The Athelings. Маргарет Олифант

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СКАЧАТЬ Mr Endicott. “You read the review—good! but you feel that something else is wanted than mere politics—that votes and debates do not supply the wants of the age!”

      “If the wants of the age were the wants of young ladies,” said Harry Oswald, “what would become of my uncle and Mr Atheling? Leave things in their proper place, Endicott. Agnes and Marian want something different from newspaper literature and leading articles. Don’t interfere with the girls.”

      “These are the slavish and confined ideas of a worn out civilisation,” said the man of letters; “in my country we respect the opinions of our women, and give them full scope.”

      “Respect!—the old humbug!” muttered Harry behind Marian’s chair. “Am I disrespectful? I choose to be judged by you.”

      Marian glanced over her shoulder with saucy kindness. “Don’t quarrel,” said Marian. No! Poor Harry was so glad of the glance, the smile, and the confidence, that he could have taken Endicott, who was the cause of it, to his very heart.

      “The functions of the press,” said Mr Endicott, “are unjustly limited in this country, like most other enlightened influences. In these days we have scarcely time to wait for books. It is not with us as it was in old times, when the soul lay fallow for a century, and then blossomed into its glorious epic, or drama, or song! Our audience must perceive the visible march of mind, hour by hour and day by day. We are no longer concerned about mere physical commotions, elections, or debates, or votes of the Senate. In these days we care little for the man’s opinions; what we want is an advantageous medium for studying the man.”

      As she listened to this, Agnes Atheling held her breath, and suspended her work unawares. It sounded very imposing, indeed—to tell the truth, it sounded something like that magnificent conversation in books over which Marian and she had often marvelled. Then this simple girl believed in everybody; she was rather inclined to suppose of Mr Endicott that he was a man of very exalted mind.

      “I do not quite know,” said Agnes humbly, “whether it is right to tell all about great people in the newspapers, or even to put them in books. Do you think it is, Mr Endicott?”

      “I think,” said the American, solemnly, “that a public man, and, above all, a literary man, belongs to the world. All the exciting scenes of life come to us only that we may describe and analyse them for the advantage of others. A man of genius has no private life. Of what benefit is the keenness of his emotions if he makes no record of them? In my own career,” continued the literary gentleman, “I have been sometimes annoyed by foolish objections to the notice I am in the habit of giving of friends who cross my way. Unenlightened people have complained of me, in vulgar phrase, that I ‘put them in the newspapers.’ How strange a misconception! for you must perceive at once that it was not with any consideration of them, but simply that my readers might see every scene I passed through, and in reality feel themselves travelling with me!”

      “Oh!” Agnes made a faint and very doubtful exclamation; Harry Oswald turned on his heel, and left the room abruptly; while Marian bent very closely over her work, to conceal that she was laughing. Mr Endicott thought it was a natural youthful reverence, and gave her all due credit for her “ingenuous emotions.”

      “The path of genius necessarily reveals certain obscure individuals,” said Mr Endicott; “they cross its light, and the poet has no choice. I present to my audience the scenes through which I travel. I introduce the passengers on the road. Is it for the sake of these passengers? No. It is that my readers may be enabled, under all circumstances, to form a just realisation of me. That is the true vocation of a poet: he ought to be in himself the highest example of everything—joy, delight, suffering, remorse, and ruin—yes, I am bold enough to say, even crime. No man should be able to suppose that he can hide himself in an indescribable region of emotion where the poet cannot follow. Shall murder be permitted to attain an experience beyond the reach of genius? No! Everything must be possessed by the poet’s intuitions, for he himself is the great lesson of the world.”

      “Charlie,” said Harry Oswald behind the door, “come in, and punch this fellow’s head.”

      CHAPTER XIX.

      CONVERSATION

      Charlie came in, but not to punch the head of Mr Endicott. The big boy gloomed upon the dignified American, pushed Harry Oswald aside, and brought his two grammars to the table. “I say, what do you want with me?” said Charlie; he was not at all pleased at having been disturbed.

      “Nobody wanted you, Charlie,—no one ever wants you, you disagreeable boy,” said Marian: “it was all Harry Oswald’s fault; he thought we were too pleasant all by ourselves here.”

      To which complimentary saying Mr Endicott answered by a bow. He quite understood what Miss Marian meant! he was much flattered to have gained her sympathy! So Marian pleased both her admirers for once, for Harry Oswald laughed in secret triumph behind her chair.

      “And you are still with Mr Bell, Harry,” said Mrs Atheling, suddenly interposing. “I am very glad you like this place—and what a pleasure it must be to all your sisters! I begin to think you are quite settled now.”

      “I suppose it was time,” said Harry the unlucky, colouring a little, but smiling more as he came out from the shadow of Marian’s chair, in compliment to Marian’s mother; “yes, we get on very well,—we are not overpowered with our practice; so much the better for me.”

      “But you ought to be more ambitious,—you ought to try to extend your practice,” said Mrs Atheling, immediately falling into the tone of an adviser, in addressing one to whom everybody gave good advice.

      “I might have some comfort in it, if I was a poet,” said Harry; “but to kill people simply in the way of business is too much for me.—Well, uncle, it is no fault of mine. I never did any honour to my doctorship. I am as well content to throw physic to the dogs as any Macbeth in the world.”

      “Ay, Harry,” said Mr Foggo; “but I think it is little credit to a man to avow ill inclinations, unless he has the spirit of a man to make head against them. That’s my opinion—but I know you give it little weight.”

      “A curious study!” said Mr Endicott, reflectively. “I have watched it many times,—the most interesting conflict in the world.”

      But Harry, who had borne his uncle’s reproof with calmness, reddened fiercely at this, and seemed about to resent it. The study of character, though it is so interesting a study, and so much pursued by superior minds, is not, as a general principle, at all liked by the objects of it. Harry Oswald, under the eye of his cousin’s curious inspection, had the greatest mind in the world to knock that cousin down.

      “And what do you think of our domestic politics, on the other side of the Atlantic?” asked Papa, joining the more general conversation: “a pretty set of fellows manage us in Old England here. I never take up a newspaper but there’s a new job in it. If it were only for other countries, they might have a sense of shame!”

      “Well, sir,” said Mr Endicott, “considering all things—considering the worn-out circumstances of the old country, your oligarchy and your subserviency, I am rather disposed, on the whole, to be in favour of the government of England. So far as a limited intelligence goes, they really appear to me to get on pretty well.”

      “Humph!” said Mr Atheling. He was quite prepared for a dashing republican denunciation, but this cool patronage stunned the humble politician—he did not comprehend it. “However,” he continued, reviving after a little, and rising into triumph, “there is principle among them yet. They cannot tolerate a man who wants the English virtue СКАЧАТЬ