His shabby, hapless
appearance always appealed to her. She knew that he was, in reality,
anything but hapless, but his clothes never fitted him, and it was
impossible for him to escape from the Quixotic embarrassments of his
thin hair, his high cheek-bones, his large spectacles. His smile,
however, gave him his character; when he smiled--and he was always
smiling--you saw a man independent, proud, wise and gentle. He was
not a fool, Mr. Magnus, although he did love Aunt Anne.
To a great deal that he said Maggie paid but little attention; it
was, she felt, not intended for her. She had, in all her relations
with him, to struggle against the initial disadvantage that she
regarded all men who wrote books with pity. She was not so stupid as
not to realise that there were a great many fine books in the world
and that one was the better for reading them, but, just because
there were, already, so many fine ones, why write more that would
almost certainly be not so fine? He tried to explain, to her that
some men were compelled to write and could not help themselves.
"I wrote my first book when I was nineteen.
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