AGNES.
Dearest friend! most courteous reader! suspend your judgment. It was not
her fault. This poor child had no more blame in the matter than Marian
had for her beauty, which was equally involuntary. Agnes Atheling was
not wise; she had no particular gift for conversation, and none whatever
for logic; no accomplishments, and not a very great deal of information.
To tell the truth, while it was easy enough to discover what she had
not, it was somewhat difficult to make out precisely what she had to
distinguish her from other people. She was a good girl, but by no means
a model one; full of impatiences, resentments, and despairs now and
then, as well as of hopes, jubilant and glorious, and a vague but grand
ambition. She herself knew herself quite as little as anybody else did;
for consciousness of power and prescience of fame, if these are signs of
genius, did not belong to Agnes. Yet genius, in some kind and degree,
certainly did belong to her, for the girl had that strange faculty of
expression which is as independent of education, knowledge, or culture
as any wandering angel. When she had anything to say (upon paper), she
said it with so much grace and beauty of language, that Mr Atheling’s
old correspondents puzzled and shook their grey heads over it, charmed
and astonished without knowing why, and afterwards declared to each
other that Atheling must be a clever fellow, though they had never
discovered it before; and a clever fellow he must have been indeed,
could he have clothed these plain sober sentiments of his in such a
radiant investiture of fancy and youth. For Agnes was the letter-writer
of the household, and in her young sincerity, and with her visionary
delight in all things beautiful, was not content to make a dutiful
inquiry, on her mother’s part, for an old ailing country aunt, or to
convey a bit of city gossip to some clerkish contemporary of her
father’s, without induing the humdrum subject with such a glow and glory
of expression that the original proprietors of the sentiment scarcely
knew it in its dazzling gear. She had been letting her pearls and her
diamonds drop from her lips after this fashion, with the prodigality of
a young spendthrift--only astonishing the respectable people who were on
letter-writing terms with Mr and Mrs Atheling--for two or three years
past. But time only strengthened the natural bent of this young
creature, to whom Providence had given, almost her sole dower, that gift
of speech which is so often withheld from those who have the fullest and
highest opportunity for its exercise. Agnes, poor girl! young,
inexperienced, and uninstructed, had not much wisdom to communicate to
the world--not much of anything, indeed, save the vague and splendid
dreams--the variable, impossible, and inconsistent speculations of
youth; but she had the gift, and with the gift she had the sweet
spontaneous impulse which made it a delight. They were proud of her at
home. Mr and Mrs Atheling, with the tenderest exultation, rejoiced over
Marian, who was pretty, and Agnes, who was clever; yet, loving these two
still more than they admired them, they by no means realised the fact
that the one had beauty and the other genius of a rare and unusual kind.
We are even obliged to confess that at times their mother had
compunctions, and doubted whether Agnes, a poor man’s daughter, and like
to be a poor man’s wife, ought to be permitted so much time over that
overflowing blotting-book. Mrs Atheling, when her own ambition and pride
in her child did not move her otherwise, pondered much whether it would
not be wiser to teach the girls dress-making or some other practical
occupation, “for they may not marry; and if anything should happen to
William or me!--as of course we are growing old, and will not live for
ever,” she said to herself in her tender and anxious heart. But the
girls had not yet learned dress-making, in spite of Mrs Atheling’s
fears; and though Marian could “cut out” as well as her mother, and
Agnes, more humble, worked with her needle to the universal admiration,
no speculations as to “setting them up in business” had entered the
parental brain. So Agnes continued at the side-table, sometimes writing
very rapidly and badly, sometimes copying out with the most elaborate
care and delicacy--copying out even a second time, if by accident or
misfortune a single blot came upon the well-beloved page. This
occupation alternated with all manner of domestic occupations. The young
writer was as far from being an abstracted personage as it is possible
to conceive; and from the momentous matter of the household finances to
the dressing of the doll, and the childish play of Bell and Beau,
nothing came amiss to the incipient author. With this sweet stream of
common life around her, you may be sure her genius did her very little
harm.
And when all the domestic affairs were over--when Mr Atheling had
finished his newspaper, and Mrs Atheling put aside her work-basket, and
Mr Foggo was out of the way--then Papa was wont to look over his
shoulder to his eldest child. “You may read some of your nonsense, if
you like, Agnes,” said the household head; and it was Agnes’s custom
upon this invitation, though not without a due degree of coyness, to
gather up her papers, draw her chair into the corner, and read what she
had written. Before Agnes began, Mrs Atheling invariably stretched out
her hand for her work-basket, and was invariably rebuked by her husband;
but Marian’s white hands rustled on unreproved, and Charlie sat still at
his grammar. It was popularly reported in the family that Charlie kept
on steadily learning his verbs even while he listened to Agnes’s story.
He said so himself, who was the best authority; but we by no means
pledge ourselves to the truth of the statement.
And so the young romance was read: there was some criticism, but more
approval; and in reality none of them knew what to think of it, any more
than the youthful author did. They were too closely concerned to be cool
judges, and, full of interest and admiration as they were, could not
quite overcome the oddness and novelty of the idea that “our Agnes”
might possibly one day be famous, and write for the world. Mr Atheling
himself, who was most inclined to be critical, had the strangest
confusion of feelings upon this subject, marvelling much within himself
whether “the child” really had this singular endowment, or if it was
only their own partial judgment which magnified her powers. The family
father could come to no satisfactory conclusion upon the subject, but
still smiled at himself, and wondered, when his daughter’s story
brought tears to his eyes, or sympathy or indignation to his heart. It
moved _him_ without dispute,--it moved Mamma there, hastily rubbing out
the moisture from the corner of her eyes. Even Charlie was disturbed
over his grammar. “Yes,” said Mr Atheling, “but then you see she belongs
to us; and though all this certainly never could have come into _my_
head, yet it is natural I should sympathise with it; but it is a very
different thing when you think of the world.”
So it was, as different a thing as possible; for the world had no
anxious love to sharpen _its_ criticism--did not care a straw whether
the young writer was eloquent or nonsensical; and just in proportion to
its indifference was like to be the leniency of its judgment. These good
people did not think of that; they made wonderful account of their own
partiality, but never reckoned upon that hypercritical eye of love which
will not be content with a questionable excellence; and so they pondered
and marvelled with an excitement half amusing and half solemn. What
would other people think?--what would be the judgment of the world?
As for Agnes, she was as much amused as the rest at the thought of being
“an author,” and laughed, with her bright eyes running over, at this
grand anticipation; for she was too young and too inexperienced to see
more than a delightful novelty and unusualness in her possible fame. In
the mean time she was more interested in what she was about than in the
result of it, and pleased herself with the turn of her pretty sentences,
and the admirable orderliness of her manuscript; for she was only a
girl.