let him try his new
medicines on me. If he were a homeopath, I know I should; for if a
billionth of a grain of sugar won't begin to sweeten my tea or coffee,
I don't feel afraid that a billionth of a grain of anything would poison
me,--no, not if it were snake-venom; and if it were not disgusting, I
would swallow a handful of his lachesis globules, to please my husband.
But if I ever become a doctor's wife, my husband will not be one of that
kind of practitioners, you may be sure of that, nor an "eclectic," nor
a "faith-cure man." On the whole, I don't think I want to be married at
all. I don't like the male animal very well (except such noble specimens
as your husband). They are all tyrants,--almost all,--so far as our sex
is concerned, and I often think we could get on better without them.

However, the creatures are useful in the Society. They send us papers,
some of them well worth reading. You have told me so often that you
would like to know how the Society is getting on, and to read some of
the papers sent to it if they happened to be interesting, that I have
laid aside one or two manuscripts expressly for your perusal. You will
get them by and by.

I am delighted to know that you keep Paolo with you. Arrowhead Village
misses him dreadfully, I can tell you. That is the reason people become
so attached to these servants with Southern sunlight in their natures? I
suppose life is not long enough to cool their blood down to our Northern
standard. Then they are so child-like, whereas the native of these
latitudes is never young after he is ten or twelve years old. Mother
says,--you know m