Rutherford B. Hayes - "State of the Union Addresses of Rutherford B. Hayes"

George Berkeley - "Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous,"

Edward Gibbon - "The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"

L. Frank Baum - "The Patchwork Girl of Oz"

The Getting of Wisdom

H >> Henry Handel Richardson >> The Getting of Wisdom




The dining-hall was empty when she went through it on her way back to
the classroom: her history looked lovingly at her from its place on the
shelf. But she did not dare to go over to it, take it out, and turn up
the passage: that was too risky. What she did do, however, when she had
almost reached the door, was to dash back, pull out a synopsis--[P.262]
a slender, medium-sized volume--and hastily and clumsily button this
inside the bodice of her dress. The square, board-like appearance it
gave her figure, where it projected beyond the sides of her apron, she
concealed by hunching her shoulders.

Her lightning plan was, to enter a cloakroom, snatch a hurried peep at
Oliver's confounded policy, then hide the book somewhere till the
examination was over. But on emerging from the dining-hall she all but
collided with the secretary, who had come noiselessly across the
verandah; and she was so overcome by the thought of the danger she had
run, and by Miss Blount's extreme surprise at Dr Pughson's leniency,
that she allowed herself to be driven back to the examination-room
without a word.

The girls were hard at it; they scarcely glanced up when she opened the
door. From her friends' looks, she could judge of the success they were
having. Cupid, for instance, was smirking to herself in the peculiar
fashion that meant satisfaction; M. P.'s cheeks were the colour of
monthly roses. And soon Laura, crouching low to cover her deformity, was
at work like the rest.

Had only Oliver Cromwell never been born!--thus she reflected, when she
had got the easier part of the paper behind her. Why could it not have
been a question about Bourke and Wills, or the Eureka Stockade, or the
voyages of Captain Cook? . . . something about one's own country, that
one had heard hundreds of times and was really interested in. Or a big,
arresting thing like the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, or Hannibal's
March over the Alps? Who cared for old Oliver, and his shorn head, and
his contempt for baubles! What did it matter now to anyone what
his attitude had been, more than two hundred years ago, to all those
far-away, dream-like countries? . . . Desperately she pressed her hand
to her eyes. She knew the very page of Green on which Cromwell's foreign
relations were set forth; knew where the paragraph began, near the foot
of the page: what she could not get hold of was the opening sentence
that would have set her mechanical memory a-rolling.

The two hours drew steadily to a close. About half an hour beforehand
the weakest candidates began to rise, to hand in their papers and leave
the room; but it was not till ten minutes to twelve that the "crack"
girls stopped writing. Laura was to be allowed an extra twenty minutes,
and it was on this she relied. At last, she was alone with the master.
But though he was already dipping into the examination-papers, he was
not safe. She had unbuttoned two buttons and was at a third, when he
looked up so unexpectedly that she was scared out of her senses, and
fastened her dress again with all the haste she could. Three or four of
the precious minutes were lost.

At this point, the door opened and Mr. Strachey strode into the room. Dr
Pughson blinked up from the stacks of papers, rose, and the two spoke in
low tones. Then, with a glance at Laura, they went together to the door,
which Dr Pughson held to behind him, and stood just over the threshold.
As they warmed to their talk, the master let the door slip into the
latch.

Laura could see them from where she sat, without being seen. A moment
later they moved stealthily away, going down the verandah in the
direction of the office.

Now for it! With palsied hands she undid her bodice, clutched at the
book, forced her blurred eyes to find the page, and ran them over it. A
brief survey: five or six heads to remember: a few dates. Flapped to
again; tucked under her apron; shoved into her bosom.

And not a second too soon. There he came, hurrying back. And three
buttons were still undone. But Laura's head was bent over her desk:
though her heart was pummelling her ribs, her pen now ran like
lightning; and by the time the order to stop was given, she had covered
the requisite number of sheets. Afterwards she had adroitly to rid
herself of the book, then to take part--a rather pale-eyed, distracted
part--in the lively technical discussions that ensued; when each
candidate was as long-winded on the theme of her success, or
non-success, as a card-player on his hand at the end of a round.
Directly she could make good her escape, she pleaded a headache, climbed
to her bedroom and stretched herself flat on her bed. She was through--
but at what a cost! She felt quite sore. Her very bones seemed to hurt
her.

