The Story of an African Farm

by Olive Schreiner

  Chapter 2.IV. Lyndall.

  She was more like a princess, yes, far more like a princess, than thelady who still hung on the wall in Tant Sannie's bedroom. So Em thought.She leaned back in the little armchair; she wore a grey dressing-gown,and her long hair was combed out and hung to the ground. Em, sittingbefore her, looked up with mingled respect and admiration.

  Lyndall was tired after her long journey, and had come to her roomearly. Her eyes ran over the familiar objects. Strange to go away forfour years, and come back, and find that the candle standing on thedressing-table still cast the shadow of an old crone's head in thecorner beyond the clothes-horse. Strange that even a shadow should lastlonger than a man! She looked about among the old familiar objects; allwas there, but the old self was gone.

  "What are you noticing?" asked Em.

  "Nothing and everything. I thought the windows were higher. If I wereyou, when I get this place I should raise the walls. There is not roomto breathe here. One suffocates."

  "Gregory is going to make many alterations," said Em; and drawing nearerto the grey dressing-gown respectfully. "Do you like him, Lyndall? Is henot handsome?"

  "He must have been a fine baby," said Lyndall, looking at the whitedimity curtain that hung above the window.

  Em was puzzled.

  "There are some men," said Lyndall, "whom you never can believe werebabies at all; and others you never see without thinking how very nicethey must have looked when they wore socks and pink sashes."

  Em remained silent; then she said with a little dignity, "When you knowhim you will love him as I do. When I compare other people with him,they seem so weak and little. Our hearts are so cold, our loves aremixed up with so many other things. But he--no one is worthy of hislove. I am not. It is so great and pure."

  "You need not make yourself unhappy on that point--your poor return forhis love, my dear," said Lyndall. "A man's love is a fire of olive-wood.It leaps higher every moment; it roars, it blazes, it shoots out redflames; it threatens to wrap you round and devour you--you who stand bylike an icicle in the glow of its fierce warmth. You are self-reproachedat your own chilliness and want of reciprocity. The next day, when yougo to warm your hands a little, you find a few ashes! 'Tis a long loveand cool against a short love and hot; men, at all events, have nothingto complain of."

  "You speak so because you do not know men," said Em, instantly assumingthe dignity of superior knowledge so universally affected by affiancedand married women in discussing man's nature with their uncontractedsisters.

  "You will know them too some day, and then you will think differently,"said Em, with the condescending magnanimity which superior knowledge canalways afford to show to ignorance.

  Lyndall's little lip quivered in a manner indicative of intenseamusement. She twirled a massive ring upon her forefinger--a ring moresuitable for the hand of a man, and noticeable in design--a diamondcross let into gold, with the initials "R.R." below it.

  "Ah, Lyndall," Em cried, "perhaps you are engaged yourself--that is whyyou smile. Yes; I am sure you are. Look at this ring!"

  Lyndall drew the hand quickly from her.

  "I am not in so great a hurry to put my neck beneath any man's foot;and I do not so greatly admire the crying of babies," she said, as sheclosed her eyes half wearily and leaned back in the chair. "There areother women glad of such work."

  Em felt rebuked and ashamed. How could she take Lyndall and show herthe white linen and the wreath, and the embroidery? She was quiet fora little while, and then began to talk about Trana and the oldfarm-servants, till she saw her companion was weary; then she rose andleft her for the night. But after Em was gone Lyndall sat on, watchingthe old crone's face in the corner, and with a weary look, as though thewhole world's weight rested on these frail young shoulders.

  The next morning, Waldo, starting off before breakfast with a bag ofmealies slung over his shoulder to feed the ostriches, heard a lightstep behind him.

  "Wait for me; I am coming with you," said Lyndall, adding as she came upto him, "if I had not gone to look for you yesterday you would not havecome to greet me till now. Do you not like me any longer, Waldo?"

  "Yes--but--you are changed."

  It was the old clumsy, hesitating mode of speech.

