But it was an amazingly clever caricature: a perfect work of art.
After luncheon, M’Gourley returned to business, and Campanula to the House of the Clouds.
CHAPTER XXII
THE COMPLETE GEOGRAPHER
On the way, she stopped at the shop of Mr. Initogo to pay a visit to her friend Kiku.
Campanula in her school-days had shown both qualities and defects of mind. At languages, at least in learning the English language, she was a success; a very moderate success where mathematics were concerned, though she knew enough to do long division, and to keep household accounts. They teach a lot of useful things at the mission schools—needlework, and so forth, and in some of these branches Campanula shone, but at geography she was a dismal failure. She had been always lacking in the power of location. Witness her first statements as to the whereabouts of the house with the plum tree in front of it.
The long sea voyage from Tokyo, or rather from Yokohama, had brought into her mind the impression that she had traveled to the end of things, yet they told her there were things beyond.
They showed her maps and globes. The maps were flat, and the globes were round, yet they said they were the same thing, or were pictures of the same thing. How a flat thing could be round or the converse, she could not say, but Howard San, the missionary, said they were. Was it for her to contradict him? So, instead of setting up her own wits against Howard San, and questioning him, she accepted his words just as you or I accept the words of mathematicians or physiologists concerning subjects on which we are ignorant. And thus on geography she got hopelessly muddled, and remained so.