The Story of an African Farm

nie's bedroom. So Em thought. She leaned back in the little armchair; she wore a grey dressing-gown, and her long

d come back, and find that the candle standing on the dressing-table still cast the shadow of an old crone's head in the corner beyond the clothes-hors

ou noticing

. If I were you, when I get this place I should raise the

and drawing nearer to the grey dressing-gown respect

d Lyndall, looking at the white dimi

s puz

re babies at all; and others you never see without thinking how ve

en I compare other people with him, they seem so weak and little. Our hearts are so cold, our loves are m

it shoots out red flames; it threatens to wrap you round and devour you-you who stand by like an icicle in the glow of its fierce warmth. You are self-reproached at your own chilliness and want o

he dignity of superior knowledge so universally affected by affianced and

fferently," said Em, with the condescending magnanimity whic

d a massive ring upon her forefinger-a ring more suitable for the hand of a man, and

engaged yourself-that is why you smile.

the hand quic

t so greatly admire the crying of babies," she said, as she closed her eyes half

then began to talk about Trana and the old farm-servants, till she saw her companion was weary; then she rose and left her for the night. But after Em was go

ast with a bag of mealies slung over his shoulder t

up to him, "if I had not gone to look for you yesterday you would not

-you are

lumsy, hesitatin

t. "My dress has changed a little," she said, "and I also; but not to you. Hang the bag over your other shoulder, that I may see your face. You say so little that if one does not look at you you are an uncomp

now. Waldo threw over a bag of mealies,

bering how she had once said, "When I come back ag

laug

laces under the sun, where the hungriest soul can hardly pick up a few grains of knowledge, a girls' boarding-school is the worst. They are called finishing schools, and the name tells accurately what they are. They finish everything but imbecility and weakness, and that they cultivate. They are nicely adapted machines for experimenting on the question, 'Into h

he asked, looking at h

em give me room. I told 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 those things that were having their brains slowly diluted and squeezed out of them. I did not learn music, because I had no talent; and when the drove made cushions, and hideous flowers that the roses laugh at, and a footstool in six weeks that a machine would have made better in five minutes, I went to my room. With the money saved from such work I bought books and newspapers, and at

thi

ible. I shall fin

side over the dewy bushes. T

sh you were a

answere

laug

the diamonds sparkle. "Worth fifty pounds at least. I will give it to the first man who tells me he would like to be a woman. There might be one on Robbin Island (lunatics at t

r so intently that he stumbled over the bushes. Yes, this was his little Lyndall who had worn

came bounding toward them with velvety wings outstretched, while far away ov

bar, and Waldo threw his empty bag

ch other's work, and are companions. Do you ta

N

pore over us and our condition night 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, putting her little finger on his sleeve; "but you strive mightily to make an imaginary leaf on an old stick beautiful. I'm sorry you don't care for the position of wo

k them over and over again; always beginning where I l

things that, lest they should trip one another up, I have to keep forcing them back. My head swings sometimes. But this one thought s

s hard to say whether she

born cursed from the time our mothers bring us into the world till the shrouds are put on us. Do not look at me as th

d the boy, sedately enou

d not reply to him,

-blank; and the world tells us what we are to be, and shapes us by the ends it sets before us. To you it says-"Work;" and to us it says-"Seem!" To you it says-As you approximate to man's highest ideal of God, as your arm is strong and your knowledge

s though they smiled, "when we are tiny things in shoes and socks. We sit with our little feet drawn up under us in the window, and look out at the boys in their happy play. We want to go. Then a loving hand is laid on us: 'Little one, you cannot go,' they say, '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 cannot understand; and we kneel still with one little cheek wistfully pressed against the pane. Afterwards we go and thread blue beads, and make a string for our neck; and we go and stand before the glass. We see the complexion we were not to spoil, and the white frock,

work, a little passionate striving for room for the exercise of our powers,-and then we go with the drove. A wo

we are, to make our way in life. This evening you will come to a farmer's house. The farmer, albeit you come alone on foot, will give you a pipe of tobacco and a cup of coffee and a bed. If he has no dam to build and no child to teach, tomorrow you can go on your way, with a friendly greeting of the hand. I, if I come to the same place tonight, will have strange questions asked me,

ering face; it was a glimpse into a world

There are men enough; but a woman who has sold herself, even for a ring and a new name, need hold her skirt aside for no creature in the street. They both earn their bread in one way. Marriage for love is the beautifulest external symbol of the union of souls; marriage without it is the uncleanliest traffic that defiles the world." She ran her little finger

eldom heard, rang out across the bush

at in the house the gentlemen came 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 best seat, and c

ext week's coach takes you up;' but she climbed on to

ll, and I must go an

eedingly sorry that your son-in-law is ill;

