nk of
talking, it is of course with a woman. For talking at its best being an
inspiration, it wants a corresponding divine quality of receptiveness;
and where will you find this but in woman?

The Master laughed a pleasant little laugh,--not a harsh, sarcastic one,
but playful, and tempered by so kind a look that it seemed as if every
wrinkled line about his old eyes repeated, "God bless you," as the
tracings on the walls of the Alhambra repeat a sentence of the Koran.

I said nothing, but looked the question, What are you laughing at?

--Why, I laughed because I couldn't help saying to myself that a woman
whose mind was taken up with thinking how she looked, and how her pretty
neighbor looked, wouldn't have a great deal of thought to spare for all
your fine discourse.

--Come, now,--said I,--a man who contradicts himself in the course of two
minutes must have a screw loose in his mental machinery. I never feel
afraid that such a thing can happen to me, though it happens often enough
when I turn a thought over suddenly, as you did that five-cent piece the
other day, that it reads differently on its two sides. What I meant to
say is something like this. A woman, notwithstanding she is the best of
listeners, knows her business, and it is a woman's business to please. I
don't say that it is not her business to vote, but I do say that a woman
who does not please is a false note in the harmonies of nature. She may
not have youth, or beauty, or even manner; but she must have something in
her voice or expression, or both, which it makes you feel better disposed
towards your race to look at or listen to. She knows that as well as we
do; and her first question after you have been talking your soul into her
consciousness is, Did I please? A woman never forgets her sex. She
would rather talk with a man than an angel, any day.

--This frightful speech of mine reached the ear of our Scheherezade, who
said that it was perfectly shocking and that I deserved to be shown up as
the outlaw in one of her bandit stories.

Hush, my dear,--said the Lady,--you will have to bring John Milton into
your story with our friend there, if you punish everybody who says
naughty things like that. Send the little boy up to my chamber for
Paradise Lost, if you please. He will find it lying on my table. The
little old volume,--he can't mistake it.

So the girl called That Boy round and gave him the message; I don't know
why she should giv