Page:Maud Howe - A Newport Aquarelle.djvu/95

 "It is hardly an effort to follow the dictates of one's nature, Miss Carleton."

"And you imply exactly what?"

"That the love of conquest is fixed in the feminine character. It is the old fable of the knight and the witch. The love of power is the answer to the feminine riddle."

"I really ought to be angry at your impertinence, I suppose. But a soft answer turneth away wrath. I will rather try to convince you of the error of your ways. Women are by nature sympathetic. That natural sympathy of temperament is touched not only on the emotional side, but also on the intellectual. They have thinking-machines which are for the most part kept quite idle,—without 'feed,' to use a mechanical simile. The new thoughts which a man may bring them quickly set the thinking-machine in motion, and it eagerly draws the 'feed' into its interior. Your hobby is to another man who has a stable full of his own, a bore and a nuisance; to a woman who is hobbyless, it is