"Yes, I know. You men always find it so easy to say 'rubbish' to all
natural truths which you prefer not to discuss."

"Well, my dear Naomi, it seems to me that if you are to advocate
Schopenhauer, you must go the whole length with him. The fault is in
Nature, and you must accept it as inevitable, and not kick against
it."

"I don't kick against Nature--as you put it--I kick against
civilization, which makes laws regardless of Nature, which
deliberately shuts its eyes to all natural truths in regard to the
relations of men to women,--and is therefore forced to continually
wink to avoid confessing its folly."

"Civilization seems to me to have done the best it could with a very
difficult problem. It has not actually allowed different codes of
morals to men and women, and it may have had to wink on that account.
Right there, in your Schopenhauer, you have a primal reason, that is,
if you chose to follow your philosopher to the extent of actually
believing that Nature has deliberately, from the beginning, protected
women against that sin of which so much is made, and to which she has,
as deliberately, for economic reasons of her own, tempted men."

"I do believe it, truly."

"You are no more charitable toward my sex than most women are. Yet
neither your teacher nor you may be right. A theoretic arguer like
Schopenhauer makes good enough reading for calm minds, but he is bad
for an emotional temperament, and, by Jove, Naomi, he was a bad
example of his own philosophy."