Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 21, 1892

MORE THAN SATISFIED!

(WITH MR. PUNCH'S APOLOGIES TO THE DAILY TELEGRAPH'S "ACADEMIC ENTHUSIAST.")

"She-Pantaloons? seedy? Now, do we look like it?"

The speaker was a tall, robust maiden with fair hair; on her knee was an edition (without notes) of the Anabasis of Xenophon, and by her side was Liddell and Scott's Lexicon, in which she had just been 21 tracking an exceptionally difficult--but, let me hasten to add, a perfectly regular--Greek verb to its lair. There were a considerable number of roseate specimens of English womanhood in the library of Girnham College, where, with some natural diffidence, I had ventured to put the rather delicate question to which I received the above reply.

For I had been much troubled in my soul about Sir JAMES CRICHTON BROWNE's recent deliverances with regard to the injurious physical effect of the Higher Education upon women, and, as a devoted--if hitherto unappreciated--admirer of the Fair Sex, I felt I had a theoretical interest in the question, and was bound to verify Dr. BROWNE's views. The most obvious way of satisfying my anxiety was to go to Girnham myself and ask the lady students what they thought about it, and so I did.

"I quite agree," I said, mildly, as I unwound my comforter, "that your course of studies seems to suit you remarkably well. Quite a bevy of female admirable CRICHT--!"

The effect was immediate; an unmistakable rush of lexicons--or were they Todhunters?--hurtled around my devoted head from the fair hands of disturbed and ruffled girlhood.

"Pray don't mention that person again!" said my fair-haired interlocutor, and I thought I wouldn't.

"Well, but," I began, with heroic daring, as I laid aside my respirator, "as to weak chests now?"

I was interrupted by a paroxysm of coughing, which I tried to explain, as my young friends thumped my back with unnecessary zeal, was, owing to my having imprudently ventured out without my chest-protector. As soon as I was able, I feebly hazarded the suggestion that, for growing girls, the habit of stooping over their books seemed calculated to induce weakness in the lungs--but their roars of merriment at the idea instantly convinced me that any uneasiness on this score was entirely superfluous.

"You certainly all look remarkably well," I observed, genially, "particularly sunburnt and brow--"

Here there was a roar of quite another kind. I endeavoured to protest, as I got behind an arm-chair and dodged a Differential Calculus and a large glass inkstand, that I hadn't meant to allude to the obnoxious Physician at all, but had merely intended to convey my hearty admir--

"I know what you're going to say!" interrupted the fair-haired girl, vivaciously. "And you had better not."

As she spoke, she raised me from my seat by the coat-collar with no apparent effort, and deposited me on the top of a tall bookcase, from which I found myself compelled to prosecute my inquiries.

"Nature has been very bountiful to you--very much so, I am sure," I murmured, blinking amiably down upon them through the spectacles I wear to correct a slight tendency to strabismus. "Still, don't you--er--find that your eyes--"

I got no further; I thought some of them would have died!

"How about the effect of learning on your looks, now?" I next inquired. "Is it true that classical and mathematical pursuits are apt to exercise a disfiguring effect? Not that, with such blooming faces as I see around me--er--if you will allow me to say so--"

But they wouldn't; on the contrary, I was given to understand, somewhat plainly, that compliments were perhaps ill-advised in that gathering.

"Are you--hem--fond of athletics?" was the question I put next from my lofty perch. "Do you go in for games at all, now?"

"Of course we do!" said the fair-haired girl, affording a practical demonstration of the fact by taking me down and proceeding with her lively companions to engage in the old classical game of pila or [Greek: sphairistikae], the recreation in which Ulysses long ago found Nausicaa engaged with her maidens. On this occasion, however, I represented the pila, or ball, and although, in justice to their accuracy of eye and hand, I am bound to admit that I was seldom allowed to touch the ground as I sped swiftly from one to the other, still I felt considerable relief when, on my urgent protestations that I was fully convinced of their proficiency in this amusement, they were prevailed upon to bring this pastime to a close.

"We are breaking the rule of silence in this room," said the fair-haired one. "And you do ask such a lot of questions! But, as you seem curious about our athletic pursuits, come and I will try to show you."

I crawled after my guide without a word, inwardly reflecting that I was sorry I had spoken, and heartily cursing (though without pronouncing it aloud) the very name of that eminent Physician, Dr. CRICHTON BROWNE. She took me first of all to a field where a bevy of maidens were engaged in a game of hockey.

"We are keen on hockey," said my guide, and, as she spoke, a girl, flushed and radiant, caught me across the most sensitive part of the shin with a hockey-stick. No need to ask her if she felt well. I limped away, and, in another part of the field, saw a comely and robust maiden practising drop-kicks, utterly regardless of the fact that I was looking on. I received the football in the pit of my stomach, and the name of CRICHTON BROWNE died on my lips.

My guide smiled as she saw that I had taken in the scene that was being enacted under my very nose.

"Do you play cricket?" she asked, with something like pity in her eyes. I did _not_--but I was by this time in such condign fear of this young Amazon that I was really afraid to admit my total ignorance of the sport. She made me wicket-keep for her, without pads, for an entire hour, at the end of which I readily assented to an invitation for further exploration.

We went through endless passages to an endless gymnasium, and every now and then I came across an Indian club or a dumb-bell, wielded by energetic female athletes. I should have liked to ask them whether they felt well, but I realised--only just in time--that the question would have been an impertinence.

"Are you getting satisfied?" said my unwearied guide, with another of her smiles, "or, do you still think we are a puny misshapen race?"

"Quite satisfied!" I replied, faintly, as I endeavoured to unclose a rapidly discolouring eye, "in fact, I begin to discredit that alarmist cry--"

Before I could complete the sentence, I found myself executing an involuntary parabola over some adjacent parallel bars. My young friend's brows had contracted into a frown, although she waited politely for me to pick myself up.

"I thought we agreed not to mention that name!" she said, coldly.

I felt that any attempt to explain my innocence would be received with quiet scorn. "I--I should like to ask you just one thing more," I said, desperately, as I lay on my back, "I am really entirely converted--quite ashamed. I do hope you won't think me--er--inquisitive--but I have been so often told--it has been so constantly asserted--" I found myself bungling horribly in my desire not to offend.

"Pray go on," she said, "we try to be simple and sincere, and we are always ready to satisfy an intelligent inquirer."

"Well," I said, desperately, "people do say that you all wear--er--blue stockings. But I am sure," I added quickly, "that it is not true" ...

It was too late. When the friend who had smuggled me into the building came to my rescue, he asked me, rather noisily, "if I was feeling well?" I replied that I was not, and that I did not think I ever should again. And I never have.