“I have to use her,” he replied. “And if I’m going to be sure of her at all, she’ll have to learn to stand noises.”
“Why should she?” cried Ursula in a passion. “She is a living creature, why should she stand anything, just because you choose to make her? She has as much right to her own being, as you have to yours.”
“There I disagree,” said Gerald. “I consider that mare is there for my use. Not because I bought her, but because that is the natural order. It is more natural for a man to take a horse and use it as he likes, than for him to go down on his knees to it, begging it to do as it wishes, and to fulfil its own marvellous nature.”
Ursula was just breaking out, when Hermione lifted her face and began, in her musing sing-song:
“I do think—I do really think we must have the courage to use the lower animal life for our needs. I do think there is something wrong, when we look on every living creature as if it were ourselves. I do feel, that it is false to project our own feelings on every animate creature. It is a lack of discrimination, a lack of criticism.”
“Quite,” said Birkin sharply. “Nothing is so detestable as the maudlin attributing of human feelings and consciousness to animals.”
“Yes,” said Hermione, wearily, “we must really take a position. Either we are going to use the animals, or they will use us.”
“That’s a fact,” said Gerald. “A horse has got a will like a man, though it has no mind strictly. And if your will isn’t master, then the horse is master of you. And this is a thing I can’t help. I can’t help being master of the horse.”
“If only we could learn how to use our will,” said Hermione, “we could do anything. The will can cure anything, and put anything right. That I am convinced of—if only we use the will properly, intelligibly.”
“What do you mean by using the will properly?” said Birkin.