Shepherd at Home

Putting together the final version of my notes for an online lecture on causation in Hume and Shepherd in my Introduction to Philosophy class later today, I was put in mind for some reason of this comment by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (who knew Lady Mary Shepherd's daughter, Mary Shepherd, very well, and had met Lady Mary Shepherd a few times), on the relationship between Lady Mary Shepherd and Sir Henry Shepherd:

There was love too in abundance, I am sure, between the metaphysician & the dramatist--& Lady Mary used to say jestingly--"We are very much in love with each other". Notwithstanding which, he used by her own account to take up his hat & walk out whenever she began to dissert (she does dissert you know) upon primary & secondary qualities in matter--and she on the other hand was the authority in all domestic matters & would'nt suffer any interference--"What can he know about children? Why he was only a boy when I married him". Just those words! I am certain this time about the syllables. They are unforgettable.

[Letter 59 in The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Mary Russell Mitford 1836-1854, Volume I, Meredith B. Raymond and Mary Rose Sullivan, eds. Wedgestone Press (Winfield, KS: 1983) pp. 154-155.]