The Rainbow

And still, she hated school. Still she cried, she did not

believe in it. Why should the children learn, and why should she

teach them? It was all so much milling the wind. What folly was

it that made life into this, the fulfilling of some stupid,

factitious duty? It was all so made up, so unnatural. The

school, the sums, the grammar, the quarterly examinations, the

registers--it was all a barren nothing!

Why should she give her allegiance to this world, and let it

so dominate her, that her own world of warm sun and growing,

sap-filled life was turned into nothing? She was not going to do

it. She was not going to be a prisoner in the dry, tyrannical

man-world. She was not going to care about it. What did it

matter if her class did ever so badly in the quarterly

examination. Let it--what did it matter?

Nevertheless, when the time came, and the report on her class

was bad, she was miserable, and the joy of the summer was taken

away from her, she was shut up in gloom. She could not really

escape from this world of system and work, out into her fields

where she was happy. She must have her place in the working

world, be a recognized member with full rights there. It was

more important to her than fields and sun and poetry, at this

time. But she was only the more its enemy.

It was a very difficult thing, she thought, during the long

hours of intermission in the summer holidays, to be herself, her

happy self that enjoyed so much to lie in the sun, to play and

swim and be content, and also to be a school-teacher getting

results out of a class of children. She dreamed fondly of the

time when she need not be a teacher any more. But vaguely, she

knew that responsibility had taken place in her for ever, and as

yet her prime business was to work.

The autumn passed away, the winter was at hand. Ursula became

more and more an inhabitant of the world of work, and of what is

called life. She could not see her future, but a little way off,

was college, and to the thought of this she clung fixedly. She

would go to college, and get her two or three years' training,

free of cost. Already she had applied and had her place

appointed for the coming year.

So she continued to study for her degree. She would take

French, Latin, English, mathematics and botany. She went to

classes in Ilkeston, she studied at evening. For there was this

world to conquer, this knowledge to acquire, this qualification

to attain. And she worked with intensity, because of a want

inside her that drove her on. Almost everything was subordinated

now to this one desire to take her place in the world. What kind

of place it was to be she did not ask herself. The blind desire

drove her on. She must take her place.