Oh, what a falling-off is here! I have
heard you wish to be something more than an independent unit of which
no account need be taken. How can we, any of us, say we owe nothing to
society, when we owe every pleasure in life to it? Do we owe nothing to
those who have gone before, and whom we have to thank for the music,
the painting, the poetry, and all the arts which would leave a big
blank in _your_ life, Ideala, if they ceased to exist? You would
have been a mere savage now, without refinement enough to appreciate
that rose at your waistbelt, but for the labour and self-denial which
the hundreds and thousands who lived, and loved, and suffered in order
to make you what you are have bestowed on you, and on all of us. You
would not say, if you thought a moment, that society had done nothing
for you; and no one can honestly think that they owe it nothing in
return. It seems to me that a rigid observance of the laws which hold
society together, and make life possible for all of us, and pleasant
for some, is the least we can do; and do you know, Ideala, when a woman
ever thinks of doing what you propose to do, she has already gone down
to a low depth--of ingratitude, if of nothing else.
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