  "You like the pinafores better?" she said quickly. She wore a dress ofa simple cotton fabric, but very fashionably made, and on her head wasa broad white hat. To Waldo she seemed superbly attired. She saw it. "Mydress has changed a little," she said, "and I also; but not to you. Hangthe bag over your other shoulder, that I may see your face. You sayso little that if one does not look at you you are an uncomprehendedcipher." Waldo changed the bag, and they walked on side by side. "Youhave improved," she said. "Do you know that I have sometimes wished tosee you while I was away; not often, but still sometimes."

  They were at the gate of the first camp now. Waldo threw over a bag ofmealies, and they walked on over the dewy ground.

  "Have you learnt much?" he asked her simply, remembering how she hadonce said, "When I come back again I shall know everything that a humanbeing can."

  She laughed.

  "Are you thinking of my old boast? Yes; I have learnt something, thoughhardly what I expected, and not quite so much. In the first place, Ihave learnt that one of my ancestors must have been a very great fool;for they say nothing comes out in a man but one of his forefatherspossessed it before him. In the second place, I have discovered thatof all cursed places under the sun, where the hungriest soul can hardlypick up a few grains of knowledge, a girls' boarding-school is theworst. They are called finishing schools, and the name tells accuratelywhat they are. They finish everything but imbecility and weakness, andthat they cultivate. They are nicely adapted machines for experimentingon the question, 'Into how little space a human soul can be crushed?'I have seen some souls so compressed that they would have fitted into asmall thimble, and found room to move there--wide room. A woman who hasbeen for many years in one of those places carries the mark of the beaston her till she dies, though she may expand a little afterward, when shebreathes in the free world."

  "Were you miserable?" he asked, looking at her with quick anxiety.

  "I?--no. I am never miserable and never happy. I wish I were. But Ishould have run away from the place on the fourth day, and hired myselfto the first Boer-woman whose farm I came to, to make fire under hersoap-pot, if I had to live as the rest of the drove did. Can you form anidea, Waldo, of what it must be to be shut up with cackling old women,who are without knowledge of life, without love of the beautiful,without strength, to have your soul cultured by them? It is suffocationonly to breathe the air they breathe; but I made them give me room. Itold them I should leave, and they knew I came there on my own account;so they gave me a bedroom without the companionship of one of thosethings that were having their brains slowly diluted and squeezed out ofthem. I did not learn music, because I had no talent; and when thedrove made cushions, and hideous flowers that the roses laugh at, anda footstool in six weeks that a machine would have made better in fiveminutes, I went to my room. With the money saved from such work I boughtbooks and newspapers, and at night I sat up. I read, and epitomized whatI read; and I found time to write some plays, and find out how hard itis to make your thoughts look anything but imbecile fools when you paintthem with ink and paper. In the holidays I learnt a great deal more. Imade acquaintances, saw a few places and many people, and some differentways of living, which is more than any books can show one. On the whole,I am not dissatisfied with my four years. I have not learnt what Iexpected; but I have learnt something else. What have you been doing?"

  "Nothing."

  "That is not possible. I shall find out by and by."

  They still stepped on side by side over the dewy bushes. Then suddenlyshe turned on him.

  "Don't you wish you were a woman, Waldo?"

  "No," he answered readily.

  She laughed.

  "I thought not. Even you are too worldly-wise for that. I never m
et aman who did. This is a pretty ring," she said, holding out her littlehand, that the morning sun might make the diamonds sparkle. "Worth fiftypounds at least. I will give it to the first man who tells me he wouldlike to be a woman. There might be one on Robbin Island (lunatics at theCape are sent to Robbin Island) who would win it perhaps, but I doubtit even there. It is delightful to be a woman; but every man thanks theLord devoutly that he isn't one."

  She drew her hat to one side to keep the sun out of her eyes as shewalked. Waldo looked at her so intently that he stumbled over thebushes. Yes, this was his little Lyndall who had worn the checkpinafores; he saw it now, and he walked closer beside her. They reachedthe next camp.

