<p><i> Perhaps I ought to remember that she is very young, a mere girl and
make allowances. She is all interest, eagerness, vivacity, the world is to
her a charm, a wonder, a mystery, a joy; she can't speak for delight when
she finds a new flower, she must pet it and caress it and smell it and
talk to it, and pour out endearing names upon it. And she is color-mad:
brown rocks, yellow sand, gray moss, green foliage, blue sky; the pearl of
the dawn, the purple shadows on the mountains, the golden islands floating
in crimson seas at sunset, the pallid moon sailing through the shredded
cloud-rack, the star-jewels glittering in the wastes of space—none
of them is of any practical value, so far as I can see, but because they
have color and majesty, that is enough for her, and she loses her mind
over them. If she could quiet down and keep still a couple minutes at a
time, it would be a reposeful spectacle. In that case I think I could
enjoy looking at her; indeed I am sure I could, for I am coming to realize
that she is a quite remarkably comely creature—lithe, slender, trim,
rounded, shapely, nimble, graceful; and once when she was standing
marble-white and sun-drenched on a boulder, with her young head tilted
back and her hand shading her eyes, watching the flight of a bird in the
sky, I recognized that she was beautiful.</i></p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="071.jpg (74K)" src="images/071.jpg" width-obs="100%" /><br/></div>
<p><br/><br/> <br/><br/></p>
<p><i>MONDAY NOON.—If there is anything on the planet that she is not
interested in it is not in my list. There are animals that I am
indifferent to, but it is not so with her. She has no discrimination, she
takes to all of them, she thinks they are all treasures, every new one is
welcome.</i></p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="073.jpg (69K)" src="images/073.jpg" width-obs="100%" /><br/></div>
<p><i>When the mighty brontosaurus came striding into camp, she regarded it
as an acquisition, I considered it a calamity; that is a good sample of
the lack of harmony that prevails in our views of things. She wanted to
domesticate it, I wanted to make it a present of the homestead and move
out. She believed it could be tamed by kind treatment and would be a good
pet; I said a pet twenty-one feet high and eighty-four feet long would be
no proper thing to have about the place, because, even with the best
intentions and without meaning any harm, it could sit down on the house
and mash it, for any one could see by the look of its eye that it was
absent-minded.</i></p>
<p><i>Still, her heart was set upon having that monster, and she couldn't
give it up. She thought we could start a dairy with it, and wanted me to
help milk it; but I wouldn't; it was too risky. The sex wasn't right, and
we hadn't any ladder anyway. Then she wanted to ride it, and look at the
scenery. Thirty or forty feet of its tail was lying on the ground, like a
fallen tree, and she thought she could climb it, but she was mistaken;
when she got to the steep place it was too slick and down she came, and
would have hurt herself but for me.</i></p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="075.jpg (72K)" src="images/075.jpg" width-obs="100%" /><br/></div>
<p><i>Was she satisfied now? No. Nothing ever satisfies her but
demonstration; untested theories are not in her line, and she won't have
them. It is the right spirit, I concede it; it attracts me; I feel the
influence of it; if I were with her more I think I should take it up
myself. Well, she had one theory remaining about this colossus: she
thought that if we could tame it and make him friendly we could stand in
the river and use him for a bridge. It turned out that he was already
plenty tame enough—at least as far as she was concerned—so she
tried her theory, but it failed: every time she got him properly placed in
the river and went ashore to cross over him, he came out and followed her
around like a pet mountain. Like the other animals. They all do that.</i></p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="077.jpg (70K)" src="images/077.jpg" width-obs="100%" /><br/></div>
<p><br/><br/> <br/><br/></p>
<p>Tuesday—Wednesday—Thursday—and today: all without seeing
him. It is a long time to be alone; still, it is better to be alone than
unwelcome.</p>
<p><br/><br/><br/><br/></p>
<p>FRIDAY—I HAD to have company—I was made for it, I think—so
I made friends with the animals. They are just charming, and they have the
kindest disposition and the politest ways; they never look sour, they
never let you feel that you are intruding, they smile at you and wag their
tail, if they've got one, and they are always ready for a romp or an
excursion or anything you want to propose. I think they are perfect
gentlemen. All these days we have had such good times, and it hasn't been
lonesome for me, ever.</p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="079.jpg (85K)" src="images/079.jpg" width-obs="100%" /><br/></div>
<p>Lonesome! No, I should say not. Why, there's always a swarm of them around—sometimes
as much as four or five acres—you can't count them; and when you
stand on a rock in the midst and look out over the furry expanse it is so
mottled and splashed and gay with color and frisking sheen and sun-flash,
and so rippled with stripes, that you might think it was a lake, only you
know it isn't; and there's storms of sociable birds, and hurricanes of
whirring wings; and when the sun strikes all that feathery commotion, you
have a blazing up of all the colors you can think of, enough to put your
eyes out.</p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="081.jpg (80K)" src="images/081.jpg" width-obs="100%" /><br/></div>
<p>We have made long excursions, and I have seen a great deal of the world;
almost all of it, I think; and so I am the first traveler, and the only
one. When we are on the march, it is an imposing sight—there's
nothing like it anywhere. For comfort I ride a tiger or a leopard, because
it is soft and has a round back that fits me, and because they are such
pretty animals; but for long distance or for scenery I ride the elephant.
