Margaret Woffington

“ The carriage rolled through the pretty woods of Fausses Reposes, and the sweet spring breeze fanned Margaret's cheeks in the shade. But she felt fever in her blood and her heart beat fast and angrily as if it were a conscious creature imprisoned in a cage. She was angry with herself and with every one else, with Logotheti, with Mrs. Rushmore, with poor Lushington for making such a fool of himself just when she was prepared to like him better than ever. She was sure that she had good cause to hate every one, and she hated accordingly, with a good will. ”

“ Then, as she looked at Margaret, she became conscious of the marked change in her face, and it seemed to startle her. She rose and came to her. "One thing I know," she said, quickly, "if you are vexed with me, so vexed that you will have nothing more to do with me, I don't know what will become of me. You are the only woman I care for. Don't throw me over, Margaret. There's one thing that may happen," she added, looking at her friend with luminous gaze, "I may stop caring for Lucian of my own accord before long; you know I stopped caring for Evert."
"Oh, Garda! Garda!" ”

“ She rallied her sinking courage. "We will not talk of things that do not concern us," she said, gently. "All my life—that is, the peace of it—is in your power, Evert, now that you know the truth about me. But I am sure I have not put faith in you in vain."
"Don't you remember saying to me 'Do you wish me to die without ever having been my full self once?' So now I say to you, Margaret, do you wish to die without ever having lived? You have never lived yet with anything like a full completeness. I am not a bad man, I declare it to you, and you are the most unselfish of women ”

“ He has tired you out. I can imagine that when once he is in earnest—Margaret, let me tell you this one thing: you can't live under all this, you'll die."
"It's not so easy to die," answered Lansing Harold's wife.
"You think I don't know about Mr. Harold. But I do. Lucian heard the whole in Rome; I even saw her myself—in a carriage on the Pincio. I know that he left you twice to go to her—twice; what claim has he, then, upon you? But what is the use of my talking, if Evert has been able to do nothing!"
Margaret sat up. "Go now, Garda. I would rather be alone." ”

“ Lushington nodded.
'One?' screamed Madame Bonanni. 'Twenty, I tell you! A hundred——'
'No, no, mother,' interrupted Lushington. No one can get more than one.'
'Ah, did I not tell you?' cried the prima donna, triumphantly. 'There is only one, and he got it! What did I tell you? How can you expect me not to be proud of him?'
'You ought to be,' answered Margaret, very much in earnest, and for the first time Lushington saw in her eyes the light of absolutely unreserved admiration. ”

“ Mary Wolstonecraft, like Madame Dudevant (commonly known as George Sand) in our day, was a woman whose existence better proved the need of some new interpretation of Woman's Rights than anything she wrote. Such beings as these, rich in genius, of most tender sympathies, capable of high virtue and a chastened harmony, ought not to find themselves, by birth, in a place so narrow, that, in breaking bonds, they become outlaws. ”

“ My idea would have been, and still is, that she should live here, say with the Kirbys; then she would have the climate and life which she always has had, to which she is accustomed; and in time probably she would marry either that young Torres, or Manuel Ruiz, both quite suitable matches for her. But what could she do in our society, if Margaret should persist, later, in taking her into it? It would be quite pitiable, she would be so completely out of her element, poor little thing!"
"So beautiful a girl is apt to be in her element wherever she is, isn't she?" remarked Winthrop. ”

“ She played Sir Harry Wildair like a man, which is how he ought to be played (or, which is better still, not at all) , so that Garrick acknowledged her as a male rival, and abandoned the part he no longer monopolized.
Now it very, very rarely happens that a woman of her age is high enough in art and knowledge to do these things. In players, vanity cripples art at every step. The young actress who is not a Woffington aims to display herself by means of her part, which is vanity; not to raise her part by sinking herself in it, which is art. ”

