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Jack Hinton The Guardsman By: Charles James Lever (1806-1872) |
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THE GUARDSMAN. By Charles James Lever With Illustrations by Browne LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 1857.
PREFACE. Very few words of preface will suffice to the volume now presented to my
readers. My intention was to depict, in the early experiences of a young
Englishman in Ireland, some of the almost inevitable mistakes incidental
to such a character. I had so often myself listened to so many absurd
and exaggerated opinions on Irish character, formed on the very
slightest acquaintance with the country, and by persons, too, who, with
all the advantages long intimacy might confer, would still have been
totally inadequate to the task of a rightful appreciation, that I deemed
the subject one where a little "reprisal" might be justifiable. Scarcely, however, had I entered upon my story, than I strayed from the
path I had determined on, and, with very little reference to my
original intention, suffered Jack Hinton to "take his chance amongst the
natives," and with far too much occupation on his hands to give time for
reflecting over their peculiarities, or recording their singular traits,
I threw him into the society of the capital, under the vice royalty of a
celebrated Duke, all whose wayward eccentricities were less marked than
the manly generosity and genuine honesty of his character. I introduced
him into a set where, whatever purely English readers may opine, I have
wonderfully little exaggerated; and I led him down to the West to meet
adventures which every newspaper, some twenty five years ago, would show
were by no means extravagant or strange. As for the characters of the story, there is not one for which I did not
take a "real sitter;" at the same time, I have never heard one single
correct guess as to the types that afforded them. To Mrs. Paul Rooney,
Father Tom Loftus, Bob Mahon, O'Grady, Tipperary Joe, and even Corny
himself, I have scarcely added a touch which nature has not given them,
while assuredly I have failed to impart many a fine and delicate tint
far above the "reach of ' my art," and which might have presented
them in stronger light and shadow than I have dared to attempt. Had I
desired to caricature English ignorance as to Ireland in the person of
my Guardsman, nothing would have been easier; but I preferred merely
exposing him to such errors as might throw into stronger relief the
peculiarities of Irishmen, and, while offering something to laugh at,
give no offence to either. The volume amused me while I was writing
it, less, perhaps, by what I recorded, than what I abstained from
inditing; at all events, it was the work of some of the pleasantest
hours of my life, and if it can ever impart to any of my readers a
portion of the amusement some of the real characters afforded myself, it
will not be all a failure. That it may succeed so far is the hope of the
reader's Very devoted servant, CHARLES LEVER. Casa Capponi, Florence, March, 1857.
JACK HINTON, THE GUARDSMAN CHAPTER I. A FAMILY PARTY It was on a dark and starless night in February, 181 , as the last
carriage of a dinner party had driven from the door of a large house
in St. James's square, when a party drew closer around the drawing room
fire, apparently bent upon that easy and familiar chit chat the presence
of company interdicts. One of these was a large and fine looking man of about five and forty,
who, dressed in the full uniform of a general officer, wore besides the
ribbon of the Bath; he leaned negligently upon the chimney piece, and,
with his back towards the fire, seemed to follow the current of his own
reflections: this was my Father. Beside him, but almost concealed in the deep recess of a well cushioned
arm chair, sat, or rather lay, a graceful figure, who with an air of
languid repose was shading her fine complexion as well from the glare
of the fire as from the trying brilliancy of an Argand lamp upon the
mantelpiece. Her rich dress, resplendent with jewels, while it strangely
contrasted with the careless ease of her attitude, also showed that she
had bestowed a more than common attention that day upon her toilette:
this, fair reader, was my Mother... Continue reading book >>
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