n,' said another, 'or th

to give he

ey cried, 'we wil

one, and he crouched down at

and only one showed chivalrous atten

ay, and I shall look for men's chiva

s done, and then they fly over them. I don't know if the flowe

though the words forced themselves from hi

beautiful eye

an forest, do you think the world would have had "Faust" and "Iphegenie?" But he would have been Goethe still-stronger, wiser than his fellows. At night, round their watch-fire, he would have chanted wild songs of rapine and murder, till the dark faces about him were moved and trembled. His songs would have echoed 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 been content

t the wily old Jew with you, we keep six of you crawling to our little feet, and praying only for a touch of our little hand; and they say truly, there was never an ache or pain or broken heart but a woman was at the bottom of it. We are not to study law, nor science, nor art, so we study you. There is never a nerve or fibre in a man's nature but we know it. We keep

up the last yellow grains;

again it was

, when you come to the objections, they are like pumpkin devils with candles inside, hollow, and can't

refully shut? Why not open it, only a little? Do they know there is many a bird will not break its wings aga

at the foot? The surest sign of fitness is success. The weakest never wins but where there is handicapping. Nature, left to herself, will as beautifully apportion a man's work to his capacities a

one talks of that over which they have broo

ched her

rk needs a many-sided, multiform culture; the heights and depths of human life must not be beyond the reach of her vision; she must have knowledge of men and things in many states, a wide catholicity of sympathy, the strength that springs from knowledge, and the magnanimity which springs from strength. We bear the world, and we make it. The souls of little children are marvellousl

thank God, we have this work," she added, quickly-"it is the one window through which we see into the great world of earnest labour. The meanest girl who dances and

eing compelled to look upon marriage as a profession; but th

five minutes of what old maidenhood means to a woman-and then let him be silent. Is it easy to bear through life a name that in itself signifies defeat? to dwell, as nine out of ten unmarried women must, under the finger of another woman?

laugh that was clear

otten bone he has found there, and takes out his 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 delicate dishes with a delicate palate, and with a satisfaction of which the Hottentot knows nothing. Heavy jaw and sloping forehe

said somewhat dreamily, more as tho

justice and equality on to the earth, and sent love from it. When men and women are equa

Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, and blessed be the name of the Lord,'-and she looks for another. It is the hard-headed, deep th

ch we grow in intellectual height our love strikes down its roots deeper, and spreads out its

ly, "when love is no more bought or sold, when it is not a means of making bread, when each woman's life is filled with earnest, independent l

ish the sentence, but she s

he started-"if you think that that new time wil

terrup

difficulty is not to speak; the

with pitiful simplicity. "When you speak I believe

e of that," she

look it had worn last night as it watche

ing for the world, till some one wakes me. I am asleep, swathed,

ndering, but she wa

to see it. Come," she said, looking up into his face, and seeing its uncomprehending expression, "let us go, it is getting late. Doss is anxious for his breakfast also," she added, wheeling round and

l may speak and be understood by its nearest of mental kin, of how soon it reaches that solitary land of the individual experience, in which no fellow footfall is ever heard.

you," he said,

e said, examini

ered it were delicate, and here and there small conical protuberances were l

id. "I made it without these, and I felt something was wrong; I tried many changes, and at las

notony of the smooth

ead as over a

often; but it is not monotony, and it is not variety makes beauty. What is it? The sky, and your fac

sm

ause of things in general, I don't trouble myself; there must be one, but what is it to me? If I howl to all eternity I shall never get hold of it; and if I did I might be no better off. But you Germans are born with an a

might

will. Life is too short to run afte

g spurs, an ostrich feather in his hat, and a silver-headed whip, careered past. He bowed

out being born for it. How happy he would be sewing frills into his little girl's frocks, and how p

er," Waldo answered, not able to conne

man is tyranny; but the rule of a man-w

ywh

t to

e every

be disap

were

reeable as they please, they are more interesting to me than flowers, or trees, or stars, or any other thing under the sun. Sometimes," she added, walking on, and shaking the dust daintily from her skirts, "when I am not too busy trying to find a new way of doing my hair that will show my little neck to better adva

d the one being we ever shall truly know-ourself. The Kaffer girl threw some coffee on my arm in bed this morning; I felt displeased, but said nothing. Tant Sannie would have thrown the saucer at her and sworn for an hour; but the feeling would be the same irritated displeasure. If

ation and the entire human race. It is pleasant when it dawns on you that the one is just the other written out in large letters; and very odd to find all the little follies and virtues, and developments and retrogressions, written out in the big world's book that you find in your little internal self.

he harness

. I got the Hottentot girl to show me how to make sarsarties this morning; and Tant Sannie is going

nk y

this evening? Nice little dog that of yours. Pretty little ears. So fond of pointer pups!' And they think me fascinating, charming! Men are l

eached the

o work," she said, and

he air. Should he stay with his master or go? He looked at the figure with the wide straw hat moving toward the house, and he looked up at his master; then