  "Let us wait at this camp and watch the birds," she said, as an ostrichhen came bounding toward them with velvety wings outstretched, while faraway over the bushes the head of the cock was visible as he sat broodingon the eggs.

  Lyndall folded her arms on the gate bar, and Waldo threw his empty bagon the wall and leaned beside her.

  "I like these birds," she said; "they share each other's work, and arecompanions. Do you take an interest in the position of women, Waldo?"

  "No."

  "I thought not. No one does, unless they are in need of a subject uponwhich to show their wit. And as for you, from of old you can see nothingthat is not separated from you by a few millions of miles, and strewedover with mystery. If women were the inhabitants of Jupiter, of whom youhad happened to hear something, you would pore over us and our conditionnight and day; but because we are before your eyes you never look at us.You care nothing that this is ragged and ugly," she said, puttingher little finger on his sleeve; "but you strive mightily to make animaginary leaf on an old stick beautiful. I'm sorry you don't care forthe position of women; I should have liked us to be friends; and it isthe only thing about which I think much or feel much--if, indeed, Ihave any feeling about anything," she added, flippantly, readjusting herdainty little arms. "When I was a baby, I fancy my parents left me outin the frost one night, and I got nipped internally--it feels so!"

  "I have only a few old thoughts," he said, "and I think them over andover again; always beginning where I left off. I never get any further.I am weary of them."

  "Like an old hen that sits on its eggs month after month and they nevercome out?" she said quickly. "I am so pressed in upon by new thingsthat, lest they should trip one another up, I have to keep forcingthem back. My head swings sometimes. But this one thought stands, nevergoes--if I might but be one of these born in the future; then, perhaps,to be born a woman will not be to be born branded."

  Waldo looked at her. It was hard to say whether she were in earnest ormocking.

  "I know it is foolish. Wisdom never kicks at the iron walls it can'tbring down," she said. "But we are cursed. Waldo, born cursed from thetime our mothers bring us into the world till the shrouds are put on us.Do not look at me as though I were talking nonsense. Everything has twosides--the outside that is ridiculous, and the inside that is solemn."

  "I am not laughing," said the boy, sedately enough; "but what cursesyou?"

  He thought she would not reply to him, she waited so long.

  "It is not what is done to us, but what is made of us," she said atlast, "that wrongs us. No man can be really injured but by what modifieshimself. We all enter the world little plastic beings, with so muchnatural force, perhaps, but for the rest--blank; and the world tells uswhat we are to be, and shapes us by the ends it sets before us. Toyou it says--"Work;" and to us it says--"Seem!" To you it says--As youapproximate to man's highest ideal of God, as your arm is strong andyour knowledge great, and the power to labour is with you, so you shallgain all that human heart desires. To us it says--Strength shall nothelp you, nor knowledge, nor labour. You shall gain what men gain, butby other means. And so the world makes men and women.

  "Look at this little chin of mine, Waldo, with the dimple in it. Itis but a small part of my person; but though I had a knowledge of allthings under the sun, and the wisdom to use it, and the deep lovingheart of an angel, it would not stead me through life like this littlechin. I can win money with it, I can win love; I can win power with it,I can win fame. What would knowledge help me? The less a woman has inher head the lighter she is for climbing. I once heard an old man say,that he never saw intellect help a woman so much as a pretty ankle; andit was the truth. They begin to shape us to our cursed end," she said,with her lips drawn in to look as though they smiled, "when we are tinythings in shoes and socks. We sit with our little feet drawn up under usin the window, and look out at the boys in their happy play. We want togo. Then a loving hand is laid on us: 'Little one, you cannot go,' theysay, 'your little face will burn, and your nice white dress be spoiled.'We feel it must be for our good, it is so lovingly said: but we cannotunderstand; and we kneel still with one little cheek wistfully pressedagainst the pane. Afterwards we go and thread blue beads, and make astring for our neck; and we go and stand before the glass. We see thecomplexion we were not to spoil, and the white frock, and we look intoour own great eyes. Then the curse begins to act on us. It finishes itswork when we are grown women, who no more look out wistfully at a morehealthy life; we are contented. We fit our sphere as a Chinese woman'sfoot fits her shoe, exactly, as though God had made both--and yet heknows nothing of either. In some of us the shaping of our end has beenquite completed. The parts we are not to use have been quite atrophied,and have even dropped off; but in others, and we are not less to bepitied, they have been weakened and left. We wear the bandages, but ourlimbs have not grown to them; we know that we are compressed, and chafeagainst them.

