"No: you mean I don't spend the morning in looking in the glass and talking evil of my neighbours; I don't scream when I see a beetle, or go into convulsions because there's a mouse in the room. I've got two legs, very good legs, Aunt Horsingham--shall I show you them?--and I like to use them, and to be out of doors amongst the trees and the grass and the daisies, instead of counting stitches for work that nobody wants or writing letters that nobody reads. I had rather give Brilliant a good 'bucketing' (Aunt Horsingham shuddered; I knew she would, and used the word on purpose) over an open heath or a line of grass than go bodkin in a chariot, seven miles an hour, and both windows up. Thank you, Aunt Horsingham; you would like to make a fine lady of me--a useless, sickly, lackadaisical being instead of a healthy, active, light-hearted woman. Much obliged to you; I had rather stay as I am."
"Miss Coventry," said my aunt, who was completely posed by my volubility, and apparently shocked beyond the power of expression at my opinions--"Miss Coventry," she repeated, "if these are indeed your sentiments, I must beg--nay, I must insist--on your keeping them to yourself whilst under _this_ roof.--Amelia, my dear" (to my cousin, who was gliding quietly into the room)--"Amelia, go back to your music for ten minutes.--I must insist, Miss Coventry, that you do not inoculate _my_ daughter with these pernicious doctrines--this mistaken view of the whole duties and essentials of your sex. Do you think _men_ appreciate a woman who, if she had but a beard, would be exactly like one of themselves? Do you think they like to see their ideal hot and dishevelled, plastered with mud, and draggled with wet? Do you think they wish her to be strong and independent of them, and perhaps their superior at those very sports and exercises on which they plume themselves? Do you think they are to be taken by storm, and, so to speak, bullied into admiration? You're wrong, Kate, you're wrong; and I believe I am equally wrong to talk to you in this strain, inasmuch as the admiration of the other sex ought to be the last thing coveted or thought of by a young person of yours."
"I'm sure, aunt, I don't want the men to admire me," I replied; "but I would not give much for the admiration of one who could be jealous of me for so paltry a cause as my riding better than himself; and as for ideals, I don't know much about such things, but I think a man's ideal may do pretty well what she likes, and he is sure to think everything she _does_ do is perfect. Besides, I don't see why I should _bully_ him into liking me because I'm fond of the beautiful 'out of doors' instead of the fireside. And courageous women, like courageous men, are generally a deal more gentle than the timid ones. I've known ladies who would not venture into a carriage or a boat who could wage a war of words bitterer than the veriest trooper would have at his command; and I've heard Cousin John say that there is scarcely an instance of a veritable heroine in history, from Joan of Arc downwards, who was not in her private life as sweet, as gentle, and as womanly as she was high-couraged and undaunted when the moment came that summoned her energies to the encounter. Unselfishness is the cause in both cases, you may depend. People that are always so dreadfully afraid something is going to happen to them think a great deal more of self than anything else; and the same cause which makes them tremble at imaginary danger for their own sakes will make them forgetful of real sufferings in which they themselves have no share. I had rather be a hoyden, Aunt Horsingham, and go on in my own way. I have much more enjoyment; and, upon my word, I don't think I'm one bit a worse member of society than if I was the most delicate fine lady that ever fainted away at the overpowering smell of a rose leaf or the merry peal of a noisy child's laugh."