Josephine gave a little laugh. "You say the masculine laughter of the world. I assure you that much of the masculine laughter which you associate with the fruit of the grape is associated in the feminine mind with conjugal or maternal tears. I quite understand your appeal to the imagination from the masculine point of view. That is, I suppose the words wine and tobacco bring in their train for man many pleasing and even inspiriting images; that under their influence the soldier believes himself more brave and wins battles in anticipation; that the artist gets a glimpse of his great picture, and that the tired husband and father sees evolve from the bottom of his beer-mug a transfigured reflection of his wife and children. But we women, who, as a sex, have always done without wine and tobacco, know from experience that, however lofty and delightful your visions at such times, there is always a reaction after alcohol, and that we generally get the full benefit of the reaction. If, now, inspiring visions never came to us and other total-abstainers, there would seem to be some reason why we should be willing to bear the brunt of man's inebrieties a little longer; but really, my dear philosopher, is there any reason to believe that we do not entertain visions quite as inspiring and delightful as yours? We drink only tea--too much of it for our nerves, I dare say--but we will gladly give that up if you will abjure alcohol and cigars. There certainly is no poetry in the aroma of tobacco in the curtains, next day, and we pass the morning with it when you have gone down-town. Don't you think there is a great deal of humbug in the notion that in order to laugh lightly and remember gladly men need to be titillated either by wine or tobacco? I'm glad you wouldn't allow that bumptious clergyman to ride in a first-class car, but I don't see why the world should not be just as gay, and many women twice as happy, if there were no wine or tobacco. Only think how light-hearted woman would be if the incubus of man's drunkenness, under which she has staggered for hundreds of years, should be lifted off forever! She would be so bubbling over with happiness that, even though as a consequence man were in the dumps and without visions, she would make him merry in spite of himself."