Celibates | Page 3

so ridiculous. I wonder her husband allows her to make such a guy of herself. What
a curious little man, his great cough and that foolish shouting manner; a good-natured,
empty-headed little fellow. They are a funny couple! Harold knew her husband at Oxford;
they were at the same college. She took honours at Oxford; that's why she seemed out of

place in a little town like Sutton. She is quite different from her husband; he couldn't pass
his examinations; he had been obliged to leave. ... What made them marry?
'I don't know anything about Comte--I wish I did; it is so dreadful to be ignorant. I never
felt my ignorance before, but that little woman does make me feel it, not that she intrudes
her learning on any one; I wish she did, for I want to learn. I wish I could remember what
she told me: that all knowledge passes through three states: the theological,
the--the--metaphysical, and the scientific. We are religious when we are children,
metaphysical when we are one-and- twenty, and as we get old we grow scientific. And I
must not forget this, that what is true for the individual is true for the race. In the earliest
ages man was religious (I wonder what our vicar would say if he heard this). In the
Middle Ages man was metaphysical, and in these latter days he is growing scientific.
'The other day when I came into the drawing-room she didn't say a word. I waited and
waited to see if she would speak--no, not a word. She sat reading. Occasionally she
would look up, stare at the ceiling, and then take a note. I wonder what she put down on
that slip of paper? But when I spoke she seemed glad to talk, and she told me about
Oxford. It evidently was the pleasantest time of her life. It must have been very curious.
There were a hundred girls, and they used to run in and out of each other's rooms, and
they had dances; they danced with each other, and never thought about men. She told me
she never enjoyed any dances so much as those; and they had a gymnasium, and special
clothes to wear there--a sort of bloomer costume. It must have been very jolly. I wish I
had gone to Oxford. Girls dancing together, and never thinking about men. How nice!
'At Oxford they say that marriage is not the only mission for women-- that is to say, for
some women. They don't despise marriage, but they think that for some women there is
another mission. When I spoke to Mrs. Fargus about her marriage, she had to admit that
she had written to her college friends to apologise--no, not to apologise, she said, but to
explain. She was not ashamed, but she thought she owed them an explanation. Just fancy
any of the girls in Sutton being ashamed of being married!'
The darkness was thick with wandering scents, and Mildred's thoughts withered in the
heat. She closed her eyes; she lay quite still, but the fever of the night devoured her; the
sheet burned like a flame; she opened her eyes, and was soon thinking as eagerly as
before.
She thought of the various possibilities that marriage would shut out to her for ever. She
reproached herself for having engaged herself to Alfred Stanby, and remembered that
Harold had been opposed to the match, and had refused to give his consent until Alfred
was in a position to settle five hundred a year upon her. ... Alfred would expect her to
keep house for him exactly as she was now keeping house for her brother. Year after year
the same thing, seeing Alfred go away in the morning, seeing him come home in the
evening. That was how her life would pass. She did not wish to be cruel; she knew that
Alfred would suffer terribly if she broke off her engagement, but it would be still more
cruel to marry him if she did not think she would make him happy, and the conviction
that she would not make him happy pressed heavily upon her. What was she to do? She
could not, she dared not, face the life he offered her. It would be selfish of her to do so.

The word 'selfish' suggested a new train of thought to Mildred. She argued that it was not
for selfish motives that she desired freedom. If she thought that, she would marry him
to-morrow. It was because she did not wish to lead a selfish life that she intended to break
off her engagement. She wished to live for something; she wished to accomplish
something; what could she do? There was art. She would like to be an artist! She