The Daughters of Danaus | Page 4

of all are those whom the world has never known, because the present conditions are inharmonious with the very noblest and the very highest qualities."
No sooner was the last word uttered than the garret became the scene of the stormiest debate that had ever been recorded in the annals of the Preposterous Society, an institution that had lately celebrated its fifth anniversary. Hadria, fired by opposition, declared that the success of great people was due not simply to their greatness, but to some smaller and commoner quality which brought them in touch with the majority, and so gave their greatness a chance.
At this, there was such a howl of indignation that Algitha remonstrated.
"We shall be heard, if you don't take care," she warned.
"My dear Algitha, there are a dozen empty rooms between us and the inhabited part of the house, not to mention the fact that we are a storey above everyone except the ghosts, so I think you may compose yourself."
However, the excited voices were hushed a little as the discussion continued. One of the chief charms of the institution, in the eyes of the members of the Society, was its secrecy. The family, though united by ties of warm affection to their parents, did not look for encouragement from them in this direction. Mr. Fullerton was too exclusively scientific in his bent of thought, to sympathize with the kind of speculation in which his children delighted, while their mother looked with mingled pride and alarm at these outbreaks of individuality on the part of her daughters, for whom she craved the honours of the social world. In this out-of-the-way district, society smiled upon conformity, and glared vindictively at the faintest sign of spontaneous thinking. Cleverness of execution, as in music, tennis, drawing, was forgiven, even commended; but originality, though of the mildest sort, created the same agonizing disturbance in the select circle, as the sight of a crucifix is wont to produce upon the father of Evil. Yet by some freak of fortune, the whole family at Dunaghee had shewn obstinate symptoms of individuality from their childhood, and, what was more distressing, the worst cases occurred in the girls.
In the debate just recorded, that took place on Algitha's twenty-second birthday, Ernest had been Hadria's principal opponent, but the others had also taken the field against her.
"You have the easier cause to champion," she said, when there was a momentary lull, "for all your evidences can be pointed to and counted; whereas mine, poor things--pale hypotheses, nameless peradventures--lie in forgotten churchyards--unthought of, unthanked, untrumpeted, and all their tragedy is lost in the everlasting silence."
"You will never make people believe in what might have been," said Algitha.
"I don't expect to." Hadria was standing by the window looking out over the glimmering fields and the shrouded white hills. "Life is as white and as unsympathetic as this," she said dreamily. "We just dance our reel in our garret, and then it is all over; and whether we do the steps as our fancy would have them, or a little otherwise, because of the uneven floor, or tired feet, or for lack of chance to learn the steps--heavens and earth, what does it matter?"
"Hadria!" exclaimed an astonished chorus.
The sentiment was so entirely unlike any that the ardent President of the Society had ever been known to express before, that brothers and sisters crowded up to enquire into the cause of the unusual mood.
"Oh, it is only the moonlight that has got into my head," she said, flinging back the cloudy black hair from her brow.
Algitha's firm, clear voice vibrated through the room.
"But I think it matters very much whether one's task is done well or ill," she said, "and nobody has taught me to wish to make solid use of my life so much as you have, Hadria. What possesses you to-night?"
"I tell you, the moonlight."
"And something else."
"Well, it struck me, as I stood there with my head full of what we have been discussing, that the conditions of a girl's life of our own class are pleasant enough, but they are stifling, absolutely stifling; and not all the Emersons in the world will convince me to the contrary. Emerson never was a girl!"
There was a laugh.
"No; but he was a great man," said Ernest.
"Then he must have had something of the girl in him!" cried Hadria.
"I didn't mean that, but perhaps it is true."
"If he had been a girl, he would have known that conditions do count hideously in one's life. I think that there are more 'destroyers' to be carried about and pampered in this department of existence than in any other (material conditions being equal)."
"Do you mean that a girl would have more difficulty in bringing her power to maturity and getting it recognized than a man would have?"