  "But what does it help? A little bitterness, a little longing whenwe are young, a little futile searching for work, a little passionatestriving for room for the exercise of our powers,--and then we go withthe drove. A woman must march with her regiment. In the end she must betrodden down or go with it; and if she is wise she goes.

  "I see in your great eyes what you are thinking," she said, glancing athim; "I always know what the person I am talking to is thinking of. Howis this woman who makes such a fuss worse off than I? I will show youby a very little example. We stand here at this gate this morning, bothpoor, both young, both friendless; there is not much to choose betweenus. Let us turn away just as we are, to make our way in life. Thisevening you will come to a farmer's house. The farmer, albeit you comealone on foot, will give you a pipe of tobacco and a cup of coffee anda bed. If he has no dam to build and no child to teach, tomorrow you cango on your way, with a friendly greeting of the hand. I, if I come tothe same place tonight, will have strange questions asked me, strangeglances cast on me. The Boer-wife will shake her head and give me foodto eat with the Kaffers, and a right to sleep with the dogs. That wouldbe the first step in our progress--a very little one, but every step tothe end would repeat it. We were equals once when we lay new-born babeson our nurses' knees. We will be equals again when they tie up our jawsfor the last sleep!"

  Waldo looked in wonder at the little quivering face; it was a glimpseinto a world of passion and feeling wholly new to him.

  "Mark you," she said, "we have always this advantage over you--we can atany time step into ease and competence, where you must labour patientlyfor it. A little weeping, a little wheedling, a little self-degradation,a little careful use of our advantages, and then some man will say:"Come, be my wife!" With good looks and youth marriage is easy toattain. There are men enough; but a woman who has sold herself, even fora ring and a new name, need hold her skirt aside for no creature in thestreet. They both earn their bread in one way. Marriage for love is thebeautifulest external symbol of the union of souls; marriage without itis the uncleanliest traffic that defiles the world." She ran her littlefinger savagely along the topmost bar, shaking off the dozen littledewdrops that still hung there. "And they tell us we have men'schivalrous attention!" she cried. "When we ask to be doctors, lawyers,law-makers, anything but ill-paid drudges, they say--No; but you havemen's chivalrous attention; now think of that and
be satisfied! Whatwould you do without it?"

  The bitter little silvery laugh, so seldom heard, rang out across thebushes. She bit her little teeth together.

  "I was coming up in Cobb & Co.'s the other day. At a little waysidehotel we had to change the large coach for a small one. We were tenpassengers, eight men and two women. As I sat in the house the gentlemencame and whispered to me, 'There is not room for all in the new coach,take your seat quickly.' We hurried out, and they gave me the bestseat, and covered me with rugs, because it was drizzling. Then the lastpassenger came running up to the coach--an old woman with a wonderfulbonnet, and a black shawl pinned with a yellow pin.

  "'There is no room,' they said; 'you must wait till next week's coachtakes you up;' but she climbed on to the step, and held on at the windowwith both hands.

  "'My son-in-law is ill, and I must go and see him,' she said.

  "'My good woman,' said one, 'I am really exceedingly sorry that yourson-in-law is ill; but there is absolutely no room for you here.'

  "'You had better get down,' said another, 'or the wheel will catch you.'

  "I got up to give her my place.

  "'Oh, no, no!' they cried, 'we will not allow that.'

