"Has she not beauty, grace, wit, sense, discretion, dexterity, learning, and valour ?" "Learning!" exclaimed the little friar; "what has a woman to do with learning?
And valour! who ever heard a woman commended for valour?
Meekness and mildness, and softness, and gentleness, and tenderness, and humility, and obedience to her husband, and faith in her confessor, and domesticity, or, as learned doctors call it, the faculty of stayathomeitiveness, and embroidery, and music, and pickling, and preserving, and the whole complex and multiplex detail of the noble science of dinner, as well in preparation for the table, as in arrangement over it, and in distribution around it to knights, and squires, and ghostly friars,--these are female virtues: but valour--why who ever heard---- ?" "She is the all in all," said brother Michael, "gentle as a ring-dove, yet high-soaring as a falcon: humble below her deserving, yet deserving beyond the estimate of panegyric: an exact economist in all superfluity, yet a most bountiful dispenser in all liberality: the chief regulator of her household, the fairest pillar of her hall, and the sweetest blossom of her bower: having, in all opposite proposings, sense to understand, judgment to weigh, discretion to choose, firmness to undertake, diligence to conduct, perseverance to accomplish, and resolution to maintain.

For obedience to her husband, that is not to be tried till she has one: for faith in her confessor, she has as much as the law prescribes: for embroidery an Arachne: for music a Siren: and for pickling and preserving, did not one of her jars of sugared apricots give you your last surfeit at Arlingford Castle ?" "Call you that preserving ?" said the little friar; "I call it destroying.

Call you it pickling?
Truly it pickled me.

My life was saved by miracle." "By canary," said brother Michael.

"Canary is the only life preserver, the true aurum potabile, the universal panacea for all diseases, thirst, and short life.