Evadne was never a great reader in the sense of being omnivorous in her
choice of books, but she became a very good one. She always had a solid
book in hand, and some standard work of fiction also; but she read both
with the utmost deliberation, and with intellect clear and senses
unaffected by anything. After studying anatomy and physiology, she took up
pathology as a matter of course, and naturally went on from thence to
prophylactics and therapeutics, but was quite unharmed, because she made
no personal application of her knowledge as the coarser mind masculine of
the ordinary medical student is apt to do. She read of all the diseases to
which the heart is subject, and thought of them familiarly as "cardiac
affections," without fancying she had one of them; and she obtained an
extraordinary knowledge of the digestive processes and their ailments
without realizing, that her own might ever be affected. She possessed, in
fact, a mind of exceptional purity as well as of exceptional strength, one
to be enlightened by knowledge, not corrupted; but had it been otherwise
she must certainly have suffered in consequence of the effect of the
curiously foolish limitations imposed upon her by those who had charge of
her conventional education. Subjects were surrounded by mystery which
should have been explained. An impossible ignorance was the object aimed
at, and so long as no word was spoken on either side it was supposed to be
attained. The risk of making mysteries for an active intellect to feed
upon was never even considered, nor did anyone perceive the folly of
withholding positive knowledge, which, when properly conveyed, is the true
source of healthy-mindedness, from a child whose intelligent perception
was already sufficiently keen to require it. Principles were dealt out to
her, for one thing, with a generous want of definition which must have
made them fatal to all progress had she been able to take them intact. Her
mother's favourite and most inclusive dictum alone, that "everything is
for the best, and all things work together for good," should have forced
her to a matter of fact acceptance of wickedness as a thing inevitable
which it would be waste of time to oppose, since it was bound to resolve
itself into something satisfactory in the end, like the objectionable
refuse which can be converted by ingenious processes into an excellent
substitute for butter. But she was saved from the stultification of such a
position by finding it impossible to reconcile it practically with the
constant opposition which she found herself at the same time enjoined to
oppose to so many things. If everything is for the best, it appeared to
her, clearly we cannot logically oppose ourselves to anything, and there
must accordingly be two trinities in ethics, good, better, best, and bad,
worse, worst, which it is impossible to condense into one comprehensive
axiom.
But most noticeably prominent, to her credit, through all this period are
the same desirable characteristics, viz., that provisional acceptance
already noticed of what she was taught by those whom she delighted to
honor and obey, and the large-minded absence of prejudice which enabled
her to differ from them, when she saw good cause, without antagonism.
"Drop the subject when you do not agree: there is no need to be bitter
because you know you are right," was the maxim she used in ordinary social
intercourse; but she was at the same time forming principles to be acted
upon in opposition to everybody when occasion called for action. Another
noticeable point, too, was the way in which her mind returned from every
excursion into no matter what abstruse region of research, to the position
of women, her original point of departure. "Withholding education from
women was the original sin of man," she concludes.
Mind as creator appealed to her less than mind as recorder, reasoner, and
ruler; and for one gem of poetry or other beauty of purely literary value
which she quotes, there are fifty records of principles of action. The
acquisition of knowledge was her favourite pastime, her principal pleasure
in life, and there were no doubts of her own ability to disturb her so
long as there was no self-consciousness. Unfortunately, however, for her
tranquillity, the self-consciousness had to come. She approached the verge
of womanhood. She was made to do up her hair. She was encouraged to think
of being presented, coming out, and having a home of her own eventually.
Her liberty of action was sensibly curtailed, but all supervision in the
matter of her mental pursuits was withdrawn. She had received the
accustomed education for a girl in her position, which her parents held,
without knowing it themselves, perhaps, to consist for the most part in
being taught to know better than to read anything which they would have
considered objectionable. But the end of the supervision, which should
have been a joy to her, brought the first sudden sense of immensity, and
was chilling. She perceived that the world is large and strong, and that
she was small and weak; that knowledge is infinite, capacity indifferent,
life short--and then came the inevitable moment. She does not say what
caused the first overwhelming sense of self in her own case; but the
change it wrought is evident, and the disheartening doubts with which it
was accompanied are expressed. She picks her
Flower in the crannied wall,
and realizes her own limitations:
...but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.
And from this time forward there is less literature and more life in the
"Commonplace Book."