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OLIVE SCHREINER

(c. 1863-)

HE writings of Olive Schreiner are the firstfruits which modern Africa offers to world-literature. From the fall of the Greek civilization in Egypt and of the Roman in Numidia until our own times, the "Dark Continent" has produced nothing except a few Arab songs and stories to which not even the most strained courtesy can impute literary quality. Olive Schreiner's "Dreams," however, have in them the unmistakable signs of such genius as immortalizes whatever it inspires. They are strange and fanciful, but they will not easily be forgotten. She comes of the Boer stock of Cape Colony. Her father was a Lutheran minister at Cape Town, and all her work shows the impression of this heredity. "The Story of an African Farm," which she published in 1883, was an immediate success, but it was not until "Dreams" appeared in 1890 that the full strength of her genius was evident. She left Africa for Europe in 1883, and she has since spent most of her time in England. She married Mr. Cronwright in 1894. Her latest publication, "An English South African's View of the Situation >> (1899), deals with the overthrow of the Boer republics by the English "Conservatives."

IN A RUINED CHAPEL

HERE are four bare walls; there is a Christ upon the walls, in

Tred, carrying his cross; there is a Blessed Bambino with

the face rubbed out; there is a Madonna in blue and red; there are Roman soldiers and a Christ with tied hands. All the roof is gone; overhead is the blue, blue Italian sky; the rain has beaten holes in the walls, and the plaster is peeling from it. The Chapel stands here alone upon the promontory, and by day and by night the sea breaks at its feet. Some say that it was set here by the monks from the island down below, that they might bring their sick here in times of deadly plague. Some say that it was set here that the passing monk and friars, as they hurried by upon the roadway, might stop and say their prayers here. Now no one stops to pray here, and the sick come no more to be healed.

Behind it runs the old Roman road. If you climb it and come and sit there alone on a hot sunny day you may almost hear at last the clink of the Roman soldiers upon the pavement, and the sound of that older time, as you sit there in the sun, when Hannibal and his men broke through the brushwood, and no road was.

Now it is very quiet. Sometimes a peasant girl comes riding by between her panniers, and you hear the mule's feet beat upon the bricks of the pavement; sometimes an old woman goes past with a bundle of weeds upon her head, or a brigand-looking man hurries by with a bundle of sticks in his hand; but for the rest the Chapel lies here alone upon the promontory, between the two bays and hears the sea break at its feet.

I came here one winter's day when the midday sun shone hot on the bricks of the Roman road. I was weary, and the way seemed steep. I walked into the Chapel to the broken window, and looked out across the bay. Far off, across the blue, blue water, were towns and villages, hanging white and red dots, upon the mountain sides, and the blue mountains rose up into the sky, and now stood out from it and now melted back again. The mountains seemed calling to me, but I knew there would never be a bridge built from them to me; never, never, never! I shaded my eyes with my hand and turned away. I could not

bear to look at them.

I walked through the ruined Chapel, and looked at the Christ in red carrying his cross, and the Blessèd rubbed-out Bambino, and the Roman soldiers, and the folded hands, and the rod; and I went and sat down in the open porch upon a stone. At my feet was the small bay, with its white row of houses buried among the olive trees; the water broke in a long, thin, white line of foam along the shore; and I leaned my elbows on my knees. I was tired, very tired; tired with a tiredness that seemed older than the heat of the day and the shining of the sun on the bricks of the Roman road; and I lay my head upon my knees; I heard the breaking of the water on the rocks three hundred feet below, and the rustling of the wind among the olive trees and the ruined arches, and then I fell asleep there. I had a

dream.

A man cried up to God, and God sent down an angel to help him; and the angel came back and said, "I cannot help that man."

God said, "How is it with him?"

And the angel said, "He cries out continually that one has injured him; and he would forgive him and he cannot."

God said, "What have you done for him?»

The angel said, “All—. I took him by the hand, and I said, 'See, when other men speak ill of that man do you speak well of him; secretly, in ways he shall not know, serve him; if you have anything you value share it with him; so, serving him, you will at last come to feel possession in him, and you will forgive.' And he said, 'I will do it.' Afterward, as I passed by in the dark of night, I heard one crying out, I have done all. It helps nothing! My speaking well of him helps me nothing! If I share my heart's blood with him, is the burning within me I cannot forgive; I cannot forgive! Oh, God, I cannot

forgive!'

