tempting, forced salad,
because it had reached perfection so rapidity?"

"Mother, do you intend us to understand that Regina is very tender,
and very verdant?" asked Mr. Lindsay, looking up from a grammar that
lay open before him.

"I intend you, sir, to study your Hindustanee, and your Tamil, while
I experiment upon the value of analogical reasoning in my discussions
with your uncle. Now, Peyton, you see that child's mind has been for
nearly four years in an intellectual hotbed,--sunned in the light of
religion, moistened with the dew of philosophy, cultivated
systematically with the prongs and hoes of regular study, of example,
and precept; and, being a vigorous sprout when she was transplanted,
she has made good use of her opportunities, and, behold! early mental
salad, and very fine! You men theorize, ratiocinate, declaim,
dogmatize about abstract propositions, and finally get your feet
tangled and stumble over facts right under your noses, that women
would never fail to pick up and put aside. The soul of Thales
possesses you all, whereas we who sit at the cradle, and guide the
little tottering feet, study the ground and sweep away the
stumbling-blocks. Day after day you and Douglass discuss all kinds of
scientific theories, and quote pagan authorities and infidel systems
in the presence of Regina, who sits in her low chair over there in
the corner of the fireplace as quiet as a white mouse, listening to
every word, though 'Hans Christian Andersen' lies open on her lap,
and scarcely winking those blue eyes of hers, that are as solemn as
if they belonged to the Judges of Israel. If a child is raised in a
carpenter's shop, with all manner of sharp, dangerous often two-edged
tools scattered around in every direction, who wonders that the
little fingers are prematurely gashed and scarred? You and Douglass
imagine she is dreaming about the number of elves that dance on the
greensward on moonlight nights, or the spangles on their lace wings;
or that she is studying the latitude and longitude of the capital of
the last territory which Congress elevated to the uncertain and
tormenting dignity of nominal self-government, that once (_vide_
'obsolete civil hallucinations') inhered in an American State; or
perhaps you believe the child is longing for a pot of sugar candy?
Then rub your eyes, you ecclesiastical bats, and let me show you the
'outcome' of all this wise and learned chat, with which you edify one
another. You kn