“ Lushington, who was really both sensitive and imaginative, used to tell Margaret that he was a realist. Logotheti, who was by nature, talent and education a thorough materialist, loved to believe that he possessed both a rich imagination and the gift of true sentiment.
Margaret had delighted him at first sight, though he was hard to please, and though she was not a great beauty. She appealed directly to that love of life for its own sake which was always the strength, the genius and the snare of the Greek people, and which is not extinct in their modern descendants. ”

“ Much as he liked Margaret, it was with anger that he answered her now.
"I must tell you what I think, mustn't I?" said the other guardian, gently. "And I think she has cared for him a long time."
"It is impossible for me to agree with you. Long time? Permit me to ask how long you mean? In the mean while she has been engaged to another man—Evert Winthrop. Do you forget that?"
"I don't think she realized fully—she was very young; she is extremely impulsive always," answered his colleague, wandering rather helplessly for a moment among her phrases. ”

“ I loved her with a love that knew no distrust, faithfully, devotedly. The night, calm and silent, was not purer or more innocent than her soul; the stars as they peeped out from the distant sky, were no brighter than her eyes, azure, deep, serene; the gold of the sunset was like the glimmer of her hair; the fleecy clouds, white and snowy, were not lovelier than her neck and throat, and yet—yet—she weds Dunraven. Why hast thou forsaken me?—Margaret! Oh, Margaret!"
The lad looked at me, the great tears of pity running down his cheeks. ”

“ It happened that at this instant Garda woke; and saw the movement. She came swiftly across to her friend. "Oh, I knew you were unhappy, though you never, never say so! But now I have caught you, I have seen it. And oh, Margaret, you are so changed!—you are the loveliest woman in the world still,—but you have grown so thin; look at your hands." And she held up one of Margaret's hands against the light to show its transparency.
But Margaret drew her hand away. "If I'm thin, I am only following out my privilege as an American woman," she answered, lightly. ”

“ Every one of the photographs opened a window on the life Margaret had been trying to picture since she had known him--a life so rich, so romantic, so packed--in the mere casual vocabulary of daily life--with historic reference and poetic allusion, that she felt almost oppressed by this distant whiff of its air. The very words he used fascinated and bewildered her. He seemed to have been born into all sorts of connections, political, historical, official, that made the Ransom situation at Wentworth as featureless as the top shelf of a dark closet. ”

“ This conversation made Margaret easier. Their inner life was so safe that they could bargain over externals in a way that would have been incredible to Aunt Juley, and impossible for Tibby or Charles. There are moments when the inner life actually “pays,” when years of self-scrutiny, conducted for no ulterior motive, are suddenly of practical use. Such moments are still rare in the West; that they come at all promises a fairer future. Margaret, though unable to understand her sister, was assured against estrangement, and returned to London with a more peaceful mind. ”

“ Are these explanations sufficient? or do you require more?"
"No explanations can ever be sufficient," Winthrop answered. He stood looking at her. "Oh, Margaret, it is such a fearful sacrifice!" He had abandoned for the moment both his anger and his efforts at argument.
"Yes; but that is what life is, isn't it?" she said, her voice trembling a little in spite of herself.
"No, it's not. And it shouldn't be. Why should an utterly selfish man of that kind, who has forfeited every claim upon you a hundred times over—why should he be allowed to dictate to you, to wither your whole existence? ”

“ But I don't see that I am to blame for either the one or the other; people don't care for people because they try to, but because it comes in spite of them; and it's the same way when it stops. I acknowledge, Margaret, that you are one of the kind to care once and forever. But there are very few women like you, I am sure."
She turned as she said this, in order to look up at her friend; then she sprang from her place on the rug and stood beside her, her attitude was almost a protecting one. "Oh," she said, "how I hate the people who make you so unhappy!"
"No one does that," said Margaret. ”

“ I felt as if my eyes had been blindfolded to prevent me seeing Margaret as she really was, and that now the bandage had been removed. As the day of production drew nearer, and the play began to take shape, I caught myself sincerely admiring the girl who could hit off, first shot, the exact shade of drivel which the London stage required. What culture, what excessive brain-power she must have. How absurdly naïve, how impossibly melodramatic, how maudlinly sentimental, how improbable—in fact, how altogether womanly she must have grown. ”

