I think Mrs. Malise is a good deal drawn toward me for two or three reasons. She has found out that I've been an artist--lived by myself, had my studio, paid my way--and she accordingly respects me as a member of the sisterhood who's at least tried to do something. Then I agree far too closely with St. Paul, and she "don't altogether hold with Paul," and wants to convert me to whatever form of kaleidoscopic non-belief she cherishes. Then I'm too luke-warm about the suffrage. I admit that I see no reason why I shouldn't have it, but I don't and can't see in my having it the panacea for all social ills. I'm asked what I think of Hodge in England, and Terence and Scip in the United States getting rights withheld educated women citizens; and I can only plead pitifully that while Hodge and Terence and Scip are ignorant and boorish, I, having already roughed it a good deal, would rather individually not contest anything very closely with them--a plea which is most justly scouted as a mere get-off--a bit of heartless fine-ladyism. Have I read Mill? No. From the time my school days ended, at seventeen, for ten--no, twelve years, until I married, two years ago, I had neither time nor eyes for reading. Why, I could almost count upon my fingers the books I had read--"after school-books, of course, and then some anatomical reading which don't count; there's--let me see--'The Improvisatore,' Vasari's 'Lives of Painters,' 'Charles Auchester,' Rio's 'Lectures on Christian Art,' 'Christie Johnstone,' 'La Mare au Diable,' two or three of Balzac's novels, and all of poetry and of Ruskin I could ever lay hands on!" She looked astonished for a moment; then her face brightened. "Here's richness!" I'm sure her thought might have been translated. "Here's a virgin soil with nothing to dispute the growth of good seed." And I feel I'm to be taken in hand. I'm quite ready. It is even something to look forward to in the horrible London winter. She told me "little Malaise" is to be brought up after the most recently approved scientific manner, by weight, measure, and clockwork. His birth, even, was a triumph of principle, for on that occasion Mrs. Malise was attended by a young woman who had been unsuccessful in her medical studies, and failed to obtain her degree--"Because I believed it jealousy, you know, and I wished to encourage her!" When he is three or four years old (certainly as early as they take them!) he is to be put in the kindergarten at Geneva, and left there for some years. It's a consolation to think that he can't be anywhere more desolate than he's sure to be at home. Meanwhile, work for papa and mamma, and bouts of colic for him, poor little chap!