Not till she was thoroughly rested, and till she had assured herself
that all risk attaching to the incident was over, did she come to
reflect on the part God had played in the business. And then, it must be
admitted, she found it a sorry one. Just at first, indeed, her limpid
faith was shocked into a reluctance to believe that He had helped her at
all: His manner of doing it would have been so inexpressibly mean. But,
little by little, she dug deeper, and eventually she reached the [P.265]
conclusion that He had given her the option of this way, throwing it
open to her and then standing back and watching to see what she would
do, without so much as raising an eyelid to influence her decision. In
fact, the more she pondered over it, the more inclined she grew to think
that it had been a kind of snare on the part of God, to trap her afresh
into sin, and thus to prolong her dependence on Him after her crying
need was past. But, if this were true, if He had done this, then He must
LIKE people to remain miserable sinners, so that He might have them
always crawling to His feet. And from this view of the case her
ingenuous young mind shrank appalled. She could not go on loving and
worshipping a God who was capable of double dealing; who could behave in
such a "mean, Jewy fashion". Nor would she ever forget His having forced
her to endure the moments of torture she had come through that day.

Lying on her bed, she grappled with these thoughts. A feeling of deep
resentment was their abiding result. Whatever His aim, it had been past
expression pitiless of Him, Him who had at His command thousands of
pleasanter ways in which to help her, thus to drive a poor unhappy girl
to extremities: one, too, whose petition had not been prompted by
selfish ends alone. What she had implored of Him touched Mother even
more nearly than herself: her part prayer to Him had been to save Mother
--whose happiness depended on things like examinations--from a bitter
disappointment. That much at least He had done--she would give Him His
due--but at the expense of her entire self-respect. Oh, He must have a
cold, calculating heart . . . could one only see right down into
it. The tale of His clemency and compassion, which the Bible told, was
not to be interpreted literally: when one came to think of it, had He
ever--outside the Bible--been known to stoop from His judgment-seat,
and lovingly and kindly intervene? It was her own absurd mistake: she
had taken the promises made through His Son, for gospel truth; had
thought He really meant what He said, about rewarding those who were
faithful to Him. Her companions--the companions on whom, from the
heights of her piety, she had looked pityingly down--were wiser than
she. They did not abase themselves before Him, and vow a lifelong
devotion; but neither did they make any but the most approved demands on
Him. They satisfied their consciences by paying Him lip-homage, by
confessing their sins, and by asking for a vague, far-distant mercy, to
which they attached no great importance. Hence, they never came into
fierce personal conflict with Him. Nor would she, ever again; from this
time forward, she would rival the rest in lukewarmness.--But, before
she could put this resolve into force, she had to let her first
indignation subside: only then was it possible for her to recover the
shattering of her faith, and settle down to practise religion after the
glib and shallow mode of her friends. She did not, however, say her
prayers that night, or for many a right to come; and when, at church,
Christ's name occurred in the Service, she held her head erect, and shut
the ears and eyes of her soul.




XXV.



IHR LERNTET ALLE NICHT TANZEN, WIE MAN TANZEN MUSS--UBER EUCH HINWEG
TANZEN!

NIETZSCHE


The school year had ebbed; the ceremonies that attended its conclusion
were over. A few days beforehand, the fifth-form boarders, under the
tutelage of a couple of governesses, drove off early in the morning to
the distant university. On the outward journey the candidates were
thoughtful and subdued; but as they returned home, in the late
afternoon, their spirits were not to be kept within seemly bounds. They
laughed, sang, and rollicked about inside the wagonette, Miss Zielinski
weakly protesting unheard--were so rowdy that the driver pushed his
cigar-stump to the corner of his mouth, to be able to smile at ease, and
flicked his old horse into a canter. For the public examination had
proved as anticipated, child's play, compared with what the class had
been through at Dr Pughson's hands; and its accompanying details were of
an agreeable nature: the weather was not too hot; the examination-hall
was light and airy; through the flung-back windows trees and flowering
shrubs looked in; the students were watched over by a handsome Trinity
man, who laid his straw hat on the desk before him.

Then came the annual concert, at which none of the performers broke
down; Speech Day, when the body of a big hall was crowded with relatives
and friends, and when so many white, blue-beribboned frocks were
massed together on the platform, that this looked like a great bed of
blue and white flowers; and, finally, trunks were brought out from
boxrooms and strewn through the floors, and upper-form girls emptied
cupboards and drawers into them for the last time.

