The Man of Wrath says all women love churchyards. He is fond of sweeping
assertions, and is sometimes curiously feminine in his tendency to infer
a general principle from a particular instance. The deserted little
forest burying-grounds interest and touch me because they are so
solitary, and humble, and neglected, and forgotten, and because so many
long years have passed since tears were shed over the newly made graves.
Nobody cries now for the husband, or father, or brother buried there;
years and years ago the last tear that would ever be shed for them was
dried--dried probably before the gate was reached on the way home--and
they were not missed. Love and sorrow appear to be flowers of
civilisation, and most to flourish where life has the broadest margin of
leisure and abundance. The primary instincts are always there, and must
first be satisfied; and if to obtain the means of satisfying them you
have to work from morning till night without rest, who shall find time
and energy to sit down and lament? I often go with the babies to the
enclosure near the Frau Inspector's pond, and it seems just as natural
that they should play there as that the white butterflies should chase
each other undisturbed across the shadows. And then the place has a
soothing influence on them, and they sober down as we approach it, and
on hot afternoons sit quietly enough as close to the pond as they may,
content to watch for the chance appearance of a frog while talking to me
about angels.
This is their favourite topic of conversation in this particular place.
Just as I have special times and places for certain books, so do they
seem to have special times and places for certain talk. The first time I
took them there they asked me what the mounds were, and by a series of
adroit questions extracted the information that the people who had been
buried there were now angels (I am not a specialist, and must take
refuge in telling them what I was told in my youth), and ever since then
they refuse to call it a graveyard, and have christened it the angel-
yard, and so have got into the way of discussing angels in all their
bearings, sometimes to my confusion, whenever we go there.
"But what _are_> angels, mummy?" said the June baby inconsequently this
afternoon, after having assisted at the discussions for several days and
apparently listening with attention.
"_Such_ a silly baby!" cried April, turning upon her with contempt,
"don't you know they are _lieber Gott's_ little girls?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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