Read FICTION books online

Reading books fiction Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself.



Fiction genre suitable for people of all ages. Everyone will find something interesting for themselves. Our electronic library is always at your service. Reading online free books without registration. Nowadays ebooks are convenient and efficient. After all, don’t forget: literature exists and develops largely thanks to readers.
The genre of fiction is interesting to read not only by the process of cognition and the desire to empathize with the fate of the hero, this genre is interesting for the ability to rethink one's own life. Of course the reader may accept the author's point of view or disagree with them, but the reader should understand that the author has done a great job and deserves respect. Take a closer look at genre fiction in all its manifestations in our elibrary.



Read books online » Fiction » The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete by Walter Scott (best new books to read .TXT) 📖

Book online «The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete by Walter Scott (best new books to read .TXT) 📖». Author Walter Scott



1 ... 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 ... 191
Go to page:
“Then we’ll have another lead,” answered his companion.—“And as to the old and condemned Tolbooth, what pity the same honour cannot be done to it as has been done to many of its inmates. Why should not the Tolbooth have its ‘Last Speech, Confession, and Dying Words?’ The old stones would be just as conscious of the honour as many a poor devil who has dangled like a tassel at the west end of it, while the hawkers were shouting a confession the culprit had never heard of.”

“I am afraid,” said I, “if I might presume to give my opinion, it would be a tale of unvaried sorrow and guilt.”

“Not entirely, my friend,” said Hardie; “a prison is a world within itself, and has its own business, griefs, and joys, peculiar to its circle. Its inmates are sometimes short-lived, but so are soldiers on service; they are poor relatively to the world without, but there are degrees of wealth and poverty among them, and so some are relatively rich also. They cannot stir abroad, but neither can the garrison of a besieged fort, or the crew of a ship at sea; and they are not under a dispensation quite so desperate as either, for they may have as much food as they have money to buy, and are not obliged to work, whether they have food or not.”

“But what variety of incident,” said I (not without a secret view to my present task), “could possibly be derived from such a work as you are pleased to talk of?”

“Infinite,” replied the young advocate. “Whatever of guilt, crime, imposture, folly, unheard-of misfortunes, and unlooked-for change of fortune, can be found to chequer life, my Last Speech of the Tolbooth should illustrate with examples sufficient to gorge even the public’s all-devouring appetite for the wonderful and horrible. The inventor of fictitious narratives has to rack his brains for means to diversify his tale, and after all can hardly hit upon characters or incidents which have not been used again and again, until they are familiar to the eye of the reader, so that the development, enle’vement, the desperate wound of which the hero never dies, the burning fever from which the heroine is sure to recover, become a mere matter of course. I join with my honest friend Crabbe, and have an unlucky propensity to hope, when hope is lost, and to rely upon the cork-jacket, which carries the heroes of romance safe through all the billows of affliction.” He then declaimed the following passage, rather with too much than too little emphasis:—

Much have I feared, but am no more afraid, When some chaste beauty by some wretch betrayed, Is drawn away with such distracted speed, That she anticipates a dreadful deed. Not so do I—Let solid walls impound The captive fair, and dig a moat around; Let there be brazen locks and bars of steel, And keepers cruel, such as never feel; With not a single note the purse supply, And when she begs, let men and maids deny; Be windows there from which she dare not fall, And help so distant, ‘tis in vain to call; Still means of freedom will some Power devise, And from the baffled ruffian snatch his prize.

“The end of uncertainty,” he concluded, “is the death of interest; and hence it happens that no one now reads novels.”

“Hear him, ye gods!” returned his companion. “I assure you, Mr. Pattieson, you will hardly visit this learned gentleman, but you are likely to find the new novel most in repute lying on his table,—snugly intrenched, however, beneath Stair’s Institutes, or an open volume of Morrison’s Decisions.”

“Do I deny it?” said the hopeful jurisconsult, “or wherefore should I, since it is well known these Delilahs seduce my wisers and my betters? May they not be found lurking amidst the multiplied memorials of our most distinguished counsel, and even peeping from under the cushion of a judge’s arm-chair? Our seniors at the bar, within the bar, and even on the bench, read novels; and, if not belied, some of them have written novels into the bargain. I only say, that I read from habit and from indolence, not from real interest; that, like ancient Pistol devouring his leek, I read and swear till I get to the end of the narrative. But not so in the real records of human vagaries—not so in the State Trials, or in the Books of Adjournal, where every now and then you read new pages of the human heart, and turns of fortune far beyond what the boldest novelist ever attempted to produce from the coinage of his brain.”

“And for such narratives,” I asked, “you suppose the History of the Prison of Edinburgh might afford appropriate materials?”

“In a degree unusually ample, my dear sir,” said Hardie—“Fill your glass, however, in the meanwhile. Was it not for many years the place in which the Scottish parliament met? Was it not James’s place of refuge, when the mob, inflamed by a seditious preacher, broke, forth, on him with the cries of ‘The sword of the Lord and of Gideon—bring forth the wicked Haman?’ Since that time how many hearts have throbbed within these walls, as the tolling of the neighbouring bell announced to them how fast the sands of their life were ebbing; how many must have sunk at the sound—how many were supported by stubborn pride and dogged resolution—how many by the consolations of religion? Have there not been some, who, looking back on the motives of their crimes, were scarce able to understand how they should have had such temptation as to seduce them from virtue; and have there not, perhaps, been others, who, sensible of their innocence, were divided between indignation at the undeserved doom which they were to undergo, consciousness that they had not deserved it, and racking anxiety to discover some way in which they might yet vindicate themselves? Do you suppose any of these deep, powerful, and agitating feelings, can be recorded and perused without exciting a corresponding depth of deep, powerful, and agitating interest?—Oh! do but wait till I publish the Causes Ce’le’bres of Caledonia, and you will find no want of a novel or a tragedy for some time to come. The true thing will triumph over the brightest inventions of the most ardent imagination. Magna est veritas, et praevalebit.

“I have understood,” said I, encouraged by the affability of my rattling entertainer, “that less of this interest must attach to Scottish jurisprudence than to that of any other country. The general morality of our people, their sober and prudent habits”—

“Secure them,” said the barrister, “against any great increase of professional thieves and depredators, but not against wild and wayward starts of fancy and passion, producing crimes of an extraordinary description, which are precisely those to the detail of which we listen with thrilling interest. England has been much longer a highly civilised country; her subjects have been very strictly amenable to laws administered without fear or favour, a complete division of labour has taken place among her subjects, and the very thieves and robbers form a distinct class in society, subdivided among themselves according to the subject of the depredations, and the mode in which they carry them on, acting upon regular habits

1 ... 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 ... 191
Go to page:

Free ebook «The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete by Walter Scott (best new books to read .TXT) 📖» - read online now

Comments (0)

There are no comments yet. You can be the first!
Add a comment