out of humour with one's self from time to time? And yet an invincible
self-approbation is one of the boons I envy your full-blown Philistine,
man or woman. Take Mrs. Towers, for instance, who chants eternal paeans
to everything she possesses, from her eleven children to her apricots;
from her husband to her Ligurian bees. You know how one seldom meets
her, without hearing of some visitor who has travelled far and wide, and
yet regards his visit to Hawthorn Vale as the happiest event in a life
not barren in joy. How it must save the tissues of the brain to be in
such a state of mind as that perennially! ...
'This afternoon Esther and the three children arrived. Poor dear! it is
so sad to see her in mourning still. Unless husbands have been very
angelic, it seems rather a mistake to wear mourning so long. But I
think this is one of the subjects I should skip. I have some thoughts
in future of trying to imitate Providence in letting events fall heavily
or lightly as they may, but without remark or expostulation. This will
be all the easier, because the children have taken entire possession of
me. To-morrow we are going for an endless ramble by the Torrens away
towards the hills, beyond Windsor, and all the other pretty little
townships, crowded with gardens and orchards and orangeries and fields
of vegetables. Perhaps we shall see some mountain ducks on the river,
and hear the loud ringing calls of ash-coloured cuckoos away in the
gum-tree tops. Here is a _bon mot_ from your nephew Clement:
'_I:_ "Why, Clem, you are growing frightfully tall! And yet it is not
so very long since you were in petticoats!"
'_Clem:_ "No; but you, Aunt Stella, are in them still; Will you never
grow out of them?"
'I felt too crushed to attempt a reply. I think I shall send this to
Mr. _Punch_, as a specimen of an Australian boy's idea of repartee at
nine.'
*CHAPTER IX.*
'Fairacre, 1st March.
'I have just returned from Mrs. Stein's, laden with roses and early
white China asters and double balsams of the most celestial pink. You
know of old what a delightful event a visit to Rosenthal is. But you do
not know what it is to listen for hours to Professor Kellwitz, the
Primitive Dwelling man, talking for hours on the prae-Deuteronomic
Pentateuch and "Die assyrisch-babylonisch Keilinschriften," and the
early twilight of man's history on the earth. Nay, he one day went back
still further, even to the time when our world was without form and
void--when what is above was not called heaven, and that which is the
earth beneath had not a name--ere a sprout had yet sprung forth and "the
generative processes at work were all hidden in chaotic vapour." The
two old friends spoke, of course, to each other in German, and sometimes
I lost the thread of what they were saying, and I would not ask a
question for the world. I love too well to listen to men talking when
they are oblivious of a woman's presence. The second day I was there is
especially memorable to me. Mrs. Stein was busy preserving Duke
cherries in brandy. The sparrows are so bad this year that the cherries
have been gathered off some trees before ripening. Don't you think the
sparrow in Australia is an awful example of a bird with a conscience
seared as with a hot iron? In his native countries he is, it seems,
undainty to a discreditable degree, seldom tasting fruit and never red
nectar. But with us he not only becomes an epicure beyond the wildest
dreams of the pagan world, but a reckless destroyer--a small Attila with
a pair of brown wings. Not merely does he disdain to eat the skin of a
freestone peach and the transparent rind of sweetwater grapes, but for
each one he eats he spoils twenty by pecking at them. Here at
Rosenthal, where he lives meal-free and at ease, the ungrateful little
varlet nibbles two score of cherries to each one he eats.
'Ah, true! I have not told you about the second day of my visit. There
was rather a horrid gully wind blowing. So early in the afternoon the
Doctor and the Professor established themselves in the western veranda
with the curtains drawn, with their pipes lit, and between them a table
that groaned under its array of Lager-bier bottles. I was sitting, with
a book and a small Rupert garment half made, by the French window of the
drawing-room, when the two took up their quarters close beside me, with
only the window-curtains between us. There were peals of Homeric
laughter as they recalled incidents of their student days; and there was
talk of a Lischen, who seems to have been celebrated for the length of
her golden hair, "long since turned to dust." Then they talked of their
work. The Doctor told tales of the early days of the colony, and how,
twenty-four years ago, he and Courtland became intimate friends. When
he spoke of father's learning and rare goodness of nature, it was all I
could do to keep myself from stepping out and kissing him on the mouth.