He hoists me up with his trunk, but I can get off myself; when we are
ready to camp, he sits and I slide down the back way.</p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="083.jpg (89K)" src="images/083.jpg" width-obs="100%" /><br/></div>
<p>The birds and animals are all friendly to each other, and there are no
disputes about anything. They all talk, and they all talk to me, but it
must be a foreign language, for I cannot make out a word they say; yet
they often understand me when I talk back, particularly the dog and the
elephant. It makes me ashamed. It shows that they are brighter than I am,
for I want to be the principal Experiment myself—and I intend to be,
too.</p>
<p>I have learned a number of things, and am educated, now, but I wasn't at
first. I was ignorant at first. At first it used to vex me because, with
all my watching, I was never smart enough to be around when the water was
running uphill; but now I do not mind it. I have experimented and
experimented until now I know it never does run uphill, except in the
dark. I know it does in the dark, because the pool never goes dry, which
it would, of course, if the water didn't come back in the night. It is
best to prove things by actual experiment; then you KNOW; whereas if you
depend on guessing and supposing and conjecturing, you never get educated.</p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="085.jpg (95K)" src="images/085.jpg" width-obs="100%" /><br/></div>
<p>Some things you CAN'T find out; but you will never know you can't by
guessing and supposing: no, you have to be patient and go on experimenting
until you find out that you can't find out. And it is delightful to have
it that way, it makes the world so interesting. If there wasn't anything
to find out, it would be dull. Even trying to find out and not finding out
is just as interesting as trying to find out and finding out, and I don't
know but more so. The secret of the water was a treasure until I GOT it;
then the excitement all went away, and I recognized a sense of loss.</p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="087.jpg (96K)" src="images/087.jpg" width-obs="100%" /><br/></div>
<p>By experiment I know that wood swims, and dry leaves, and feathers, and
plenty of other things; therefore by all that cumulative evidence you know
that a rock will swim; but you have to put up with simply knowing it, for
there isn't any way to prove it—up to now. But I shall find a way—then
THAT excitement will go. Such things make me sad; because by and by when I
have found out everything there won't be any more excitements, and I do
love excitements so! The other night I couldn't sleep for thinking about
it.</p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="089.jpg (55K)" src="images/089.jpg" width-obs="100%" /><br/></div>
<p>At first I couldn't make out what I was made for, but now I think it was
to search out the secrets of this wonderful world and be happy and thank
the Giver of it all for devising it. I think there are many things to
learn yet—I hope so; and by economizing and not hurrying too fast I
think they will last weeks and weeks. I hope so. When you cast up a
feather it sails away on the air and goes out of sight; then you throw up
a clod and it doesn't. It comes down, every time. I have tried it and
tried it, and it is always so. I wonder why it is? Of course it DOESN'T
come down, but why should it SEEM to? I suppose it is an optical illusion.
