together one's scattered impressions and
communicate them to some sympathetic being. The abbe, then, would break
the same lances as myself with my uncle and cousin. The chevalier, who
was an ardent admirer of the fair sex, of which he had had but little
experience, used to take upon himself, like a true French knight, to
defend all the beauties that we were attacking so unmercifully. He would
laughingly accuse the abbe of arguing about women as the fox in the
fable argued about the grapes. For myself, I used to improve under the
abbe's criticisms; this was an emphatic way of letting Edmee know how
much I preferred her to all others. She, however, appeared to be more
scandalized than flattered, and seriously reproved me for the tendency
to malevolence which had its origin, she said, in my inordinate pride.

It is true that after generously undertaking the defence of the persons
in question, she would come over to our opinion as soon as, Rousseau in
hand, we told her that the women in Paris society had cavalier manners
and a way of looking a man in the face which must needs be intolerable
in the eyes of a sage. When once Rousseau had delivered judgment,
Edmee would object no further; she was ready to admit with him that the
greatest charm of a woman is the intelligent and modest attention she
gives to serious discussions, and I always used to remind her of the
comparison of a superior woman to a beautiful child with its great eyes
full of feeling and sweetness and delicacy, with its shy questionings
and its objections full of sense. I hoped that she would recognise
herself in this portrait upon the text, and, enlarging the portrait:

"A really superior woman," I said, looking at her earnestly, "is one
who knows enough to prevent her from asking a ridiculous or unseasonable
question, or from ever measuring swords with men of merit. Such a woman
knows when to be silent, especially with the fools whom she could laugh
at, or the ignorant whom she could humiliate. She is indulgent towards
absurdities because she does not yearn to display her knowledge, and
she is observant of whatsoever is good, because she desires to improve
herself. Her great object is to understand, not to instruct. The great
art (since it is recognised that art is required even in the commerce of
words) is not to pit against one another two arrogant opponents,
eager to parade their learning and to amuse the company by discussing
questions the solution of