Excerpt from Agnes, Vol. 1 of 3 Life thus taken up in its general course is, no doubt, full of broken threads and illogical con elusions, and lacks altogether the unity of the regularly constructed fiction, which confines itself to the graceful task of conducting two vir vtuous young persons through a labyrinth of difficulties to a happy marriage. I am far from despising the instinct which confines the art of story-telling within these limits, but think it, on the contrary, as wise as it is natural; yet at the same time everybody knows that there are many lives which only begin after that first fair chapter of youthful existence is com pleted as also that there are many more which end, so far as there is any interest or vitality in them, before the other great conclusion which finishes all, so far as human vision goes. I will not say that the following Story has been written to carry out such a theory, which would not be true. It has grown out of much more natural and less premeditated causes but that this theory is one which may justify the story; and as such I leave it in the reader's hands. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.