He sunk right back in his chair, put his hand wildly to his brow and exclaimed,
“My soul aches, I thought I had found a congenial spirit, but I am decieved, my breast aches, and siths, and pants.” He looked so awful distressed, that I didn’t know what did ail him, and I looked pityin’ on him from over my spectacles and I says to him jest as I would to our Thomas Jefferson,
“Vest!” he repeated in wild tones, “would I had no worse trammels than store clothes, but it is the fate of reformers to be misunderstood. Woman the pain is deeper and it is a gnawin’ me.”
His eyes was kinder rolled, and he looked so wilted and uncomfortable, that I says to him in still more pityin’ accents,
“Haint you got wind on your stummuck, for if you have, peppermint essence is the best stuff you can take, and I will get you some.”
“Wind!” he almost shouted, “wind! no, it is not wind,” he spoke so deleriously that he almost skairt me, but I kep’ up my placid demeaner, and kep’ on knittin’.
“Wimmen,” said he, “I would right the wrongs of your sect if I could. I bear in my heart the woes and pains of all the aching female hearts of the 19 centurys.”
My knittin’ dropped into my lap, and I looked up at him in surprise, and I says to him respectfully,
“No wonder you groan and sithe, it must hurt awfully.”
“It does hurt,” says he, “but it hurts a sensitive spirit worse to have it mistook for wind.”
He see my softened face, and he took advantage of it, and went on.
“Woman, you have been married, you say, goin’ on 15 years; hain’t you never felt slavish in that time, and felt that you would gladly unbind yourself?”
“Never!” says I firmly, “never! I don’t want to be unbound.”
“Hain’t you never had longings, and yearnings to be free?”
“Not a yearn,” says I calmly, “not a yearn. If I had wanted to remain free I shouldn’t have give my heart and hand to Josiah Allen. I didn’t do it deleriously, I had my senses.” Says I, “you can’t set down and stand up at the same time, each situation has its advantages, but you can’t be in both places at once, and this tryin’ to, is what makes so much trouble amongst men and wimmen. They want the rights and advantages of both stations to once--they want to set down and stand up at the same time, and it can’t be did. Men and wimmen hain’t married at the pint of the bayonet, they go into it with both their eyes open. If anybody thinks they are happier, and freer from care without bein’ married, nobody compels ’em to be married, but if they are, they hadn’t ought to want to be married and single at the same time, it is onreasonable.”