The Story of an African Farm

“‘And you do not need to. When you are seventeen this Boer-woman will go; you will have this farm and everything that is upon it for your own; but I,’ said Lyndall, ‘will have nothing. I must learn.’”

Lyndall tells Em why she must have an education: She stands to inherit nothing, and she wishes to be independent. Her only recourse is to go away to school, where she will broaden her horizons and establish her prospects. However, her efforts are thwarted by the limited educational opportunities available to women, especially in the colonies.

“Very tenderly the old man looked at him. He saw not the bloated body nor the evil face of the man; but, as it were, under deep disguise and fleshly concealment, the form that long years of dreaming had made very real to him.”

Otto gazes upon the sleeping form of Bonaparte Blenkins, who has shown up at the farm worse for wear. Instead of intuiting that Bonaparte harbors dishonorable intentions, Otto sees what his Christian beliefs lead him to see: a weary stranger in need of care or even a Christ figure to whom he can minister.

“Bonaparte Blenkins waited to observe what effect his story had made. Then he took out a dirty white handkerchief, and stroked his forehead, more especially his eyes.”

Bonaparte is constantly putting on a good show, from the tales he relays to the emotions he generates. A talented confidence man, he observes the effect that his performance has upon his audience and calibrates his performance in relation to their reactions.

“The boy Waldo kissed the pages of his book and looked up. Far over the flat lay the ‘kopje,’ a mere speck; the sheep wandered quietly from bush to bush; the stillness of the early Sunday rested everywhere, and the air was fresh.”

Waldo prepares to go to the service overseen by Bonaparte. The setting sets the tone: The wide, open plains; the gently roaming sheep; and the restful weather all illustrate the typical serenity of the farm. Bonaparte’s sermon, like his presence in general, will roil that peace.

“Thousands are rolling that lake at this moment who would say, ‘It was love that brought us here.’ Oh, let us always think of our own souls first.”

Bonaparte preaches about the lake of fire in which liars and sinners burn. He likens it to his own (fabricated) experience of watching a young man leap into the volcano at Mount Etna after his lover. His sermon thus implies that love is tantamount to suicide. One should only pay heed to one’s own desires, in his gospel of selfishness.

“‘It is better to be ugly and good than pretty and bad; though of course it’s nice when one is both,’ said Tant’ Sannie, looking complacently at the picture on the wall.”

Tant’ Sannie is susceptible to the flattery that Bonaparte obsequiously dishes out. When he sees a picture of her and comments on her youthful beauty, Tant’ Sannie assumes a false modesty. Her implication that she is “both” pretty and good is ironic, as the narrative makes it clear that she is both “ugly” and if not bad, at least petty.

“Tant’ Sannie added from the contents of the bottle and held out a spoonful; Bonaparte opened his mouth like a little bird waiting for a worm, and held it open, as she dipped again and again into the pap.”

The simile emphasizes Bonaparte’s assumed helplessness; he takes advantage of Tant’ Sannie’s vanity as well as her material goods. Here, she feeds him porridge laced with liquor after he suffers the shock of learning of his wife’s death—another of his self-serving fabrications and performances.

“‘When that day comes, and I am strong, I will hate everything that has power, and help everything that is weak.’ And she bit her lip again.”

Lyndall rails against Bonaparte’s illegitimate authority—a concern that will follow her for the rest of her short life—and his cruel treatment of Otto and Waldo. She threatens to burn down the house when Bonaparte engineers the ousting of Otto from the farm. Her response to injustice is indignant fury.

“A dozen philosophical essays, or angelically attuned songs for the consolation of the bereaved, could never have been to him what that little sheep-shearing machine was that day.”

Waldo has learned of his father’s death from Bonaparte, his own tormentor and his father’s usurper. In order to ease his grief, Waldo turns from his endless thoughts to the working of his hands—from the unknowability of one’s fate to the certainty of basic mechanics. That the material world provides the reassurance that Waldo struggles to find in organized religion foreshadows the theme of Finding God and Unity in Nature.

“Whenever you come into contact with any book, person, or opinion of which you absolutely comprehend nothing, declare that book, person, or opinion to be immoral. Bespatter it, vituperate against it, strongly insist that any man or woman harbouring it is a fool or a knave, or both. Carefully abstain from studying it. Do all that in you lies to annihilate that book, person, or opinion.”

This is the unwritten rule that Bonaparte follows when he discovers Waldo’s book on political economics. Tant’ Sannie quickly follows suit. Through their words and actions, the narrative critiques the ignorance from which censorship often springs.

“The troubles of the young are soon over; they leave no external mark. If you wound the tree in its youth the bark will quickly cover the gash; but when the tree is very old, peeling the bark off, and looking carefully, you will see the scar there still. All that is buried is not dead.”

The narrator comments upon the lasting scars of youth with a metaphor situated in the natural world, underscoring the ties between humans and the world around them. This comment follows the lashing Waldo endures at the hands of Bonaparte, implying that such experiences form one’s adult character; they are in effect a form of education.

“One day we sit there and look up at the blue sky, and down at our fat little knees; and suddenly it strikes us, Who are we? This I, what is it?”

In tracing childhood from infancy to self-awareness to doubt, Waldo acknowledges that the roots of existential crises run deep. The first questions one asks are not necessarily about faith but about the self; this resonates with the conclusion of the novel, when Lyndall dies while looking at herself in a mirror.