  "'I will rather kneel,' said one, and he crouched down at my feet; sothe woman came in.

  "There were nine of us in that coach, and only one showed chivalrousattention--and that was a woman to a woman.

  "I shall be old and ugly, too, one day, and I shall look for men'schivalrous help, but I shall not find it.

  "The bees are very attentive to the flowers till their honey is done,and then they fly over them. I don't know if the flowers feel gratefulto the bees; they are great fools if they do."

  "But some women," said Waldo, speaking as though the words forcedthemselves from him at that moment, "some women have power."

  She lifted her beautiful eyes to his face.

  "Power! Did you ever hear of men being asked whether other souls shouldhave power or not? It is born in them. You may dam up the fountain ofwater, and make it a stagnant marsh, or you may let it run free and doits work; but you cannot say whether it shall be there; it is there. Andit will act, if not openly for good, then covertly for evil; but itwill act. If Goethe had been stolen away a child, and reared in a robberhorde in the depths of a German forest, do you think the world wouldhave had "Faust" and "Iphegenie?" But he would have been Goethestill--stronger, wiser than his fellows. At night, round theirwatch-fire, he would have chanted wild songs of rapine and murder, tillthe dark faces about him were moved and trembled. His songs would haveechoed on from father to son, and nerved the heart and arm--for evil.Do you think if Napoleon had been born a woman that he would have beencontented to give small tea-parties and talk small scandal? He wouldhave risen; but the world would not have heard of him as it hears of himnow--a man great and kingly with all his sins; he would have left oneof those names that stain the leaf of every history--the names of women,who, having power, but being denied the right to exercise it openly,rule in the dark, covertly, and by stealth, through the men whosepassions they feed on and by whom they climb.

  "Power!" she said, suddenly, smiting her little hand upon the rail."Yes, we have power; and since we are not to expend it in tunnellingmountains, nor healing diseases, nor making laws, nor money, nor onany extraneous object, we expend it on you. You are our goods, ourmerchandise, our material for operating on; we buy you, we sell you, wemake fools of you, we act the wily old Jew with you, we keep six of youcrawling to our little feet, and praying only for a touch of our littlehand; and they say truly, there was never an ache or pain or brokenheart but a woman was at the bottom of it. We are not to study law, norscience, nor art, so we study you. There is never a nerve or fibre in aman's nature but we know it. We keep six of you dancing in the palm ofone little hand," she said, balancing her outstretched arm gracefully,as though tiny beings disported themselves in its palm. "There, wethrow you away, and you sink to the devil," she said, folding her armscomposedly. "There was never a man who said one word for woman but hesaid two for man, and three for the whole human race."

  She watched the bird pecking up the last yellow grains; but Waldo lookedonly at her.

  When she spoke again it was very measuredly.

  "They bring weighty arguments against us when we ask for the perfectfreedom of women," she said; "but, when you come to the objections, theyare like pumpkin devils with candles inside, hollow, and can't bite.They say that women do not wish for the sphere and freedom we ask forthem, and would not use it!

  "If the bird does like its cage, and does like its sugar and will notleave it, why keep the door so very carefully shut? Why not open it,only a little? Do they know there is many a bird will not break itswings against the bars, but would fly if the doors were open?" She knither forehead and leaned further over the bars.

  "Then they say, 'If the women have the liberty you ask for, they will befound in positions for which they are not fitted!' If two men climbone ladder, did you ever see the weakest anywhere but at the foot? Thesurest sign of fitness is success. The weakest never wins but wherethere is handicapping. Nature, left to herself, will as beautifullyapportion a man's work to his capacities as long ages ago she graduatedthe colours on the bird's breast. If we are not fit, you give us, to nopurpose, the right to labour; the work will fall out of our hands intothose that are wiser."

  She talked more rapidly as she went on, as one talks of that over whichthey have brooded long, and which lies near their hearts.

  Waldo watched her intently.

