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A Laodicean: a Story of To-day By: Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) |
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By Thomas Hardy
CONTENTS. PREFACE CHAPTERS
BOOK THE FIRST. GEORGE SOMERSET. I XV.
BOOK THE SECOND. DARE AND HAVILL. I VII.
BOOK THE THIRD. DE STANCY. I XI.
BOOK THE FOURTH. SOMERSET, DARE, AND DE STANCY. I V.
BOOK THE FIFTH. DE STANCY AND PAULA. I XIV.
BOOK THE SIXTH. PAULA. I V.
PREFACE. The changing of the old order in country manors and mansions may be
slow or sudden, may have many issues romantic or otherwise, its romantic
issues being not necessarily restricted to a change back to the original
order; though this admissible instance appears to have been the only
romance formerly recognized by novelists as possible in the case.
Whether the following production be a picture of other possibilities or
not, its incidents may be taken to be fairly well supported by evidence
every day forthcoming in most counties. The writing of the tale was rendered memorable to two persons, at least,
by a tedious illness of five months that laid hold of the author soon
after the story was begun in a well known magazine; during which
period the narrative had to be strenuously continued by dictation to a
predetermined cheerful ending. As some of these novels of Wessex life address themselves more
especially to readers into whose souls the iron has entered, and whose
years have less pleasure in them now than heretofore, so "A Laodicean"
may perhaps help to while away an idle afternoon of the comfortable ones
whose lines have fallen to them in pleasant places; above all, of that
large and happy section of the reading public which has not yet reached
ripeness of years; those to whom marriage is the pilgrim's Eternal City,
and not a milestone on the way. T.H. January 1896.
BOOK THE FIRST. GEORGE SOMERSET.
I. The sun blazed down and down, till it was within half an hour of its
setting; but the sketcher still lingered at his occupation of measuring
and copying the chevroned doorway a bold and quaint example of a
transitional style of architecture, which formed the tower entrance to
an English village church. The graveyard being quite open on its western
side, the tweed clad figure of the young draughtsman, and the tall mass
of antique masonry which rose above him to a battlemented parapet,
were fired to a great brightness by the solar rays, that crossed the
neighbouring mead like a warp of gold threads, in whose mazes groups of
equally lustrous gnats danced and wailed incessantly. He was so absorbed in his pursuit that he did not mark the brilliant
chromatic effect of which he composed the central feature, till it was
brought home to his intelligence by the warmth of the moulded stonework
under his touch when measuring; which led him at length to turn his head
and gaze on its cause. There are few in whom the sight of a sunset does not beget as much
meditative melancholy as contemplative pleasure, the human decline and
death that it illustrates being too obvious to escape the notice of
the simplest observer. The sketcher, as if he had been brought to this
reflection many hundreds of times before by the same spectacle, showed
that he did not wish to pursue it just now, by turning away his face
after a few moments, to resume his architectural studies. He took his measurements carefully, and as if he reverenced the old
workers whose trick he was endeavouring to acquire six hundred years
after the original performance had ceased and the performers passed into
the unseen. By means of a strip of lead called a leaden tape, which
he pressed around and into the fillets and hollows with his finger and
thumb, he transferred the exact contour of each moulding to his drawing,
that lay on a sketching stool a few feet distant; where were also a
sketching block, a small T square, a bow pencil, and other mathematical
instruments. When he had marked down the line thus fixed, he returned to
the doorway to copy another as before... Continue reading book >>
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Fiction |
Literature |
Romance |
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