MYSELF: The exchanges we have had on this subject have been vigorous, certainly, my dear, and enchanting, made so by all the radiant freshness and charm of your fair youthful mind. And your reasoning thus far has been full of felicity. But you have also shown, as indeed is fitting for these early stages of learning, an enthusiasm that would profit from further reflection.
Startled, she pulled her garment closer to her until it covered her again, draping over her body in a most delightful way, revealing nothing that was but suggestive of all that had been and that might be again.
SHE: I do not understand you.
MYSELF: To perceive is to feel. From the course of our studies, we have inferred this fact to our satisfaction, time and again. You have mastered this proposition, haven't you?
SHE: As you can easily surmise from my actions, even at this moment, I have indeed mastered this agreeable proposition.
MYSELF: Yes, I find you are able to demonstrate the truth of your statement and the proof of your mastery in a stirring fashion. But let us pause here for a moment to reflect further.
I sat up and moved to the foot of the bed, where I found I could think with greater clarity, and I resumed speaking.
MYSELF: To perceive is to feel. But to compare is to judge. To judge and to feel are not the same. The time has come in your education, I believe, for us to turn our attention to comparison. Now, according to Rousseau, I may have at the same moment an idea of a big stick and a little stick without comparing them.
SHE: I will attempt to entertain such an idea [she closed her eyes].
MYSELF: I may have at the same moment an idea of a big stick and a little stick without judging that one is less than the other.
SHE: Does this really strike you as reasonable? I hold the ideas in my mind now. But I discover it is somewhat difficult to refrain from judgment, as I find myself quite partial to the big stick.
MYSELF: Yes. Indeed. But here is the point. Big, little—though my mind only produces these comparative ideas when sensations occur, these comparative ideas are not themselves sensations.
My pupil, and so the lesson, momentarily took a slightly different direction as she again sought to complement her contemplation of the big and little stick by seeking a more direct and empirical approach, and sensations did indeed begin to occur with remarkable rapidity and diversity.
But I, determined to continue the new portion of our lesson, insisted we move ahead.
MYSELF: If the judgment were merely a sensation, my judgment would never be mistaken, for it is never untrue that I feel what I feel.
SHE: And I feel what I feel.
MYSELF: But often my understanding, which judges of relations, mingles its own errors with the truth of sensations, which only reveal to me things.
SHE: I confess I am experiencing the truth of sensations. But, too, I understand that sensation is not judgment. And so, if judgment is comparison, then—
MYSELF: Then let us compare!
The rest of the lesson involved some refreshing experimentation with different objects, for the sake of comparison, and after a time my increasingly brilliant young student seemed to begin to comprehend my teachings in a way that allowed me to consider that this difficult lecture had been well worth my trouble.
Margaret had been sitting with the dust in the library examining this passage and comparing it to the sections of Rousseau's émile and Helvétius's A Treatise on Man from which it had been concocted. As she read, she felt herself becoming increasingly uncomfortable. It's only eighteenth-century empiricism, she told herself. Discredited, limited, old empiricism. But somehow, these familiar ideas from the past loomed suddenly, strangely, large and threatening.
Margaret had carefully, and she thought rather deftly, made a life for herself which minimized the need for comparison and choice. Comparison meant confusion, chaos. One sought certainty in life. But now it seemed one was meant to seek certainty through comparison. Did that mean there was no certainty in her life? In her marriage to Edward? For if judgment was comparison, why did she think she was happy with Edward? How did she know? How could she judge?
She sat on the couch beside Lily. Edward sat on the chair. Pepe, who had come with Lily, as he often did, sat moodily atop the dining room table eating the last of the lettuce out of the large salad bowl, which he held on his lap.
"Dinner was so divinely ladies mag," said Lily.
"Edward made it," Margaret said. Ladies had nothing on him. Perhaps there should be Edward mags. Body Electric and Ode and Edward's Home Journal.
"Pepe, get down," Lily said. "You're spoiling the bourgeois ambiance."
Pepe impassively raised his eyebrows and stayed where he was.