“Was it possible for us in an instant to see Nature as she is—the flowing vestment of an unchanging reality? When a soul breaks free from the arms of a superstition, bits of the claws and talons break themselves off in him. It is not the work of a day to squeeze them out.”

Though Waldo begins to embrace skepticism regarding religious faith, it takes a long time for all the old beliefs to be supplanted with new ones. Again, the author employs a metaphor from nature to explore the deep-seated quality of belief. In the stranger’s allegory, the bird of truth leaves one with only a feather; by contrast, superstition leaves more dangerous elements behind.

“Listen, and in that you have suffered much and wept much, I will tell you what I know. He who sets out to search for Truth must leave these valleys of superstition for ever, taking with him not one shred that has belonged to them.”

In the stranger’s allegory, Wisdom tells the youth that superstition must be discarded in order to capture Truth. The story emphasizes the idea of a singular, capitalized truth that is universal and unchanging—an Enlightenment idea that has subsequently been much debated. The stranger’s story uses nature metaphors to explore Platonic ideas in a kind of secular take on The Pilgrim’s Progress.

“She had given out so much love in her little life, and had got none of it back with interest. Now one said, ‘I love you better than all the world.’ One loved her better than she loved him. How suddenly rich she was.”

Em experiences a short-lived moment of triumph in which she is second to no one—especially Lyndall. Em usually sacrifices herself for the sake of others. Thus, she is overwhelmed by Gregory’s passionate declarations of love in an echo of Tant’ Sannie’s susceptibility to Bonaparte’s flattery.

“‘I am not in so great a hurry to put my neck beneath any man’s foot; and I do not so greatly admire the crying of babies,’ she said, as she closed her eyes half wearily and leaned back in the chair. ‘There are other women glad of such work.’”

Lyndall lashes out at Em upon hearing of her engagement, scathingly commenting on Women’s Status in Marriage. Her censure of Em’s choices is tinged with a great deal of irony: Lyndall herself is presumably already pregnant, though unmarried, at the time.

“But the woman who does woman’s work needs a many-sided, multiform culture; the heights and depths of human life must not be beyond the reach of her vision; she must have knowledge of men and things, in many states, a wide catholicity of sympathy, the strength that springs from knowledge, and the magnanimity which springs from strength. We bear the world, and we make it.”

Lyndall lectures Waldo on the finer points of her newfound philosophy. She makes the point that “women’s work” is undervalued: Women are implicitly tasked with forming the character of the world. If women are to provide childcare, they should therefore be highly educated and empathetic.

“When I am with you I never know that I am a woman and you are a man; I only know that we are both things that think. Other men when I am with them, whether I love them or not, they are mere bodies to me; but you are a spirit; I like you.”

Lyndall’s affection for Waldo derives from his willingness to listen to her without judgment. They are kindred spirits because they both harbor iconoclastic beliefs. She appreciates his mind, which transcends gendered societal divisions.

“‘Thank you, dear,’ Lyndall said. ‘It is nice to be loved, but it would be better to be good.’”

Em forgives Lyndall for Gregory’s betrayal. Though Em does not know why Lyndall has agreed to marry him (presumably because she is pregnant), she accepts this as Lyndall’s due, seeing it as her own lot to give and Lyndall’s to receive. Lyndall recognizes Em’s essential virtuousness and admires her for it. Lyndall is too passionate and self-absorbed to sacrifice herself for others.

“The lifting up of the hands brings no salvation; redemption is from within, and neither from God nor man; it is wrought out by the soul itself, with suffering and through time.”

Lyndall martyrs herself—a comparison suggested by the Christian language of salvation and redemption—only for her own principles. She will not marry the father of her child because doing so would mean forsaking her own independence and desires. At the same time, the idea that Lyndall’s “suffering” absolves her is relatively conventional in 19th-century depictions of transgressive women.

“Of all the things I have ever seen, only the sea is like a human being; the sky is not, nor the earth. But the sea is always moving, always something deep in itself is stirring it. It never rests; it is always wanting, wanting, wanting.”

In Waldo’s letter to Lyndall, he personifies the sea in a manner that is reminiscent of both Lyndall and his own restless spirit. The two are always questioning the status quo, moving beyond conventions, and desiring something inexpressible—even infinite, as the sea appears from the shore.

“The dying eyes on the pillow looked into the dying eyes in the glass: they knew that their hour had come. She raised one hand and pressed the stiff fingers against the glass. They were growing very stiff. She tried to speak to it, but she would never speak again. Only, the wonderful yearning light was in the eyes still. The body was dead now, but the soul, clear and unclouded, looked forth.”

As she dies, Lyndall looks at herself in the mirror and sees a reflection of all she is and has been. This can be read as an act of defiance, as her soul departs untroubled and innocent (“clear and unclouded”); she has no regrets, though the social mores of her time dictate that she should have many. The act also suggests that she finally has achieved the independence she could not find in life.

“He fell into a perfect silence. And, at last, as he walked there with his bent head, his soul passed down the steps of contemplation into that vast land where there is always peace; that land where the soul, gazing long, loses all consciousness of its little self, and almost feels its hand on the old mystery of Universal Unity which surrounds it.”

Waldo finds comfort only in the idea that he will somehow reunite with Lyndall after death. They are both small parts of one larger whole. He loses his individual, material self to become an ethereal soul in his journey toward that harmonious melding.