  "They say women have one great and noble work left them, and they do itill. That is true; they do it execrably. It is the work that demands thebroadest culture, and they have not even the narrowest. The lawyer maysee no deeper than his law-books, and the chemist see no further thanthe windows of his laboratory, and they may do their work well. But thewoman who does woman's work needs a many-sided, multiform culture; theheights and depths of human life must not be beyond the reach of hervision; she must have knowledge of men and things in many states, a widecatholicity of sympathy, the strength that springs from knowledge, andthe magnanimity which springs from strength. We bear the world, andwe make it. The souls of little children are marvellously delicate andtender things, and keep forever the shadow that first falls on them, andthat is the mother's or at best a woman's. There was never a great manwho had not a great mother--it is hardly an exaggeration. The first sixyears of our life make us; all that is added later is veneer; and yetsome say, if a woman can cook a dinner or dress herself well she hasculture enough.

  "The mightiest and noblest of human work is given to us, and we do itill. Send a navvie to work into an artist's studio, and see what youwill find there! And yet, thank God, we have this work," she added,quickly--"it is the one window through which we see into the greatworld of earnest labour. The meanest girl who dances and dresses becomessomething higher when her children look up into her face and ask herquestions. It is the only education we have and which they cannot takefrom us."

  She smiled slightly. "They say that we complain of woman's beingcompelled to look upon marriage as a profession; but that she is free toenter upon it or leave it, as she pleases.

  "Yes--and a cat set afloat in a pond is free to sit in the tub till itdies there, it is under no obligation to wet its feet; and a drowningman may catch at a straw or not, just as he likes--it is a gloriousliberty! Let any man think for five minutes of what old maidenhood meansto a woman--and then let him be silent. Is it easy to bear through lifea name that in itself signifies defeat? to dwell, as nine out of tenunmarried women must, under the finger of another woman? Is it easy tolook forward to an old age without honour, without the reward of usefullabour, without love? I wonder how many men there are who would give upeverything that is dear in life for the sake of maintaining a high idealpurity."

  She laughed a little laugh that was clear without being pleasant.

  "And then, when they have no other argument against us, they say, '
Goon; but when you have made woman what you wish, and her children inherither culture, you will defeat yourself. Man will gradually become extinctfrom excess of intellect, the passions which replenish the race willdie.' Fools!" she said, curling her pretty lip. "A Hottentot sits at theroadside and feeds on a rotten bone he has found there, and takes outhis bottle of Cape-smoke and swills at it, and grunts with satisfaction;and the cultured child of the nineteenth century sits in his armchair,and sips choice wines with the lip of a connoisseur, and tastes delicatedishes with a delicate palate, and with a satisfaction of which theHottentot knows nothing. Heavy jaw and sloping forehead--all havegone with increasing intellect; but the animal appetites are therestill--refined, discriminative, but immeasurably intensified. Fools!Before men forgave or worshipped, while they were weak on their hindlegs, did they not eat and drink, and fight for wives? When all thelatter additions to humanity have vanished, will not the foundation onwhich they are built remain?"

  She was silent then for a while, and said somewhat dreamily, more asthough speaking to herself than to him,

  "They ask, What will you gain, even if man does not become extinct?--youwill have brought justice and equality on to the earth, and sent lovefrom it. When men and women are equals they will love no more. Yourhighly-cultured women will not be lovable, will not love.

  "Do they see nothing, understand nothing? It is Tant Sannie who burieshusbands one after another, and folds her hands resignedly,--'The Lordgave, and the Lord hath taken away, and blessed be the name of theLord,'--and she looks for another. It is the hard-headed, deep thinkerwho, when the wife who has thought and worked with him goes, can find norest, and lingers near her till he finds sleep beside her.

  "A great soul draws and is drawn with a more fierce intensity than anysmall one. By every inch we grow in intellectual height our love strikesdown its roots deeper, and spreads out its arms wider. It is for love'ssake yet more than for any other that we look for that new time."

