She sat awhile in despair. Then she said with fresh access of
conviction: "This is what comes of so much science: it always tends
to make a man common in his social tastes. You need not smile at
me in that pitying way, for it is true: it destroys aristocratic
feeling; and there is more need of aristocratic feeling in a
democracy than anywhere else: because it is the only thing that can
be aristocratic. That is what science has done for Dent! And this
girl I--the public school has tried to make her uncommon, and the
Girl's College has attempted, to make her more uncommon; and now I
suppose she actually thinks she _is_ uncommon: otherwise she would
never have imagined that she could marry a son of mine. Smile on,
I know I amuse you! You think I am not abreast of the times. I am
glad I am not. I prefer my own. Dent should have studied for the
church--with his love of books, and his splendid mind, and his
grave, beautiful character. Then he would never have thought of
marrying beneath him socially; he would have realized that if he
did, he could never rise. Once in the church and with the right
kind of wife, he might some day have become a bishop: I have always
wanted a bishop in the family. But he set his heart upon a
professorship, and I suppose a professor does not have to be
particular about whom he marries."

"A professor has to be particular only to please himself--and the
woman. His choice is not regulated by salaries and congregations."

She returned to her point: "You breed fine cattle and fine sheep,
and you try to improve the strain of your setters. You know how
you do it. What right has Dent to injure his children in the race
for life by giving them an inferior mother? Are not children to be