Then the Professor spoke of his early struggles. For many years he held
a subordinate post in a small university, where he had three-quarters of
the day to himself. He seems from the first to have been devoted to
that kind of literature which no reference library should be without.
One of the incidents he told was of a far journey he made during one
vacation to a little town, to which some Grand-Duke had bequeathed a
singular collection of books. It was a long journey, and cost more than
he anticipated; so that before he returned he was forced to leave his
watch in pawn, though he trudged the greater part of the way. And the
object of all this was to authenticate _one date_. On hearing this, I
shifted my chair, so that I could see the Professor's face better. A
spare keen face it is, with many lines and furrows, and yet distinctly
human, as though in all his researches and wanderings he had never lost
sight of the fact that man himself is a more insoluble interesting
problem than any facts to be gleaned regarding him.
'There was a sound of cork-drawing, and discovering that I was thirsty,
I went into the dining-room for a glass of seltzer. When I returned the
talk had veered to Australia--its inhabitants and resources, and future
prospects. The Professor found a grave drawback in the thought that as
most colonists originally came to the country for material reasons, true
patriotism must be of tardy growth: "Your young people do not love it as
their native land in the same way that ours do."
'"Yes, Herr Professor, they do!" I cried, obeying an irresistible
impulse to bear witness to the love I have for my own country. And then
a long animated talk followed, during which I was obliged to turn to my
own tongue--for the Professor talks English much better than I talk
German. I drew up the veranda curtain, and bade the good Pundit mark the
loveliness of my birthplace--the city with its white buildings and
scores of spires encircled by shady parks, the sea beyond stretching to
the western horizon, the fertile plain to the north sprinkled with wide
fields that yield bountiful harvests from year to year; the hills close
at hand, with their tree-crowned heights, and graceful curves, and
shadowy gullies--all thickly studded with prosperous homes, with
orchards, and vineyards, and flowery gardens, and olivets--and over all
the overflowing sunshine, which encompasses the land year in, year out.
Who could be born in such a place and not love it for its beauty and
fertility? If our fathers were crowded out of the old world--or left it
because they feared their children might sink into poverty--was not that
an added reason to love the new one, which had offered them comfort and
prosperity, and a fair field for the energies of their sons? We have
great wastes and atrocious hot winds--but shall we receive good and not
evil also?
'"Yes, after all, each one must remain in his own skin," said Dr. Stein,
taking up the parable. "If I were in bitter poverty in the Fatherland,
as many men are who are more gifted than I am, I might be a dangerous
Socialist hatching plots against the safety of the State. There is a
point beyond which history and the traditions of the past touch the
heart but little. The great kings and nobles who figure so largely in
our history were mostly men who commanded the lives and wages of others,
while they themselves were hedged round with privileges and wanton
luxury. I want my own share of the pleasant things of life, and the
country which gives me this, and in which my children were born, has as
strong a claim on their love and gratitude as the oldest country of them
all. Practically you owe your life to the country in which you were
born. Stella, here, who is the granddaughter of a man that fell
fighting for Old England, do you think she would not make as much
sacrifice for her native land as any German maiden of old times?"
"Hear, hear," said I, clapping my hands in honour of myself in true
democratic fashion.
'Enter Mrs. Stein, followed by Hetty with a trayful of slender pink
glasses, and a flagon of Rosenthal cup. The pure juice of the
Australian grape mellowed by ten years' repose in the Doctor's cellar.
It was a lovely amber colour, with an excellent bouquet, and though I
always like wine best when I do not drink it, I felt bound to honour the
Professor's toast, which was "The Old Fatherland and the New." We
became great friends, and, in fact, I have promised that when you and I
go on our travels we shall pay him a visit in Berlin.'
*CHAPTER X.*
'Fairacre, 14th March.
'MY DEAR CUTHBERT,
'A very disconcerting thought hopped into my head after reading over
your last letter. You seem to go to see the Rev. S. Carter very often.
Tell me true--is it the quality of the good man's theology, or his
daughters, that attract you? Perhaps you have not yet arrived at the
conscious stage. Oh yes, I am quite an authority on the tender passion.
