"The mind can bring it about, that all bodily modifications or images of
things may be referred to the idea of God."
The book stood open before her on the kitchen table, propped against the
scales. As long as you were only stripping the strings from the French
beans you could read.
The mind can bring it about. The mind can bring it about. "He who clearly
and distinctly understands himself and his emotions loves God, and so
much the more in proportion as he more understands himself and his
emotions."
Fine slices of French beans fell from the knife, one by one, into the
bowl of clear water. Spinoza's thought beat its way out through the smell
of steel, the clean green smell of the cut beans, the crusty, spicy smell
of the apple pie you had made. "He who loves God cannot endeavour that
God should love him in return."
"'Shall we gather at the river--'" Catty sang as she went to and fro
between the kitchen and the scullery. Catty was happy now that Maggie had
gone and she had only you and Jesus with her in the kitchen. Through the
open door you could hear the clack of the hatchet and the thud on the
stone flags as Roddy, with slow, sorrowful strokes, chopped wood in the
backyard.
"Miss Mary--" Catty's thick, loving voice and the jerk of her black eyes
warned her.
Mamma looked in at the door.
"Put that book away," she said. She hated the two brown volumes of
Elwes's Spinoza you had bought for your birthday. "The dinner will be
ruined if you read."
"It'll be ruined if I don't read."
For then your mind raged over the saucepans and the fragrant, floury
pasteboard, hungry and unfed. It couldn't bring anything about. It
snatched at the minutes left over from Roddy and the house and Mamma and
the piano. You knew what every day would be like. You would get up early
to practise. When the cooking and the housework was done Roddy would want
you. You would play tennis together with Mr. Sutcliffe and Dorsy Heron.
Or you would go up on to the moors and comfort Roddy while he talked
about the "things" he had done in Canada and about getting away and about
the dog. You would say over and over again, "You know you didn't hang
him. It was Jem's uncle. He was a bad dog. He bit the sheep." In the
winter evenings you would sew or play or read aloud to Mamma and Roddy,
and Roddy would crouch over the fender, with his hands stretched out to
the fire, not listening.
But Roddy was better. The wind whipped red blood into his cheeks. He said
he would be well if it wasn't for the bleating of the sheep, and the
crying of the peewits and the shouting of the damned villagers. And
people staring at him. He would be well if he could get away.
Then--he would be well if he could marry Dorsy.
So the first year passed. And the second. And the third year. She was
five and twenty. She thought: "I shall die before I'm fifty. I've lived
half my life and done nothing."