I mean, one of them is. I don't know which one. It may be the feather, it
may be the clod; I can't prove which it is, I can only demonstrate that
one or the other is a fake, and let a person take his choice.</p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="091.jpg (81K)" src="images/091.jpg" width-obs="100%" /><br/></div>
<p>By watching, I know that the stars are not going to last. I have seen some
of the best ones melt and run down the sky. Since one can melt, they can
all melt; since they can all melt, they can all melt the same night. That
sorrow will come—I know it. I mean to sit up every night and look at
them as long as I can keep awake; and I will impress those sparkling
fields on my memory, so that by and by when they are taken away I can by
my fancy restore those lovely myriads to the black sky and make them
sparkle again, and double them by the blur of my tears.</p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="093.jpg (80K)" src="images/093.jpg" width-obs="100%" /><br/></div>
<p><br/><br/> <br/><br/><br/><br/></p>
<h2> After the Fall </h2>
<p>When I look back, the Garden is a dream to me. It was beautiful,
surpassingly beautiful, enchantingly beautiful; and now it is lost, and I
shall not see it any more.</p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="095.jpg (92K)" src="images/095.jpg" width-obs="100%" /><br/></div>
<p>The Garden is lost, but I have found HIM, and am content. He loves me as
well as he can; I love him with all the strength of my passionate nature,
and this, I think, is proper to my youth and sex. If I ask myself why I
love him, I find I do not know, and do not really much care to know; so I
suppose that this kind of love is not a product of reasoning and
statistics, like one's love for other reptiles and animals. I think that
this must be so. I love certain birds because of their song; but I do not
love Adam on account of his singing—no, it is not that; the more he
sings the more I do not get reconciled to it. Yet I ask him to sing,
because I wish to learn to like everything he is interested in. I am sure
I can learn, because at first I could not stand it, but now I can. It
sours the milk, but it doesn't matter; I can get used to that kind of
milk.</p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="097.jpg (74K)" src="images/097.jpg" width-obs="100%" /><br/></div>
<p>It is not on account of his brightness that I love him—no, it is not
that. He is not to blame for his brightness, such as it is, for he did not
make it himself; he is as God make him, and that is sufficient. There was
a wise purpose in it, THAT I know. In time it will develop, though I think
it will not be sudden; and besides, there is no hurry; he is well enough
just as he is.</p>
<p>It is not on account of his gracious and considerate ways and his delicacy
that I love him. No, he has lacks in this regard, but he is well enough
just so, and is improving.</p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="099.jpg (85K)" src="images/099.jpg" width-obs="100%" /><br/></div>
<p>It is not on account of his industry that I love him—no, it is not
that. I think he has it in him, and I do not know why he conceals it from
me. It is my only pain. Otherwise he is frank and open with me, now. I am
sure he keeps nothing from me but this. It grieves me that he should have
a secret from me, and sometimes it spoils my sleep, thinking of it, but I
will put it out of my mind; it shall not trouble my happiness, which is
otherwise full to overflowing.</p>
<p>It is not on account of his education that I love him—no, it is not
that. He is self-educated, and does really know a multitude of things, but
they are not so.</p>
<p>It is not on account of his chivalry that I love him—no, it is not
that. He told on me, but I do not blame him; it is a peculiarity of sex, I
think, and he did not make his sex. Of course I would not have told on
him, I would have perished first; but that is a peculiarity of sex, too,
and I do not take credit for it, for I did not make my sex.</p>
<p>Then why is it that I love him? MERELY BECAUSE HE IS MASCULINE, I think.</p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="101.jpg (93K)" src="images/101.jpg" width-obs="100%" /><br/></div>
<p>At bottom he is good, and I love him for that, but I could love him
without it. If he should beat me and abuse me, I should go on loving him.
I know it. It is a matter of sex, I think.</p>
<p>He is strong and handsome, and I love him for that, and I admire him and
am proud of him, but I could love him without those qualities. If he were
plain, I should love him; if he were a wreck, I should love him; and I
would work for him, and slave over him, and pray for him, and watch by his
bedside until I died.</p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="103.jpg (82K)" src="images/103.jpg" width-obs="100%" /><br/></div>
<p>Yes, I think I love him merely because he is MINE and is MASCULINE. There
is no other reason, I suppose. And so I think it is as I first said: that
this kind of love is not a product of reasonings and statistics. It just
COMES—none knows whence—and cannot explain itself. And doesn't
need to.</p>
<p>It is what I think. But I am only a girl, the first that has examined this
matter, and it may turn out that in my ignorance and inexperience I have
not got it right.</p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="105.jpg (60K)" src="images/105.jpg" width-obs="100%" /><br/></div>
<p><br/><br/> <br/><br/><br/><br/></p>
<h2> Forty Years Later </h2>
<p>It is my prayer, it is my longing, that we may pass from this life
together—a longing which shall never perish from the earth, but
shall have place in the heart of every wife that loves, until the end of
time; and it shall be called by my name.</p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG alt="107.jpg (65K)" src="images/107.jpg" width-obs="100%" /><br/></div>
<p>But if one of us must go first, it is my prayer that it shall be I; for he
is strong, I am weak, I am not so necessary to him as he is to me—life
without him would not be life; how could I endure it? This prayer is also
immortal, and will not cease from being offered up while my race
continues. I am the first wife; and in the last wife I shall be repeated.</p>
<p><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/></p>
<h2> At Eve's Grave </h2>
<h4>
ADAM: Wheresoever she was, THERE was Eden.
</h4>
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