On the evening before the general dispersion, Laura, Cupid, and M. P.
walked the well-known paths of the garden once again. While the two
elder girls were more loquacious than their wont, Laura was quieter. She
had never wholly recovered her humour since the day of the
history-examination; and she still could not look back, with composure,
on the jeopardy in which she had placed herself one little turn of the
wheel in the wrong direction, and the end of her schooldays would have
been shame and disgrace.--And just as her discovery of God's stratagem
had damped her religious ardour, so her antipathy to the means she had
been obliged to employ had left a feeling of enmity in her, towards the
school and everything connected with it: she had counted the hours till
she could turn her back on it altogether. None the less, now that the
time had come there was a kind of ache in her at having to say good-bye;
for it was in her nature to let go unwillingly of things, places and
people once known. Besides, glad as she felt to have done with learning,
she was unclear what was to come next. The idea of life at home
attracted her as little as ever--Mother had even begun to hint as well
that she would now be expected to instruct her young brothers. Hence,
her parting was effected with very mixed feelings; she did not know in
the least where she really belonged, or under what conditions
she would be happy; she was conscious only of a mild sorrow at having to
take leave of the shelter of years.

Her two companions had no such doubts and regrets; for them the past was
already dead and gone; their talk was all of the future, so soon to
become the present. They forecast this, mapping it out for themselves
with the iron belief in their power to do so, which is the hall-mark of
youth.

Laura, walking at their side, listened to their words with the deepest
interest, and with the reverence she had learned to extend to all
opinions save her own.

M. P. proposed to return to Melbourne at the end of the vacation; for
she was going on to Trinity, where she intended to take one degree after
another. She hesitated only whether it was to be in medicine or arts.

"Oogh! . . . to cut off people's legs!" ejaculated Laura. "M. P., how
awful."

"Oh, one soon gets used to that, child.--But I think, on the whole, I
should prefer to take up teaching. Then I shall probably be able to have
a school of my own some day."

"I shouldn't wonder if you got Sandy's place here," said Laura, who was
assured that M. P.'s massy intellect would open all doors.

"Who knows?" answered Mary, and set her lips in a determined fashion of
her own. "Stranger things have happened."

Cupid, less enamoured of continual discipline, intended to be a
writer. "My cousin says I've got the stuff in me. And he's a journalist
and ought to know."

"I should rather think he ought."

"Well, I mean to have a shot at it."

"And you, Laura?" M. P. asked suavely.

"Me?--Oh, goodness knows!"

"Close as usual, Infant."

"No, really not, Cupid."

"Well, you'll soon have to make up your mind to something now. You're
nearly sixteen.--Why not go on working for your B.A.?"

"No thanks! I've had enough of that here." And Laura's thoughts waved
their hands, as it were, to the receding figure of Oliver Cromwell.

"Be a teacher, then."

"M.P.! I never want to hear a date or add up a column of figures again."

"Laura!"

"It's the solemn truth. I'm fed up with all those blessed things."

"Fancy not having a single wish!"

"Wish? . . . oh, I've tons of wishes. First I want to be with Evvy
again. And then, I want to see things--yes, that most of all. Hundreds
and thousands of things. People, and places, and what they eat, and how
they dress, and China, and Japan . . . just tons."

"You'll have to hook a millionaire for that, my dear."

"And perhaps you'll write a book about your travels for us
stay-at-homes."

"Gracious! I shouldn't know how to begin. But you'll send me all you
write--all YOUR books--won't you, Cupid? And, M. P., you'll let me
come and see you get your degrees--every single one."

With these and similar promises the three girls parted. They
never met again. For a time they exchanged letters regularly,
many-sheeted letters, full of familiar, personal detail. Then the detail
ceased, the pages grew fewer in number, the time-gap longer. Letters in
turn gave place to mere notes and postcards, scribbled in violent haste,
at wide intervals. And ultimately even these ceased; and the great
silence of separation was unbroken. Nor were the promises redeemed:
there came to Laura neither gifts of books nor calls to be present at
academic robings. Within six months of leaving school, M. P. married and
settled down in her native township; and thereafter she was forced to
adjust the rate of her progress to the steps of halting little feet.
Cupid went a-governessing, and spent the best years of her life in the
obscurity of the bush.

And Laura? . . . In Laura's case, no kindly Atropos snipped the thread
of her aspirations: these, large, vague, extemporary, one and all
achieved fulfilment; then withered off to make room for more. But this,
the future still securely hid from her. She went out from school with
the uncomfortable sense of being a square peg, which fitted into none of
the round holes of her world; the wisdom she had got, the experience she
was richer by, had, in the process of equipping her for life, merely
seemed to disclose her unfitness. She could not then know that, even for
the squarest peg, the right hole may ultimately be found; seeming
unfitness prove to be only another aspect of a peculiar and special
fitness. But, of the after years, and what they brought her, it is not
the purport of this little book to tell. It is enough to say: many a
day came and went before she grasped that, oftentimes, just
those mortals who feel cramped and unsure in the conduct of everyday
life, will find themselves to rights, with astounding ease, in that
freer, more spacious world where no practical considerations hamper, and
where the creatures that inhabit dance to their tune: the world where
are stored up men's best thoughts, the hopes, and fancies; where the
shadow is the substance, and the multitude of business pales before the
dream.