"I said to him, 'See here, look back on all your past. See from your childhood all smallness, all indirectness that has been yours; look well at it, and in its light do you not see every man your brother? Are you so sinless you have a right to

hate ? ›

"He looked, and said, 'Yes, you are right; I, too, have failed, and I forgive my fellow. Go, I am satisfied; I have forgiven '; and he laid him down peacefully and folded his hands on his breast, and I thought it was well with him. But scarcely had my wings rustled and I turned to come up here, when I heard one crying out on earth again, 'I cannot forgive! I cannot forgive! Oh, God, God, I cannot forgive! It is better to die than to hate! I cannot forgive! I cannot forgive!' And I went and stood outside his door in the dark, and I heard him cry, 'I have not sinned so, not so! If I have torn my fellow's flesh ever so little, I have kneeled down and kissed the wound with my mouth till it was healed. I have not willed that any soul should be lost through hate of me. If they have but fancied that I wronged them I have lain down on the ground before them that they might tread on me, and so, seeing my humiliation, forgive and not be lost through hating me; they have not cared that my soul should be lost; they have not willed to save me; they have not tried that I should forgive them!'

"I said to him, 'See here, be thou content; do not forgive; forget this soul and its injury; go on your way. In the next world perhaps ->

"He cried, "Go from me, you understand nothing! What is the next world to me! I am lost now, to-day. I cannot see the sunlight shine, the dust is in my throat, the sand is in my eyes! Go from me, you know nothing! Oh, once again before I die to see that the world is beautiful! Oh, God, God, I cannot live and not love. I cannot live and hate. Oh, God, God, God!' So I left him crying out and came back here."

God said, "This man's soul must be saved."

And the angel said, "How? »

God said, "Go down you, and save it.”

The angel said, "What more shall I do?"

Then God bent down and whispered in the angel's ear, and the angel spread out its wings and went down to earth.

And partly I woke, sitting there upon the broken stone with my head on my knee; but I was too weary to rise. I heard the wind roam through the olive trees and among the ruined arches, and then I slept again.

The angel went down and found the man with the bitter heart and took him by the hand, and led him to a certain spot. Now the man wist not where it was the angel would take him, nor what he would show him there. And when they came the angel shaded the man's eyes with his wing, and when he moved it, the man saw somewhat on the earth before them. For God had given it to that angel to unclothe a human soul; to take from it all those outward attributes of form and color, and age, and sex, whereby one man is known from among his fellows and is marked off from the rest, and the soul lay before them bare, as a man turning his eye inward beholds himself.

They saw its past, its childhood, the tiny life with the dew upon it; they saw its youth when the dew was melting, and the creature raised its Lilliputian mouth to drink from a cup too large for it, and they saw how the water spilt; they saw its hopes that were never realized; they saw its hours of intellectual blindness, men call sin; they saw its hours of all-radiating insight, which men call righteousness; they saw its hour of strength, when it leaped to its feet crying, "I am omnipotent"; its hour of weakness, when it fell to the earth and grasped dust only; they saw what it might have been, but never would be. The man bent forward.

And the angel said, "What is it?"

He answered, "It is I! it is myself!" And he went forward as if he would have lain his heart against it; but the angel held him back and covered his eyes.

Now God had given power to the angel further to unclothe that soul, to take from it all those outward attributes of time and place and circumstance whereby the individual life is marked off from the life of the whole.

Again the angel uncovered the man's eyes, and he looked. He saw before him that which in its tiny drop reflects the whole universe; he saw that which marks within itself the step of the furthest star, and tells how the crystal grows under ground where no eye has seen it; that which is where the germ in the egg stirs; which moves the out-stretched fingers of the little newborn babe, and keeps the leaves of the trees pointing upward; which moves where the jellyfish sail alone on the sunny seas, and is where the lichens form on the mountain's rocks.

And the man looked.

And the angel touched him.

But the man bowed his head and shuddered.

"It is God!”

He whispered,

And when he un

And the angel recovered the man's eyes. covered them there was one walking from them a little way off -for the angel had reclothed the soul in its outward form and vesture—and the man knew who it was.

And the angel said, "Do you know him?”

And the man said, "I know him," and he looked after the

figure.

And the angel said, "Have you forgiven him?"

But the man said, "How beautiful my brother is!"

And the angel looked into the man's eyes, and he shaded his own face with his wing from the light. went up to God.

But the men were together on earth.

I awoke.

He laughed softly and

The blue, blue sky was over my head, and the waves were breaking below on the shore. I walked through the little Chapel, and I saw the Madonna in blue and red, and the Christ carrying his cross, and the Roman soldiers with the rod, and the Blessèd Bambino with its broken face; and then I walked down the slop