To a large extent I really believe it's the women's fault that the men are what they are.

If they demanded a higher moral standard the men would come up to it; they encourage a man to go to the devil and then--and then when he's rotten with disease and ruins his wife and has children--what is it--_'spotted toads'_--_then_ there's a great cry raised against the men, and women write books and all, when half the time the woman has only encouraged him to be what he is." "Oh, well now," retorted young Haight, "you know that all the girls are not like that." "Most of them that you meet in society are." "But they are the best people, aren't they ?" demanded Geary.
"No," answered Vandover and young Haight in a breath, and young Haight continued: "No; I believe that very few of what you would call the 'best people' go out in society--people like the Ravises, who have good principles, and keep up old-fashioned virtues and all that.

You know," he added, "they have family prayers down there every morning after breakfast." Geary began to smile.
"Well, now, I don't care," retorted young Haight, "I like that sort of thing." "So do I," said Vandover.

"Up home, now, the governor asks a blessing at each meal, and somehow I wouldn't like to see him leave it off.

But you can't tell me," he went on, going back to the original subject of their discussion, "you can't tell me that American society girls, city-bred, and living at the end of the nineteenth century, don't know about things.