‘I’ll differ there,’ Coker told her. ‘It’s not only your fault – it’s a self-created fault. Moreover, it’s an affectation to consider yourself too spiritual to understand anything mechanical. It is a petty, and a very silly form of vanity. Everyone starts by knowing nothing about anything, but God gives him – and even her – brains to find out with. Failure to use them is not a virtue to be praised: even in women it is a gap to be deplored.’