I have read and re-read Mr. Harrison's play, and made endless
suggestions. There are two young people who are madly in love with each
other, but do not know it till a certain crisis. I object to this
rather, but A. says that it is for the stage, and not for posterity.
You would have laughed if you had heard us deciding such knotty points
as to whether a certain young man would have the presence of mind to
improvise a story when he was interrupted in making a declaration of
love; whether the heroine was not disloyal in believing her lover guilty
of a crime because appearances were strongly against him, etc., etc.
There is an unusual and interesting plot, and the dialogue is crisp. A.
calls it "Macaroni" for the present, because he says I have been
sticking feathers in it. I found him out using up some things I said,
and he declares it is because Evelina resembles me, and would naturally
speak a little like me.
'I have now a very nice riding-horse, from Zembra's, named Ivan. Our
favourite ride is to the seaside, which we reach in half an hour when we
make for the Grange or Henley Beach. The latter is my favourite ride.
We pass such old-looking gardens, and hedges still full of Macartney
roses--altogether a flat, shadowy tract in which there are always
sea-birds wheeling slowly above the trees--sea-gulls, white terns, and
occasionally those lovely little gulls, snow-white and pale gray, with
blood-red feet and bills. When disturbed by the trampling of our horses
they utter mournful cries, and fly before us seaward. They remind me of
something in an old author somewhere on the shelves: "About thee
gathered the daughters of old ocean, uttering cries of grief. They
spread over thee vestments perfumed with ambrosia."
'But I have been strangely neglectful in not introducing you before this
to Major Foster and Mr. Paul Ferrier. Though we have known them only
since you left, they are now habitual visitors--in fact, they may be
called our _amis de la maison_ in the antique line.
'The cause of the Major's visit to Adelaide is a great joke. He came to
administer consolation to an old friend who had lost his wife, and was
inconsolable--for nine months. Do you not find this very funny? But
when I tell you that this friend is Mr. Inglis Taylor! During the first
six months of his widowhood Mr. I. T. wrote repeatedly to his old
friend, urging him to come on a long-promised visit; he was so
broken-hearted, but could not leave his clients to go for a change. But
the Major being long a widower, with his only daughter settled, and
having retired from the army, why should he not come? So, moved by the
sacred ties of old friendship, and the duty of administering
consolation, the Major came, and found his friend enjoying the sober
ecstasies of his third honeymoon. You know already something of Mrs. I.
Taylor and her many matrimonial adventures. I have not the slightest
doubt that on the voyage the Major read standard works of philosophy and
religion, so that he might be better able to bind up a prostrate and
bleeding spirit. I have tried to glean information on this point, but
the Major is reticent. In fact, I think he mistrusts my motives. He
does not know that my curiosity arises from my wish to be a beautiful
soul, Don't you remember that Montaigne says the beautiful souls are
they that are universal, open, and ready for all things; if not
instructed, at least capable of being so? Now, I do want to be
instructed how a man feels when he has come fifteen thousand miles to
weep on the neck of a widower, and finds him married for the third time
to a woman who has been thrice married before. Well, perhaps this is
only her third husband, but I cannot make any other reduction in the
number. I never see her without recalling the woman of Samaria. But I
suppose it makes a difference if there is only one of them living at a
time--I mean of the husbands.
Mr. Ferrier is an ex-missionary. He lived among the blacks for twenty
years; but he has been so much concerned for their souls that he does
not know any myths, and their customs, I suppose, are not to be spoken
of. He called shortly after you left, to ask if mother would subscribe
to the mission in which he was so long engaged till severe and repeated
ophthalmia threatened him with blindness. Indeed, he had almost lost
his sight when he came to be treated in the hospital here six months
ago. Even now, when he is outside, he always wears a green shade over
his eyes. He has about sixty pounds a year to live on, and out of this
he subscribes ten pounds a year to the Mandura Mission. He is nearly
seventy, but looks older, being very weather-beaten and brown, and his
eyes so dim. There is something heroic and ardent about the old man; and
imagine being so enthusiastic about the conversion of the aborigines!
You know mother's angelic kindness to poor and lonely people. He is
quite alone in the world, and no doubt his leisure engrosses most of his
time. It is an understood thing that he comes to Fairacre twice or
thrice a week, and we all subscribe to his beloved mission. I think he
has more of Don Quixote in him than any other I have ever known.
