Diotimos Library · Literary Fiction Collection · English Edition
The Keepers of the People
A Critical Edition of the 1898 Novel
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English Edition · Branch 145 of 254
Chapter VII · The Princess Agnes and Althea · pp. 191–200
The Keepers of the People
p. 191CHAPTER VII
THE PRINCESS AGNES AND ALTHEA
For a while the Princess Agnes abandoned herself to despair, the poignant despair of a spoiled child baulked of its will; and she found little fondness for her baby. But she was of too vigorous a health to remain long despairing, and as she recovered her strength, her spirit came back to her. Then in a happy moment the right way of regarding her child occurred to her; it was wronged, robbed, the victim of the barbarous prejudice of the Princes of Varandaleel; she would consecrate her life to winning it its rights: in gaining this end, she would pave the way to the accomplishment of her greater mission of broadening the lives of her Eastern sisters on the higher plane. She enjoyed a great solace in regarding it in this fashion, in apostrophising it as her wronged darling; but sometimes the difficulties of her task disheartened her, and in her low humours she hated it as the living emblem of the mastery of Prince Ralph. In these rare moods of hers it would have fared ill but for its mute nurses: their fortunate dumbness prevented their wasting themselves in the thousand ways in which speaking women may waste themselves, and developed to an extraordinary degree their womanly instincts; and they lavished on it a wealth of patient affection.
She was long, however, forming her plan of action: at first it was only clear to her that the child must be early taught a proper abhorrence of the principles of its father; and she bade fair, if she carried out her design unchecked, to instil into it a very lively hatred of him. Hers was, indeed, that common nature which, watered by a little misfortune, blooms into a luxuriant malignancy. Then it became clear to her that the first step towards her goal was the learning of the Varandal tongue. To this end she reconciled herself to the old Princess, who was drawn to her afresh by the tie of a grandchild, and was ready to cheer her even by this dull diversion. Then Fortune, ever ready to make trouble, gave her another teacher in Althea.
Socrates
Reading The Keepers of the People · Book II, Chapter VII · The Princess Agnes and Althea · Book II, Chapter VII · The Princess Agnes and Althea · pp. 191–200
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Edgar Jepson’s The Keepers of the People begins as a late-Victorian lost-kingdom romance and becomes an unsettling political argument. Ralph Falcon moves from an English country house to the hidden state of Varandaleel, where laughter, secrecy, violence, education, and the duties of rulers are tested against one another.
Historical Text
The novel was first published in London in 1898 by C. Arthur Pearson. This reading text follows the owner-supplied critical edition, whose copy-text is the Methuen Colonial Library issue of the same year digitised by the Internet Archive. The supplied editorial note records the edition’s corrections, normalisations, limits, and unresolved textual risks.
About This Edition
This English Edition preserves the complete supplied text and apparatus: the introduction, reading guide, key words, plot outline, editorial note, both books and all thirty chapters, and the end notes. Its reader branches end at paragraph boundaries, with the original chapter structure and chapter page references mapped to the 1898 printing.
Rights
Edgar Jepson’s 1898 novel is in the public domain. The introduction, reader’s guide, key words, outline, editorial note, notes, editorial arrangement, and design of the supplied edition are © 2026 Diotimos Editions.