Also, you are to dress as many other people as you can; and to
teach them how to dress, if they don't know; and to consider every
ill-dressed woman or child whom you see anywhere, as a personal
disgrace; and to get at them, somehow, until everybody is as
beautifully dressed as birds.
(Silence; the children drawing their breaths hard, as if they had
come from under a shower bath.)
L. (seeing objections begin to express themselves in the eyes).
Now you needn't say you can't; for you can, and it's what you were
meant to do, always; and to dress your houses, and your gardens,
too; and to do very little else, I believe, except singing; and
dancing, as we said, of course and--one thing more.
DORA. Our third and last virtue, I suppose?
L. Yes; on Violet's system of triplicities.
DORA. Well, we are prepared for anything now. What is it?
L. Cooking.
DORA. Cardinal, indeed! If only Beatrice were here with her seven
handmaids, that she might see what a fine eighth we had found for
her!
MARY. And the interpretation? What does "cooking" mean?
L. It means the knowledge of Medea, and of Circe, and of Calypso,
and of Helen, and of Rebekah, and of the Queen of Sheba. It means
the knowledge of all herbs, and fruits, and balms, and spices; and
of all that is healing and sweet in fields and groves, and savory
in meats, it means carefulness, and inventiveness, and
watchfulness, and willingness, and readiness of appliance, it
means the economy of your great-grandmothers, and the science of
modern chemists; it means much tasting, and no wasting, it means
English thoroughness, and French art, and Arabian hospitality, and
it means, in fine, that you are to be perfectly and always
"ladies"--"loaf-givers;" and, as you are to see, imperatively,
that everybody has something pretty to put on,--so you are to see,
yet more imperatively, that everybody has something nice to eat.
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