All these things were taught at her knee to each child
in turn by Rosalie’s mother, and each was taught
out of the self-same books, miraculously preserved
by Rosalie’s mother; the backs of most of them
carefully stitched and re-stitched, and marked all
through by the dates of each child’s daily lesson,
written in pencil by Rosalie’s mother.
The dates ranged from 1869 when Harold was being taught
and when the books were fresh and clean, and Rosalie’s
mother fresh and ardent with her first-born, to 1884,
when Rosalie was being taught, and the books very
old and thumbed and most terribly crowded with pencil
marks, and Rosalie’s mother no longer fresh
but rather worn, but teaching as fondly and earnestly
as ever, because it was her duty. Literally at
the knee of Rosalie’s mother these things were
taught. On her knee with one of her arms about
you for the Bible teaching; and standing at her knee,
hands behind you, for the teaching of most of the
rest. Yes, that was the early education, and
the manner of the education, of Rosalie and of her
brothers and sisters, and one perceives with indignation
the spectacle of a mother wasting her time like that
and wasting her children’s time like that.
Rosalie’s mother did everything in the house
and she was always doing something in the house—for
somebody else. She never rested and she was always
worried. Her brows were always wrinkled with
the feverish concentration of one anxiously doing one
thing while anxiously thinking of another thing waiting
to be done. She had a driven and a hunted look.
Now Rosalie’s father had a driving and a hunting
look.
Rosalie’s father in his youth threw away everything.
Rosalie’s mother throughout the whole of her
life gave away everything. Rosalie’s father
was a tragic figure dwelling in a house of bondage;
but he was at least a tragic king, ruling his house
and venting his griefs upon his house. Rosalie’s
mother was a tragic figure and she was a tragic slave
in the house of bondage. The life of Rosalie’s
father was a tragedy, but a tragedy in some measure
relieved because he knew it was a tragedy and could
wave his arms and shout and smash things and hurl
beefsteaks through the air because of the tragedy
of it. But the life of Rosalie’s mother
was an infinitely deeper tragedy because she never
knew or suspected that it was a tragedy.
Still, that is so often the difference between the
tragedy of a woman and the tragedy of a man.
CHAPTER IV
The very great difference between her father and her
mother maintained in Rosalie that early perception
of the wondrousness of her father. She loved
her mother, but in the atmosphere surrounding her
mother there was often flurry and worry and there was
nothing whatever in her mother to mystify and entrance
by sudden and violent eruptions of the miraculous.
She did not love her father for he was entirely too
remote and awe-ful for love, but he entranced her
with his marvellousness. This maintained in her
also her perception of the altogether greater superiority
of all males over all females.