  She had leaned her head against the stones, and watched with her sad,soft eyes the retreating bird. "Then when that time comes," she saidlowly, "when love is no more bought or sold, when it is not a means ofmaking bread, when each woman's life is filled with earnest, independentlabour, then love will come to her, a strange, sudden sweetness breakingin upon her earnest work; not sought for, but found. Then, but notnow--"

  Waldo waited for her to finish the sentence, but she seemed to haveforgotten him.

  "Lyndall," he said, putting his hand upon her--she started--"if youthink that that new time will be so great, so good, you who speak soeasily--"

  She interrupted him.

  "Speak! speak!" she said, "the difficulty is not to speak; thedifficulty is to keep silence."

  "But why do you not try to bring that time?" he said with pitifulsimplicity. "When you speak I believe all you say; other people wouldlisten to you also."

  "I am not so sure of that," she said with a smile.

  Then over the small face came the weary look it had worn last night asit watched the shadow in the corner, Ah, so weary!

  "I, Waldo, I?" she said. "I will do nothing good for myself, nothingfor the world, till some one wakes me. I am asleep, swathed, shut up inself; till I have been delivered I will deliver no one."

  He looked at her wondering, but she was not looking at him.

  "To see the good and the beautiful," she said, "and to have no strengthto live it, is only to be Moses on the mountain of Nebo, with the landat your feet and no power to enter. It would be better not to seeit. Come," she said, looking up into his face, and seeing itsuncomprehending expression, "let us go, it is getting late. Doss isanxious for his breakfast also," she added, wheeling round and callingto the dog, who was endeavouring to unearth a mole, an occupation towhich he had been zealously addicted from the third month, but in whichhe had never on any single occasion proved successful.

  Waldo shouldered his bag, and Lyndall walked on before in silence, withthe dog close to her side. Perhaps she thought of the narrowness ofthe limits within which a human soul may speak and be understood by itsnearest of mental kin, of how soon it reaches that solitary land ofthe individual experience, in which no fellow footfall is ever heard.Whatever her thoughts may have been, she was soon interrupted. Waldocame close to her, and standing still, produced with awkwardness fromhis breast-pocket a small carved box.

  "I made it for you," he said, holding it out.

  "I like it," she said, examining it carefully.

  The workmanship was better than that of the grave-post. The flowers thatcovered it were delicate, and here and there small conical protuberanceswere let in among them. She turned it round critically. Waldo bent overit lovingly.

  "There is one strange thing about it," he said earnestly, putting afinger on one little pyramid. "I made it without these, and I feltsomething was wrong; I tried many changes, and at last I let thesein, and then it was right. But why was it? They are not beautiful inthemselves."

  "They relieve the monotony of the smooth leaves, I suppose."

  He shook his head as over a weighty matter.

  "The sky is monotonous," he said, "when it is blue, and yet it isbeautiful. I have thought of that often; but it is not monotony, andit is not variety makes beauty. What is it? The sky, and your face, andthis box--the same thing is in them all, only more in the sky and inyour face. But what is it?"

  She smiled.

  "So you are at your old work still. Why, why, why? What is the reason?It is enough for me," she said, "if I find out what is beautiful andwhat is ugly, what is real and what is not. Why it is there, and overthe final cause of things in general, I don't trouble myself; there mustbe one, but what is it to me? If I howl to all eternity I shall neverget hold of it; and if I did I might be no better off. But you Germansare born with an aptitude for borrowing; you can't help yourselves. Youmust sniff after reasons, just as that dog must after a mole. He knowsperfectly well he will never catch it, but he's under the imperativenecessity of digging for it."

  "But he might find it."

  "Might!--but he never has and never will. Life is too short to run aftermights; we must have certainties."

  She tucked the box under her arm and was about to walk on, whenGregory Rose, with shining spurs, an ostrich feather in his hat, anda silver-headed whip, careered past. He bowed gallantly as he went by.They waited till the dust of the horse's hoofs had laid itself.