“ He’s queer, isn’t he? You have the feeling that he doesn’t talk about what he thinks about—that’s why I should like to know him. It’s not what a man does that makes him interesting; it’s what he thinks. It’s his potentialities.’
Margaret rose with something of a yawn. ‘If you’re going to discuss potentialities, I’m going to bed. Come on, Eleanor. To-morrow’s the festa of Our Lady of Good Counsel, and we start at nine o’clock.’
151 Eleanor rose reluctantly. ‘I wish we weren’t going to Perugia on Wednesday. I should much rather stay here with Marcia.’
‘And Mr. Sybert,’ Margaret laughed. ”

“ And now, when Margaret’s blushing confession was whispered to her, the Countess privately congratulated herself on her excellent management, and thought how much better it was to pull unseen strings than to blaze one’s wishes abroad.
“And, Lady, will you of your grace plead for us with my Lord and father?” said Margaret in a coaxing tone at last.
“Oh, leave it all to me,” replied her mother. “I will manage him into it. Never tell a man anything, my dove, if thou wouldst have him do it. ”

“ Margaret Donne was not actually cruel to her fellow-creatures. She was not one of those modern persons who feel sick at the sight of a half-starved horse dragging a heavy load, but will turn a man's life into a temporary hell without changing colour. Such as these give women a bad name among men. Margaret was merely defending herself, for Mr. Lushington sometimes drove her to extremities; his very shyness was so aggressive, that she could not pity him, even when she saw him blush painfully, and noticed the slight dew which an attack of social timidity brought to his smooth forehead. ”

“ If things do not assert themselves, they are not worth a plan."
"You certainly are the most delightful little piece of common-sense I ever met," said Margaret, laughing, and kissing her. "I wish you would give me a share of it! But come—it is late; we must go."
As they went down the slope together towards the village where their carriage was waiting, they looked not unlike the two seventeen-year-old school-girls of eight years before; Beatrice was smiling, and Margaret's darker face was lighted by the old animation which had always charmed her lovely but unanimated friend. ”

“ Winthrop carry it."
"No," said Margaret. "On the contrary, let us abhor the sea-weeds; let us give ourselves to the consideration of a whole." And, pausing, she looked over the sea, then up at the sky and down the beach, with a slow musing sweep of the head which became her well.
"You're not enough in earnest," said Garda; "we can see the edge of a smile at the corners of your lips. ”

“ Margaret was, to persons younger than herself, a Makaria and Natalia. She was wisdom and intellectual beauty, filling life with a charm and glory "known to neither sea nor land." To those of her own age she was sibyl and seer,—a prophetess, revealing the future, pointing the path, opening their eyes to the great aims only worthy of pursuit in life. To those older than herself she was like the Euphorion in Goethe's drama, child of Faust and Helen,—a wonderful union of exuberance and judgment, born of romantic fulness and classic limitation. ”

“ If Miss Forester and Rachel Holmes were one and the same person, then Mr. Weston might have believed that Miss Forester was there to speak for herself; for the lady who came now upon the scene was dressed in the old-fashioned garments worn by Rachel Holmes when she made her appearance at the dinner, an unexpected and certainly unwelcome guest. Finding no clue to the enigma, and sorely disturbed by the late occurrence, Mr. Weston grasped Margaret's hand in deep agitation.
"She is no phantom," said Margaret, with a smile; "she is really and truly flesh and blood, as you and I are. ”

“ Margaret exclaimed.
"Poor old creatures, you're rather hard on them, aren't you?" said Winthrop from the boat.
"Yes, I'm hard!" She said this with a little motion of her clinched hand backward—a motion which, though slight, was yet almost violent.
"We must lose no more time," she went on. "Go to the house, Rose—I suppose you can do that—and bring me the wraps I usually take when I go out in the canoe, the lantern and some candles——"
"No," said Winthrop, interposing; "let her bring pitch-pine knots, or, better still, torches, if they happen to have them." ”