Quotation from: Villette

Written by: Charlotte Bronte

"Women of intellect" was his next theme: here he was at home. A "woman
of intellect," it appeared, was a sort of "lusus naturae," a luckless
accident, a thing for which there was neither place nor use in
creation, wanted neither as wife nor worker. Beauty anticipated her in
the first office. He believed in his soul that lovely, placid, and
passive feminine mediocrity was the only pillow on which manly thought
and sense could find rest for its aching temples; and as to work, male
mind alone could work to any good practical result--hein?