  "There," said Lyndall, "goes a true woman--one born for the sphere thatsome women have to fill without being born for it. How happy he wouldbe sewing frills into his little girl's frocks, and how pretty he wouldlook sitting in a parlour, with a rough man making love to him! Don'tyou think so?"

  "I shall not stay here when he is master," Waldo answered, not able toconnect any kind of beauty with Gregory Rose.

  "I should imagine not. The rule of a woman is tyranny; but the rule of aman-woman grinds fine. Where are you going?"

  "Anywhere."

  "What to do?"

  "See--see everything."

  "You will be disappointed."

  "And were you?"

  "Yes; and you will be more so. I want things that men and the worldgive, you do not. If you have a few yards of earth to stand on, and abit of blue over you, and something that you cannot see to dream about,you have all that you need, all that you know how to use. But I like tosee real men. Let them be as disagreeable as they please, they are moreinteresting to me than flowers, or trees, or stars, or any other thingunder the sun. Sometimes," she added, walking on, and shaking the dustdaintily from her skirts, "when I am not too busy trying to find a newway of doing my hair that will show my little neck to better advantage,or over other work of that kind, sometimes it amuses me intensely totrace out the resemblance between one man and another: to see howTant Sannie and I, you and Bonaparte, St. Simon on his pillow, and theemperor dining off larks' tongues, are one and the same compound, merelymixed in different proportions.

  "What is microscopic in one is largely developed in
another; what is arudimentary in one man is an active organ in another; but all things arein all men, and one soul is the model of all. We shall find nothing newin human nature after we have once carefully dissected and analyzed theone being we ever shall truly know--ourself. The Kaffer girl threwsome coffee on my arm in bed this morning; I felt displeased, but saidnothing. Tant Sannie would have thrown the saucer at her and sworn foran hour; but the feeling would be the same irritated displeasure. If ahuge animated stomach like Bonaparte were put under a glass by askilful mental microscopist, even he would be found to have an embryonicdoubling somewhere indicative of a heart, and rudimentary buddings thatmight have become conscience and sincerity. Let me take your arm Waldo.

  "How full you are of mealie dust. No, never mind. It will brush off. Andsometimes what is more amusing still than tracing the likeness betweenman and man, is to trace the analogy there always is between theprogress and development of one individual and of a whole nation; or,again, between a single nation and the entire human race. It is pleasantwhen it dawns on you that the one is just the other written out in largeletters; and very odd to find all the little follies and virtues, anddevelopments and retrogressions, written out in the big world's bookthat you find in your little internal self. It is the most amusing thingI know of; but of course, being a woman, I have not often time for suchamusements. Professional duties always first, you know. It takes a greatdeal of time and thought always to look perfectly exquisite, even for apretty woman. Is the old buggy still in existence, Waldo?"

  "Yes, but the harness is broken."

  "Well, I wish you would mend it. You must teach me to drive. I mustlearn something while I am here. I got the Hottentot girl to show me howto make sarsarties this morning; and Tant Sannie is going to teach me tomake kapjes. I will come and sit with you this afternoon while you mendthe harness."

  "Thank you."

  "No, don't thank me; I come for my own pleasure. I never find any oneI can talk to. Women bore me, and men, I talk so to--'Going to the ballthis evening? Nice little dog that of yours. Pretty little ears. So fondof pointer pups!' And they think me fascinating, charming! Men are likethe earth, and we are the moon; we turn always one side to them, andthey think there is no other, because they don't see it--but there is."

  They had reached the house now.

  "Tell me when you set to work," she said, and walked toward the door.

  Waldo stood to look after her, and Doss stood at his side, a look ofpainful uncertainty depicted on his small countenance, and one littlefoot poised in the air. Should he stay with his master or go? He lookedat the figure with the wide straw hat moving toward the house, and helooked up at his master; then he put down the little paw and went. Waldowatched them both in at the door and then walked away alone. He wassatisfied that at least his dog was with her.