Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers | Page 9

of what merits to be called my life.
Eleven o'clock, I remember, was striking when Agnes came into my

study, and said that she would go into the city, (for we lived in a quite
rural suburb,) that she would execute some trifling commissions which
she had received from a friend in the country, and would be at home
again between one and two for a stroll which we had agreed to take in
the neighboring meadows. About twenty minutes after this she again
came into my study dressed for going abroad; for such was my
admiration of her, that I had a fancy--fancy it must have been, and yet
still I felt it to be real--that under every change she looked best; if she
put on a shawl, then a shawl became the most feminine of ornaments; if
she laid aside her shawl and her bonnet, then how nymph-like she
seemed in her undisguised and unadorned beauty! Full-dress seemed
for the time to be best, as bringing forward into relief the splendor of
her person, and allowing the exposure of her arms; a simple
morning-dress, again, seemed better still, as fitted to call out the
childlike innocence of her face, by confining the attention to that. But
all these are feelings of fond and blind affection, hanging with rapture
over the object of something too like idolatry. God knows, if that be a
sin, I was but too profound a sinner; yet sin it never was, sin it could
not be, to adore a beauty such as thine, my Agnes. Neither was it her
beauty by itself, and that only, which I sought at such times to admire;
there was a peculiar sort of double relation in which she stood at
moments of pleasurable expectation and excitement, since our little
Francis had become of an age to join our party, which made some
aspects of her character trebly interesting. She was a wife--and wife to
one whom she looked up to as her superior in understanding and in
knowledge of the world, whom, therefore, she leaned to for protection.
On the other hand, she was also a mother. Whilst, therefore, to her child
she supported the matronly part of guide, and the air of an experienced
person; to me she wore, ingenuously and without disguise, the part of a
child herself, with all the giddy hopes and unchastised imaginings of
that buoyant age. This double character, one aspect of which looks
towards her husband and one to her children, sits most gracefully upon
many a young wife whose heart is pure and innocent; and the collision
between the two separate parts imposed by duty on the one hand, by
extreme youth on the other, the one telling her that she is a responsible
head of a family and the depository of her husband's honor in its
tenderest and most vital interests, the other telling her, through the

liveliest language of animal sensibility, and through the very pulses of
her blood, that she is herself a child; this collision gives an
inexpressible charm to the whole demeanor of many a young married
woman, making her other fascinations more touching to her husband,
and deepening the admiration she excites; and the more so, as it is a
collision which cannot exist except among the very innocent. Years, at
any rate, will irresistibly remove this peculiar charm, and gradually
replace it by the graces of the matronly character. But in Agnes this
change had not yet been effected, partly from nature, and partly from
the extreme seclusion of her life. Hitherto she still retained the
unaffected expression of her childlike nature; and so lovely in my eyes
was this perfect exhibition of natural feminine character, that she rarely
or never went out alone upon any little errand to town which might
require her to rely upon her own good sense and courage, that she did
not previously come to exhibit herself before me. Partly this was
desired by me in that lover-like feeling of admiration already explained,
which leads one to court the sight of a beloved object under every
change of dress, and under all effects of novelty. Partly it was the
interest I took in that exhibition of sweet timidity, and almost childish
apprehensiveness, half disguised or imperfectly acknowledged by
herself, which (in the way I have just explained) so touchingly
contrasted with (and for that very reason so touchingly drew forth) her
matronly character. But I hear some objector say at this point, ought not
this very timidity, founded (as in part at least it was) upon inexperience
and conscious inability to face the dangers of the world, to have
suggested reasons for not leaving her to her own protection? And does
it not argue, on my part, an arrogant or