"Oh!" says she, and she dropped her bunnet-strings and clasped her
long bony hands together in her brown cotton gloves. "Oh, we ahdent
soles of genious have feelin's you cold, practical natures know
nuthing of, and if they did not gush out in poetry we should expiah.
You may as well try to tie up the gushing catarack of Niagarah with a
piece of welting-cord as to tie up the feelin's of an ahdent sole."
"Ardent sole!" says I coldly. "Which makes the most noise, Betsey
Bobbet, a three-inch brook or a ten-footer? which is the tearer?
which is the roarer? Deep waters run stillest. I have no faith in
feelin's that stalk round in public in mournin' weeds. I have no
faith in such mourners," says I.
"Oh, Josiah's wife, cold, practical female being, you know me not; we
are sundered as fah apart as if you was sitting on the North Pole and
I was sitting on the South Pole. Uncongenial being, you know me not."
"I may not know you, Betsey Bobbet, but I do know decency, and I know
that no munny would tempt me to write such stuff as that poetry and
send it to a widower with twins."
"Oh!" says she, "what appeals to the tendah feelin' heart of a single
female woman more than to see a lonely man who has lost his relict?
And pity never seems so much like pity as when it is given to the
deah little children of widowehs. And," says she, "I think moah than
as likely as not, this soaring sole of genious did not wed his
affinity, but was united to a mere woman of clay."
"Mere woman of clay!" says I, fixin' my spektacles upon her in a most
searchin' manner. "Where will you find a woman, Betsey Bobbet, that
hain't more or less clay? And affinity, that is the meanest word I
ever heard; no married woman has any right to hear it. I'll excuse
you, bein' a female; but if a man had said it to me I'd holler to
Josiah. There is a time for everything, and the time to hunt affinity
is before you are married; married folks hain't no right to hunt it,"
says I sternly.
"We kindred soles soah above such petty feelin's--we soah far above
them."
"I hain't much of a soarer," says I, "and I don't pretend to be; and
to tell you the truth," says I, "I am glad I ain't."
"The editah of the _Augah_" says she, and she grasped the paper
offen the stand, and folded it up, and presented it at me like a
spear, "the editah of this paper is a kindred sole: he appreciates
me, he undahstands me, and will not our names in the pages of this
very papah go down to posterety togathah?"
"Then," says I, drove out of all patience with her, "I wish you was
there now, both of you. I wish," says I, lookin' fixedly on her, "I
wish you was both of you in posterity now."