rly maintain? Ought you not to act more like
reflective creatures and less like brutes? As if breeding were the whole
object of life! How much better for you, my friend, if you had never
married at all, than to have had the worry of a wife and children all
these years.

The philosopher had gone too far. There were some angry murmurs among
the women and Ginx's face grew dark. He was thinking of "all those
years" and the poor creature that from morning to night and Sunday to
Sunday, in calm and storm, had clung to his rough affections: and the
bright eyes, and the winding arms so often trellised over his tremendous
form, and the coy tricks and laughter that had cheered so many tired
hours. He may have been much of a brute, but he felt that, after
all, that sort of thing was denied to dogs and pigs. Before he could
translate his thoughts into words or acts a shrewd-looking, curly-haired
stonemason, who stood by with his tin on his arm, cut into the
discussion.

STONEMASON. Your doctrines won't go down here, Mr. Philosopher. I've
'eard of them before. I'd just like to ask you what a man's to do and
what a woman's to do if they don't marry: and if they do, how can you
honestly hinder them from having any children?

The stonemason had rudely struck out the cardinal issues of the
question.

PHILOSOPHER. Well, to take the last point first, there are physical and
ethical questions involved in it, which it is hard to discuss before
such an audience as this.

STONEMASON. But you must discuss 'em, if you wish us to change our ways,
and stop breeding.

PHILOSOPHER. Very well: perhaps you are right. But, again, I should
first have to establish a basis for my arguments, by showing that the
conception of marriage entertained by you all is a low one. It is not
simply a breeding matter. The beauty and value of the relation lies
in its educational effects--the cultivation of mutual sentiments and
refinements of great importance to a community.

STONEMASON. Ay! Very beautiful and refining to Mr. and Mrs. Philosopher,
but I'd like to know where the country would have been if our fathers
had held to that view of matrimony? Why, ain't it in natur' for all
beings to pair, and have young? an' you say we ain't to do it! I think a
statesman ought to make something out of what's nateral to human beings,
and not try to change their naturs. Besides, ain't there good of another
kind to be got out of the relation of parents and children? Did