The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade (most interesting books to read .TXT) π
Read free book Β«The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade (most interesting books to read .TXT) πΒ» - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
- Author: Charles Reade
Read book online Β«The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade (most interesting books to read .TXT) πΒ». Author - Charles Reade
CHAPTER LXXII
CHAPTER LXXIII
CHAPTER LXXIV
CHAPTER LXXV
CHAPTER LXXVI
CHAPTER LXXVII
CHAPTER LXXVIII
CHAPTER LXXIX
CHAPTER LXXX
CHAPTER LXXXI
CHAPTER LXXXII
CHAPTER LXXXIII
CHAPTER LXXXIV
CHAPTER LXXXV
CHAPTER LXXXVI
CHAPTER LXXXVII
CHAPTER LXXXVIII
CHAPTER LXXXIX
CHAPTER XC
CHAPTER XCI
CHAPTER XCII
CHAPTER XCIII
CHAPTER XCIV
CHAPTER XCV
CHAPTER XCVI
CHAPTER XCVII
CHAPTER XCVIII
CHAPTER XCIX
CHAPTER C
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
A small portion of this tale appeared in Once a Week, July-September, 1859, under the title of βA Good Fight.β
After writing it, I took wider views of the subject, and also felt uneasy at having deviated unnecessarily from the historical outline of a true story. These two sentiments have cost me more than a year's very hard labour, which I venture to think has not been wasted. After this plain statement I trust all who comment on this work will see that to describe it as a reprint would be unfair to the public and to me. The English language is copious, and, in any true man's hands, quite able to convey the truthβnamely, that one-fifth of the present work is a reprint, and four-fifths of it a new composition.
CHARLES READE
CHAPTER I
Not a day passes over the earth, but men and women of no note do great deeds, speak great words, and suffer noble sorrows. Of these obscure heroes, philosophers, and martyrs, the greater part will never be known till that hour, when many that are great shall be small, and the small great; but of others the world's knowledge may be said to sleep: their lives and characters lie hidden from nations in the annals that record them. The general reader cannot feel them, they are presented so curtly and coldly: they are not like breathing stories appealing to his heart, but little historic hail-stones striking him but to glance off his bosom: nor can he understand them; for epitomes are not narratives, as skeletons are not human figures.
Thus records of prime truths remain a dead letter to plain folk: the writers have left so much to the imagination, and imagination is so rare a gift. Here, then, the writer of fiction may be of use to the publicβas an interpreter.
There is a musty chronicle, written in intolerable Latin, and in it a chapter where every sentence holds a fact. Here is told, with harsh brevity, the strange history of a pair, who lived untrumpeted, and died unsung, four hundred years ago; and lie now, as unpitied, in that stern page, as fossils in a rock. Thus, living or dead, Fate is still unjust to them. For if I can but show you what lies below that dry chronicler's words, methinks you will correct the indifference of centuries, and give those two sore-tried souls a place in your heartβfor a day.
It was past the middle of the fifteenth century; Louis XI was sovereign of France; Edward IV was wrongful king of England; and Philip βthe Good,β having by force and cunning dispossessed his cousin Jacqueline, and broken her heart, reigned undisturbed this many years in Holland, where our tale begins.
Elias, and Catherine his wife, lived in the little town of Tergou. He traded, wholesale and retail, in cloth, silk, brown holland, and, above all, in curried leather, a material highly valued by the middling people, because it would stand twenty years' wear, and turn an ordinary knife, no small virtue in a jerkin of that century, in which folk were so liberal of their steel; even
Comments (0)