Beyond this, frankly, I don't
think well of her. I don't think well of any woman who dotes upon a
man younger than herself. To care to be the first fancy of a young
fellow like you shows no great common sense in her. If she were
worth her salt she would have too much pride to be intimate with a
youth in your unassured position, to say no worse. She is old
enough to know that a liaison with her may, and almost certainly
would, be your ruin; and, on the other hand, that a marriage would
be preposterous,--unless she is a complete goose, and in that case
there is even more reason for avoiding her than if she were in her
few senses.
'A woman of honourable feeling, nephew, would be careful to do
nothing to hinder you in your career, as this putting of herself in
your way most certainly will. Yet I hear that she professes a great
anxiety on this same future of yours as a physicist. The best way
in which she can show the reality of her anxiety is by leaving you
to yourself. Perhaps she persuades herself that she is doing you no
harm. Well, let her have the benefit of the possible belief; but
depend upon it that in truth she gives the lie to her conscience by
maintaining such a transparent fallacy. Women's brains are not
formed for assisting at any profound science: they lack the power
to see things except in the concrete.
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