When a hide-bound, moss-grown bigot begets doubts and then removes
them, he is like a bull in a china shop and wants to break everything
in sight, not through an innate love of destruction, but because he
has lost his rope and is too delirious to find the corral. This
throwing overboard of Adam so suddenly and without any recently
discovered evidence upon his personality or lack of it, comes in the
nature of a shock. The act has been perpetrated after the fashion of
Captain Kidd in his worst days. It shows a complete lack of even a
faint acquaintance with the small amenities that help to smooth the
ruts in social intercourse to not only order a personage of Adam's
standing and reputation to "walk the plank," but to push him off.
Besides, it shows an utter disregard for the feelings of that large
body of people who do not think, to wipe out, at one fell wipe, the
whole scheme of creation without substituting another. If there were
no Adam there could not have been a Garden of Eden or an Eve. And what
about the Apple and the Serpent and a lot of other picturesque
details? Personally, I intend to stick to my belief in Adam, not
because I ever had a high opinion of him, but because I have met a
number of men who remind me of him--men who always throw the blame on
the woman; also because I have seen several spots that would make an
admirable Eden. Besides, there is something in the story of what
happened in the Garden that rings true; not that all women would adopt
Eve's bold method, but much may be forgiven a woman who had no mother
or maiden aunt to play duenna, and who lived before either was
fashionable, or, according to the story, necessary.
* * * * *