'You say that you never think of me now as doing anything but making
snares for the stubble-loving grasshoppers or watching birds on the
wing. Well, we do pass a great deal of our time outside. The worst
ardours of the summer are over; the woods are so shady, and the children
and the dogs tempt me out constantly, when I have serious thoughts of
confusedly tumbling over divers authors. After breakfast we go out to
feed the pigeons and the chickens. There are so many pigeons now, they
darken the air, flying down to be fed. They alight on our shoulders and
make such pretty cooing sounds. It is not to be credited though, how
long-legged and everyday Hector grows in common with his family. Time,
who is the most impertinent busybody in the world, so soon spoils
chickens--and alas! I suppose I ought to say, young women. Ivan begins
to distinguish my voice, and makes me very happy sometimes by whinnying
when I speak to him.... Often we follow a string of ants to their home,
and watch them descend with the booty they have gathered. We drop
crystals of sugar and grains of wheat and rice so as to watch them
carrying off their loads in triumph. This afternoon we discovered a
hive of bees in Hercules. Is it necessary to explain that this is the
gigantic gum-tree opposite us in the Park Lands? Their hum is never
absent there; but near that great old tree it is as though one were
inside a hive. We watched numbers passing in and out of the hollow
stump of a broken limb, high up, and, looking closely, we saw the ends
of their waxen cells. How many jars of honey are hived away there is
now an all-absorbing thought--second in interest only to the
chrysanthemums, which are swelling visibly and promise to open early
this season. After discovering the wild hive, we wandered homeward; and
when we got back, we ate grapes in the vine arcade. It is quite a show,
literally bending beneath its loads of grapes; so are all the
fruit-trees, each after its kind. The jargonelle pears are as yellow
and soft as cream, and the large purple Turkish figs melt on the trees.
The peaches and apricots blush at each other, like lovers in a play.
(Mem.: Offer this comparison to Mr. Harrison for "Macaroni") There are
some pomegranate-trees, whose fruit looks like fiery blossoms. They are
not quite ripe yet, but we got one each, and sat down picking seeds from
the crimson rinds, like sparrows.
'"Now, Dustiefoot, it is extremely wrong of you to thrust your cold
black nose in my face----" My dear, don't you think it is time I
stopped? That is the way with us in our dear, quiet Adelaide! We have
so little to distract us, that when we begin to do anything the
difficulty is to leave off.'
*CHAPTER XI.*
'Blumenthal, Easter Sunday.
'I must write to you while I am at Pastor Fielder's. I came on
Saturday, so as to be at the Dankfest to-day.
'You know what an old-world charming little German-looking township
Blumenthal is, with the Coolie Hills in the distance, to the south-east,
and the quiet, shadowy woods all round, broken up by farms and vineyards
and numberless homesteads, nestling among fruit-trees. St. Stephan's,
the new little Lutheran church, is nearly a mile from the pastor's
house, with a delicious untilled valley full of tan wattles lying
between. There is a good-sized garden and a glebe attached to the
pastorage--a glebe with two milch-cows, likewise two calves, that come
up and let you kiss them on the forehead, and rub their charming little
chestnut noses against your hand. There is also a fat gray cob, lazier
even than Leo. You may doubt this; but that is because you do not know
Hans as intimately as I do. But I want you to come to the little church.
The pastor went at ten; Mrs. Fiedler and I half an hour later, and we
brought immense posies of chrysanthemums. They are out in wide bushes;
at this moment there is a great bowl of them close beside me. They are
in the little hall in the sitting-room, on the tiny lawn, in the
garden--everywhere. We also brought some of our best roses and crocuses.
How I love the yellow crocuses that come up in wide golden bubbles, so
close to the ground! Sunday was an entirely perfect day. I believe it
was really the first day of autumn. The sun was at times half veiled
with fleecy gray clouds. The sky was not so staringly blue; a tender
tint of gray had stolen into it. And there were such gentle pastoral
sounds: the distant tinkling of bullock-bells; the bleating of sheep not
far away; the lowing of a cow whose calf had been weaned; the high,
sweet carol of a white-shafted fantail. Autumn leaves fluttered in the
wind down from the willows and fruit-trees; but they did not speak of
decay, only of rest. Everything rested--from the great foliage masses
that bounded the horizon on every side, to the bees whose buzzing was
faint, as if they were half drugged with the ambrosia of deep
flower-bells. No rumble of dray or waggon, laden with wool or wheat or
grapes or hay, invaded the Sabbath quiet.
