.
Swithin St. Cleeve, don't make a fool of yourself, as your father did.
If your studies are to be worth anything, believe me they must be carried on
without the help of a woman. Avoid her, and every one of the sex, if you
mean to achieve any worthy thing. Eschew all of that sort for many a
year yet. Moreover, I say, the lady of your acquaintance avoid in
particular. . . . She has, in addition to her original disqualification
as a companion for you (that is, that of sex), these two special
drawbacks: she is much older than yourself--' Lady Constantine's indignant flush forsook her, and pale despair
succeeded in its stead. Alas, it was true. Handsome, and in her prime,
she might be; but she was too old for Swithin!
'And she is so impoverished. . . . 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 more.' (Viviette's face by this time
tingled hot again.) '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 fool; 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.' Leaving him to himself! She paled again, as if chilled by a conviction that in this the old man was right.
'She'll blab your most secret plans and theories to every one of her
acquaintance, and make you appear ridiculous by announcing them before
they are matured. If you attempt to study with a woman, you'll be ruled
by her to entertain fancies instead of theories, air-castles instead of
intentions, qualms instead of opinions, sickly prepossessions instead of
reasoned conclusions. . . .
'An experienced woman waking a young man's passions just at a moment when
he is endeavouring to shine intellectually, is doing little less than
committing a crime.'