Mrs. Scamler,’ she said, ‘do you study French, ma'am?’ ‘I…

““Mrs. Scamler,’ she said, ‘do you study French, ma'am?’ ‘I do, indeed,’ I said; ‘two hours a day.’ ‘Then, ma’am,’ she says, ‘we call upon you to give it up.’ ‘Give it up!’ I said. ‘Why should I give up what your daughter does?’ for I knew her daughter learnt French at school. ‘Because, ma’am,’ she said, ‘it can’t be for no good end, and if it were people wouldn’t believe it. My daughter learns French at school. But what for? Because it’s an accomplishment that all girls have. They take it like the measles and the chickenpox; but do you suppose they go on having it after they’re done school? No; and if a grown woman takes the measles, it’s bad on her; and if a widow takes to learning French we know what that means.’ ‘It’s a very immoral language,’ said the school-masters wife, for she hadn’t paid the butcher’s bill for six months, as I happened to know. ‘Shocking,’ said the chemist’s wife. ‘I knew a woman who read French, and she ran away from her husband, and died of consumption. For it’s in the language. My husband says its rotten and corrupt, and he ought to know, being a chemist by examination. Mrs. Scamler, you need a pill or a draught or something, for I declare you look quite dissolute already.’ And me only beginning irregular verbs!””

— John Davidson