15
Ah, you have much to learn, we can't know all at twenty,
You are a boy, as I said; when you grow a man, you'll say so.
This was the answer he had from the eager impetuous Hewson:
Yes, I say it now, I know I'm young; and know, too,
How the grown-up man puts-by the youthful instinct,
Learns to deal with the good, but what good is, discerns not;
Learns to handle the helm, but breaks the compass to steer by;
In the intuitive loses far more than his gain discursive;
Or, in the lingo you love, the lingo emphatic of Aldrich,
Gets up the form syllogistic, ignoring the premise and matter.
While he spoke, Adam rose, sat again, and dropping his eyelids
Bowed his face in his hands, and rested his hands on the table;
So for a minute he sat—the one first minute of silence;
Looked up at last, and laughed, and answered, speaking serenely,
Speaking serenely, but still with a moisture about the eyelids.
Truly, queer fellow is Hewson! for bidding him choose good only
Thus to upbraid me with years, chill years that are thick'ning to forty.
Nay, never talk! listen now! What I say you can't apprehend—
No, you are looking elsewhere. You will not ever, I fancy—
Till you ignore your premise, repairing the loss by a new one,
Till you discard your compass, if not for instruction in steering,
Yet to purchase a better and pay, I suppose, for the purchase.
So much in repartee—but let us return to the question.
Partly you rest on truth, old truth, the duty of Duty.
Partly on error, you long for equality.
Aye, cried the Piper,
That's the sore place, that confounded Egalité, French manufacture,
He is the same as the Chartist who made an address in Ireland,
What, and is not one man, fellow-men, as good as another?
Faith, replied Pat, and a deal better too!
So rattled the Piper:
But undisturbed in his tenor, the Tutor.
Partly in error
Seeking equality, is not one woman as good as another?
I with the Irishman answer Yes, better too; the poorer
Better full oft than richer, than loftier better the lower.
Irrespective of wealth and of poverty, pain and enjoyment,
Women all have their duties, the one as well as the other;
Are all duties alike? Do all alike fulfil them?
It is to these we must look, and in these we are not on a level;
