Page:My Dear Cornelia (1924).pdf/138

 make war against the first cigarette of his wife or daughter."

"You are merely talking for argument. I hate you when you do that. You get so far away from me that I can't talk with you."

"No," I insisted, "I am not talking for argument. I am pleading in behalf of your sex, for equality of access to the good things of life, whatever we may finally decide are the good things. I am pleading for a little moral justice toward your sex, and for the necessity, if there is to be justice, of a little discrimination. You don't seem to discriminate at all among your 'modern' girls. It simply isn't true that they are all discussing suppressed novels and illicit love affairs. Many of them are far more interested in horseback riding, duck-shooting, hockey, golf, or hiking to Yellowstone Park. I am not sure what our girls are going to get out of their political activities; but I know what they are going to get out of their athletic activities. I am an uncompromising and enthusiastic adherent of athletic life for women—not Country Club women alone, but all women."

"I approve of women exercising," assented Cornelia, "if it can be done in a nice way. I don't care for Marathon runners and champion