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.