The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather (best reads .TXT) π
Description
The Song of the Lark, Willa Catherβs third novel, was written in 1915. It is said to have been inspired by the real-life soprano Olive Fremstad, a celebrated Swedish-American singer who, like the protagonist, was active in New York and Europe during the time period depicted in the novel.
The work explores how an artistβs early life influences their work. In the novel, Thea Kronborg discovers her talent as a singer, and goes on to achieve great fame and success once she leaves her tiny village of Moonstone. Cather eschewed depicting rural life as being idyllic, instead focusing on the conservative, restricted, patriarchal structures that its inhabitants live by. Her work is thus considered to be one of the earliest so-called βRevolt Novels.β She depicts a time at the end of the 19th century when the American West was expanding rapidly and Americans were gaining sophistication in their understanding of culture and artists, particularly compared to Europe. The title of the novel comes from the name of a 1884 painting by Jules Breton, which is described and considered in the book itself.
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- Author: Willa Cather
Read book online Β«The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather (best reads .TXT) πΒ». Author - Willa Cather
By Willa Cather.
Table of Contents Titlepage Imprint Dedication The Song of the Lark Part I: Friends of Childhood I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX Part II: The Song of the Lark I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI Part III: Stupid Faces I II III IV V VI Part IV: The Ancient People I II III IV V VI VII VIII Part V: Doctor Archieβs Venture I II III IV V Part VI: Kronborg I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI Epilogue Colophon Uncopyright ImprintThis ebook is the product of many hours of hard work by volunteers for Standard Ebooks, and builds on the hard work of other literature lovers made possible by the public domain.
This particular ebook is based on a transcription produced for Project Gutenberg and on digital scans available at the HathiTrust Digital Library.
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To
Isabelle McClung
On uplands,
At morning,
The world was young, the winds were free;
A garden fair,
In that blue desert air,
Its guest invited me to be.
Dr. Howard Archie had just come up from a game of pool with the Jewish clothier and two traveling men who happened to be staying overnight in Moonstone. His offices were in the Duke Block, over the drug store. Larry, the doctorβs man, had lit the overhead light in the waiting-room and the double studentβs lamp on the desk in the study. The isinglass sides of the hard-coal burner were aglow, and the air in the study was so hot that as he came in the doctor opened the door into his little operating-room, where there was no stove. The waiting room was carpeted and stiffly furnished, something like a country parlor. The study had worn, unpainted floors, but there was a look of winter comfort about it. The doctorβs flattop desk was large and well made; the papers were in orderly piles, under glass weights. Behind the stove a wide bookcase, with double glass doors, reached from the floor to the ceiling. It was filled with medical books of every thickness and color. On the top shelf stood a long row of thirty or forty volumes, bound all alike in dark mottled board covers, with imitation leather backs.
As the doctor in New England villages is proverbially old, so the doctor in small Colorado towns twenty-five years ago was generally young. Dr. Archie was barely thirty. He was tall, with massive shoulders which he held stiffly, and a large, well-shaped head. He was a distinguished-looking man, for that part of the world, at least.
There was something individual in the way in which his reddish-brown hair, parted cleanly at the side, bushed over his high forehead. His nose was straight and thick, and his eyes were intelligent. He wore a curly, reddish mustache and an imperial, cut trimly, which made him look a little like the pictures of Napoleon III. His hands were large and well kept, but ruggedly formed, and the backs were shaded with crinkly reddish hair. He wore a blue suit of woolly, wide-waled serge; the traveling men had known at a glance that it was made by a Denver tailor. The doctor was always well dressed.
Dr. Archie turned up the studentβs lamp and sat down in the swivel chair before his desk. He sat uneasily, beating a tattoo on his knees with his fingers, and looked about him as if he were bored. He glanced at his watch, then absently took from his pocket a bunch of small keys, selected one and looked at it. A contemptuous smile, barely perceptible, played on his lips, but his eyes remained meditative. Behind the door that led into the hall, under his buffalo-skin driving-coat, was a locked cupboard. This the doctor opened mechanically, kicking aside a pile of muddy overshoes. Inside, on the shelves, were whiskey glasses and decanters, lemons, sugar, and bitters. Hearing a step in the empty, echoing hall without, the doctor closed the cupboard again, snapping the Yale lock. The door of the waiting-room opened, a man entered and came on into the consulting-room.
βGood evening, Mr. Kronborg,β said the doctor carelessly. βSit down.β
His visitor was a tall, loosely built man, with a thin brown beard, streaked with gray. He wore a frock coat, a broad-brimmed black hat, a white lawn necktie, and steel-rimmed spectacles. Altogether there was a pretentious and important air about him, as he lifted the skirts of his coat and sat down.
βGood evening, doctor. Can you step around to the house with me? I think Mrs. Kronborg will need you this evening.β This was said with profound gravity and, curiously enough, with a slight embarrassment.
βAny hurry?β the doctor asked over his shoulder as he went into
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