In the meantime, however, the exodus of the fifty-five turned the
College upside-down.

Early the following morning Laura made her final preparations for
departure. This, alas! was not to be on so imposing a scale as the
departures of her schoolfellows. They, under special escort, would have
a cab apiece, and would drive off with flying handkerchiefs and all
their luggage piled high in front. Whereas Laura's box had gone by van:
for she and Pin, who was in Melbourne on a visit, were to spend a couple
of days at Godmother's before starting up-country. Even her farewells,
which she had often rehearsed to herself with dramatic emphasis, went
off without eclat. Except for Miss Chapman, the governesses were absent
when the moment came, and Miss Chapman's mind was so full of other
things that she went on giving orders while she was shaking hands.

But Laura was not destined to leave the walls, within the shadow of
which she had learned so much, as tamely as all this. There was still a
surprise in waiting for her. As she whisked about the corridors in
search of Mrs. Gurley, she met two girls, one of whom said: "I
say, Laura Rambotham, you're fetched. Your pretty sister's come for
you."

"My . . . who?" gaped Laura.

"Your sister. By gum, there's a nose for you--and those whopping eyes!
You'll have to play second fiddle to THAT, all your days, my dear."

On entering the reception-room Laura tried hard to see Pin with the eyes
of a stranger. Pin rose from her chair--awkwardly, of course, for there
were other people present, and Laura's violent stare was disconcerting
in the extreme: it made Pin believe her hat was crooked, or that she had
a black speck on her nose. As for Laura, she could see no great change
in her sister; the freckles were certainly paler, and the features were
perhaps beginning to emerge a little, from the cushiony fat in which
they were bedded; but that was all. Still, if outsiders, girls in
particular, were struck by it . . .

A keener stab than this--really, she did not grudge Pin being pretty:
it was only the newness of the thing that hurt--a keener stab was it
that, though she had ordered Pin repeatedly, and with all the stress she
was master of, to come in a wagonette to fetch her, so that she might at
least drive away like the other girls; in spite of this, the little
nincompoop had after all arrived on foot. Godmother had said the idea of
driving was stuff and nonsense--a quite unnecessary expense. Pin, of
course, had meekly given in; and thus Laura's last brave attempt to be
comfortably like her companions came to naught. She went out of the
school in the same odd and undignified fashion in which she had lived
there.

The wrangle caused by Pin's chicken-heartedness lasted the
sisters down the garden-path, across the road, and over into the
precincts of a large, public park. Only when they were some distance
through this, did Laura wake to what was happening to her. Then, it came
over her with a rush: she was free, absolutely free; she might do any
mortal thing she chose.

As a beginning she stopped short.

"Hold on, Pin . . . take this," she said, giving her sister the heavy
leather bag they were carrying in turns to the tramway. Pin obediently
held out her hand, in its little white cotton glove.

"And my hat."

"What are you going to do, Laura?"

"You'll see."

"You'll get sunstroke!"

"Fiddles!--it's quite shady. Here're my gloves.--Now, Pin, you follow
your nose and you'll find me--WHERE you find me!"

"Oh, what ARE you going to do, Laura?" cried Pin, in anxiety.

"I'm going to have a good run," said Laura; and tightened her
hair-ribbon.

"Oh, but you can't run in the street! You're too big. People'll see
you."

"Think I care?--If you'd been years only doing what you were allowed
to, I guess you'd want to do something you weren't allowed to, too.--
Good-bye!"

She was off, had darted away into the leaden heat of the December
morning, like an arrow from its bow, her head bent, her arms
close to her sides, fleet-footed as a spaniel: Pin was faced by the
swift and rhythmic upturning of her heels. There were not many people
abroad at this early hour, but the few there were, stood still and
looked in amazement after the half-grown girl in white, whose thick
black plait of hair sawed up and down as she ran; and a man with mop and
bucket, who was washing statues, stopped his work and whistled, and
winked at Pin as she passed.

Cross and confused Pin trudged after her sister, Laura's hat and gloves
in one hand, the leather bag in the other.

Right down the central avenue ran Laura, growing smaller and smaller in
the distance, the area of her movements decreasing as she ran, till she
appeared to be almost motionless, and not much larger than a figure in
the background of a picture. Then came a sudden bend in the long,
straight path. She shot round it, and was lost to sight.

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