'My old friends the Schulzes, Grossvater and Grossmutter, greeted me
with all their old cordiality. Their seat was crammed with sturdy young
Schulzes of the third generation. I should be afraid to say how many of
the sept there were in all. It was good I was in the church before the
service began, for I could not have kept my eyes from wandering. Such
lavish heaps of flowers, fruit, and vegetables! No wonder the good
Germans of Blumenthal hold a harvest festival. There are ten windows in
St. Stephan's, with wide, deep sills to them. On each side of these an
overflowing horn of plenty had been emptied.
'It was a triumphant exhibition of what Nature can do in our land when
her lap is shaken out. The apples alone were a feast to the eyes--so
large and smooth and beautifully tinted. As for the pears, they were so
ripely yellow one dared not look at them too fixedly lest they should
melt at a glance. There were mounds of great purple figs gaping with
mellowness. Citrons large as pumpkins, quinces not much smaller, plums
of all kinds, from the little piquant damson to the generous Orleans;
blood-red mulberries, fragrant peaches with their crimsoned cheeks,
nectarines, and oranges of a lordly size, though still, of course,
unripe. On the altar--a plain table with a white cloth and
crucifix--were grapes, heaped up in splendid profusion. The robust
Black Prince, the small berries of the Cabernet Sauvignon--no, I must
not put you out of patience by naming all; besides, if I did, half would
still be forgotten, if you will pardon the bull. I noticed one bunch of
Doradillas which must have weighed five pounds. You are in deadly
terror of hearing about the spies and Eshcol--but I spare you. I also
let you off in the matter of vegetables. They were all there, from the
asparagus to the virtuous potato. The ends of the seats were wreathed
with hop and vine leaves, and round the chandeliers were hung sheaves of
fine wheat, of oats, of barley, and maize. The pastor preached a divine
little sermon--sincere, simple, and to the point. It was the discourse
of a man who knows that there are two sorts of ignorance, and two sorts
of lying, in the world. The ignorance that knows and cares for little
beyond the daily round; the ignorance that cares for so much, yet
apprehends that so little can be really known. The lying--that of
statements known to be untrue; the other, which takes the form of
treating as certainties matters that can never be subjectively proved
true. And yet, because he knew all this, it seemed to me that he was
all the better fitted to speak with authority on what we do know to be
true. We know that if we put aside the baser temptations of life we can
bear our share of fruit to nourish man's spiritual nature, even as the
fields around us, year in, year out, bear harvests that sustain material
life.
'As we came home the wattlewood valley rang with the peculiar mournful
pipe of some birds. "They are quite new here," said the pastor and
pastorin as we stood to listen. I felt I ought to know whose notes they
were, yet could not tell without seeing the birds that uttered them. I
left Dustiefoot in the pastor's charge and stole away as noiselessly as
an aboriginal in Kooditcha shoes. Dear, how you will begin to hate this
comparison--to me it still has something of the freshness of primeval
woods. They were white-winged choughs. I saw three of them perched in
the very top of a tree. One knows them from afar by their scarlet
irides and the glossy green reflections of their plumage.
'In the afternoon we drove to the Schulzes. Grossmutter, as usual,
kissed me repeatedly, as if I were a little child--and very good. But
it is true, if ever I am good at all, it is among these kindly, sincere
German people. Not even the sort of impertinent pen you wot of would
tempt me to cast reflections now on a world that produces such fine
grapes and wholesome-natured people.
'Grossvater was in one of his blithest and serenest hours. Their golden
wedding-day is next month--on his eighty-first birthday. After that he
will give up all active part in the management of his vineyards. His
son Karl is a good and skilful vigneron. "I counsel him to be true to
his Australian Fatherland--to make nothing but good wine from good
grapes," said the old man, with the genial smile that makes his face so
young. "Wine fit to drink at the table of the Lord's Supper, at the
marriage feast, at the christening of the eldest son, on the death-bed,
when the dear God calls us to another world."