After she had ceased, (which she did under a persuasion that she had anticipated and refuted every argument that could be urged in opposition to her doctrine,) the husband, with an emotion of anger that he could not conceal, began to defend his opinion.  He said, as to the greater economy of his plan, there could be no doubt; for although they might, at particular times, make more by gardening than they could save by spinning or sewing, yet there were other times when they could not till the ground, and when, of course, if they did not sew or spin, they would be idle; but if they did work, the proceeds would be clear gain.  He said he did not wish his daughters to be constantly employed in making clothes, nor was it necessary that they should be.  A variety of other occupations, equally indispensable, claimed their attention, and would leave but a comparatively small portion of time for needlework:  that in thus providing themselves with employment at home, they at least saved the time of going backwards and forwards, and were spared some trips to market, for the sale of vegetables to pay, as would then be necessary, for the work done by others.  Besides, the tailor who was most convenient to them, and who, it was admitted, was a very good one, was insolent and capricious; would sometimes extort extravagant prices, or turn them into ridicule; and occasionally went so far as to set his water-dogs upon them, of which he kept a great number.  He declared, that for his part he would incur a little more expense, rather than he would be so imposed upon, and subjected to so much indignity and vexation.

He denied that sewing would affect his daughters’ health, unless, perhaps, they followed it exclusively as an occupation; but, as they would have it in their power to consult their inclinations and convenience in this matter, they might take it up when the occasion required, and lay it down whenever they found it irksome or fatiguing:  that as they themselves were inclined to follow this course, it was a plain proof that the occupation was not unhealthy.  He maintained that they would stoop just as much in gardening, and washing and nursing their children, as in sewing; and that we were not such frail or unpliant machines as to be seriously injured, unless we persisted in one set of straight, formal notions, but that we were adapted to variety, and were benefited by it.  That as to the practice being favourable to wantonness and vice, while he admitted that idleness was productive of these effects, he could not see how one occupation encouraged them more than another.  That the tailor, for example, whom he had been speaking of, though purse-proud, overbearing, and rapacious, was not more immoral or depraved than his neighbours, and had probably less of the libertine than most of them.  He admitted that evil thoughts would enter the mind in any situation, and could not reasonably be expected to be kept out of his daughters’ heads (being, as he said, but women):  yet he conceived such a result as far less probable, if they were suffered to ramble about in the streets, and to chaffer with their customers, than if they were kept to sedate and diligent employment at home.