At home, even so near as Cossethay, was the vicar, who spoke
the other, magic language, and had the other, finer bearing,
both of which she could perceive, but could never attain to. The
vicar moved in worlds beyond where her own menfolk existed. Did
she not know her own menfolk: fresh, slow, full-built men,
masterful enough, but easy, native to the earth, lacking
outwardness and range of motion. Whereas the vicar, dark and dry
and small beside her husband, had yet a quickness and a range of
being that made Brangwen, in his large geniality, seem dull and
local. She knew her husband. But in the vicar's nature was that
which passed beyond her knowledge. As Brangwen had power over
the cattle so the vicar had power over her husband. What was it
in the vicar, that raised him above the common men as man is
raised above the beast? She craved to know. She craved to
achieve this higher being, if not in herself, then in her
children.
That which makes a man strong even if he be little and
frail in body, just as any man is little and frail beside a
bull, and yet stronger than the bull, what was it? It was not
money nor power nor position. What power had the vicar over Tom
Brangwen--none. Yet strip them and set them on a desert
island, and the vicar was the master. His soul was master of the
other man's. And why--why? She decided it was a question of
knowledge.
The curate was poor enough, and not very efficacious as a
man, either, yet he took rank with those others, the superior.
She watched his children being born, she saw them running as
tiny things beside their mother. And already they were separate
from her own children, distinct. Why were her own children
marked below the others? Why should the curate's children
inevitably take precedence over her children, why should
dominance be given them from the start? It was not money, nor
even class. It was education and experience, she decided.
It was this, this education, this higher form of being, that
the mother wished to give to her children, so that they too
could live the supreme life on earth. For her children, at least
the children of her heart, had the complete nature that should
take place in equality with the living, vital people in the
land, not be left behind obscure among the labourers. Why must
they remain obscured and stifled all their lives, why should
they suffer from lack of freedom to move? How should they learn
the entry into the finer, more vivid circle of life?