We soon found that Ideala, having at last put her hand to the plough,
worked with a will, and although she was true to her principle that a
woman's best work is done beneath the surface, I think her own labours
will eventually make themselves felt with a good result in the world.
But the life she has chosen for herself is martyrdom, and her womanly
shrinking from the suffering she would alleviate is never lessened by
use. Yet she does not waver. Other women admire her devotion, and
follow in her footsteps; they do not doubt but that she has chosen the
better part; but I fancy that most men who have seen her draw the
little children about her and forget everything for a moment but her
delight in them, have felt that there must be something wrong in the
world when such a woman misses her vocation, and has to scatter her
love to the four winds of heaven, for want of an object upon which to
concentrate it in all its strength.
I do not know if her feeling for Lorrimer has changed. My sister
declares in her positive way that of course it has, completely; but my
sister is not always right. Ideala has never mentioned his name since
she returned to us, nor given us any other clue by which we could
judge. Only on one occasion, when some allusion was made to the course
she had intended to pursue in the past, she exclaimed: "Oh, how could
I!" and covered her face with her hands.
From where I sit just now I can see her walking up the avenue. She is
as straight as an arrow, young-looking, and fresh. Her step is firm and
light and elastic, and she moves with an easy grace only possible when
every muscle is unconstrained. Her dress is a work of art, light in
weight, but rich in colour and texture.
"What a beautiful woman!" I think involuntarily. I see her daily, and
pay her that tribute every time we meet, for--
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety.
Her intellect and selflessness preserve her youth. She is changed,
certainly. She has arisen, and can return no more to the lower walks,
to the old purposeless life, and desultory ways; but yet she is the
same Ideala, and holds you always expectant--you, who see beneath the
surface. The world will call her cold and self-contained till the end,
and so she is and will be--a snow-crowned volcano, with wonderful force
of fire working within. And she will not stop where she is; there is
something yet to come--some further development--something more--
something beyond! and she makes you feel that there is. What she says
of other women is true of herself. "Do not stand in their way," she
begs; "do not hinder them--above all, do not stop them. They are
running water; if you check them they stagnate, and you must suffer
yourself from their noisome exhalations. For the moral nature is like
water; it must have movement and air and sunshine to stay corruption
and keep it sweet and wholesome; and its movement is good works; its
air, faith in their efficiency; its sunshine, the evidence of this and
hope."
Comparative anatomists have proved that the human brain, from its first
appearance as a semi-fluid and shapeless mass, passes in succession
through the several structures that constitute the permanent and
perfect brains of fishes, reptiles, birds, and mammalia; but ultimately
it passes beyond them all, and acquires a marvellous development of its
own. And so it is with the human soul. It must rise through analogous
stages, and add to its own strength and beauty by daily bread of love
and thought, growing to greatness by help of these aliments only, and
reaching ultimately to such perfection as we cannot divine, for the end
is not here. But we might reach it sooner than we do were it not for
our own impatience. Growth is so exquisitely minute, it bursts upon us
an accomplished fact. We know this, and yet we would see the process;
and not seeing it we lose faith, waver, hesitate, stop, and recoil--a
going back _pour mieux sauter_ it is with the choicer spirit; but
we all are deficient in hope, all have our retrograde moments of
despair. We do not look about us enough to see what is being done for
others, how they are progressing, by what strange paths they are led.
We keep our eyes on our own ground too much, and, because we will not
compare cheerfully, we think our own way the roughest, our own journey
the longest--if there be any end to it at all! Yet all the time we
might see the end if only we would look up. And we need never despair
and lag, need never be cold and comfortless, if we would but love and
remember.
For, while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far out, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main!
Ideala raises her eyes to mine now, and smiles as she passes beneath my
window.
Another woman--a woman whom Claudia had long refused to know--is
leaning on her arm, talking to her earnestly. And that is Ideala's
attitude always. She gathers the useless units of society about her,
and makes them worthy women. There is no kind of sorrow for which she
has not found comfort, no folly she has not been successful in
checking, no vice she has not managed to cure, and no form of despair
which she has not relieved with hope. Her own experiences have taught
her to sympathise with every phase of feeling, and be lenient to every
shortcoming and excess. Wherever she is you may be sure that another
woman is there also--some one with a sorrowful history, probably; and
you may be equally sure that she is leaning on Ideala. God bless her!