in the bargain between you and Mr. S.; namely, that, if he finds any
fault with your work, he shall send it back to yourself to be set right,
and, if you cannot do so to his mind, you shall be off the bargain."
"But papa,--Percivale,--both of you know well enough that nothing
ever happened to me worth telling."
"I am sorry your life has been so very uninteresting, wife," said my
husband grimly; for his fun is always so like earnest!
"You know well enough what I mean, husband. It does not follow that
what has been interesting enough to you and me will be interesting to
people who know nothing at all about us to begin with."
"It depends on how it is told," said Mr. S.
"Then, I beg leave to say, that I never had an original thought in my life;
and that, if I were to attempt to tell my history, the result would be as
silly a narrative as ever one old woman told another by the workhouse
fire."
"And I only wish I could hear the one old woman tell her story to the
other," said my father.
"Ah! but that's because you see ever so much more in it than shows.
You always see through the words and the things to something lying
behind them," I said.
"Well, if you told the story rightly, other people would see such things
behind it too."
"Not enough of people to make it worth while for Mr. S. to print it," I
said.
"He's not going to print it except he thinks it worth his while; and you
may safely leave that to him," said my husband.
"And so I'm to write a book as big as 'The Annals;' and, after I've been
slaving at it for half a century or so, I'm to be told it won't do, and all
my labor must go for nothing? I must say the proposal is rather a cool
one to make,--to the mother of a family."
"Not at all; that's not it, I mean," said Mr. S.; "if you will write a dozen
pages or so, I shall be able to judge by those well enough,--at least, I
will take all the responsibility on myself after that."
"There's a fair offer!" said my husband. "It seems to me, Wynnie, that
all that is wanted of you is to tell your tale so that other people can
recognize the human heart in it,--the heart that is like their own, and be
able to feel as if they were themselves going through the things you
recount."
"You describe the work of a genius, and coolly ask me to do it. Besides,
I don't want to be set thinking about my heart, and all that," I said
peevishly.
"Now, don't be raising objections where none exist," he returned.
"If you mean I am pretending to object, I have only to say that I feel all
one great objection to the whole affair, and that I won't touch it."
They were all silent; and I felt as if I had behaved ungraciously. Then
first I felt as if I might have to do it, after all. But I couldn't see my way
in the least.
"Now, what is there," I asked, "in all my life that is worth setting
down,--I mean, as I should be able to set it down?"
"What do you ladies talk about now in your morning calls?" suggested
Mr. Blackstone, with a humorous glance from his deep black eyes.
"Nothing worth writing about, as I am sure you will readily believe, Mr.
Blackstone," I answered.
"How comes it to be interesting, then?"
"But it isn't. They--we--only talk about the weather and our children
and servants, and that sort of thing."
"_Well!_" said Mr. S., "and I wish I could get any thing sensible about
the weather and children and servants, and that sort of thing, for my
magazine. I have a weakness in the direction of the sensible."
"But there never is any thing sensible said about any of them,--not that
I know of."
"Now, Wynnie, I am sure you are wrong," said my father. "There is
your friend, Mrs. Cromwell: I am certain she, sometimes at least, must
say what is worth hearing about such matters."
"Well, but she's an exception. Besides, she hasn't any children."
"Then," said my husband, "there's Lady Bernard"--
"Ah! but she was like no one else. Besides, she is almost a public
character, and any thing said about her would betray my original."
"It would be no matter. She is beyond caring for that now; and not one
of her friends could object to any thing you who loved her so much
would say about her."
The mention of this lady seemed to
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