town like Sutton. She is quite different from her husband; he couldn't
pass his examinations; he had been obliged to leave. ... What made
them marry?

'I don't know anything about Comte--I wish I did; it is so dreadful to
be ignorant. I never felt my ignorance before, but that little woman
does make me feel it, not that she intrudes her learning on any one; I
wish she did, for I want to learn. I wish I could remember what she
told me: that all knowledge passes through three states: the
theological, the--the--metaphysical, and the scientific. We are
religious when we are children, metaphysical when we are one-and-
twenty, and as we get old we grow scientific. And I must not forget
this, that what is true for the individual is true for the race. In
the earliest ages man was religious (I wonder what our vicar would say
if he heard this). In the Middle Ages man was metaphysical, and in
these latter days he is growing scientific.

'The other day when I came into the drawing-room she didn't say a
word. I waited and waited to see if she would speak--no, not a word.
She sat reading. Occasionally she would look up, stare at the ceiling,
and then take a note. I wonder what she put down on that slip of
paper? But when I spoke she seemed glad to talk, and she told me about
Oxford. It evidently was the pleasantest time of her life. It must
have been very curious. There were a hundred girls, and they used to
run in and out of each other's rooms, and they had dances; they danced
with each other, and never thought about men. She told me she never
enjoyed any dances so much as those; and they had a gymnasium, and
special clothes to wear there--a sort of bloomer costume. It must have
been very jolly. I wish I had gone to Oxford. Girls dancing together,
and never thinking about men. How nice!