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. He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope (ebook reader with internet browser txt) 📖
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day that might be fixed on condition that Camilla would submit to her
defeat without legal redress. If legal redress should be demanded, he
would put in evidence the fact that her own mother had been compelled
to caution the tradesmen of the city in regard to her extravagance.
He did write his letter in an agony of spirit. ‘I sit down, Camilla,
with a sad heart and a reluctant hand,’ he said, ‘to communicate to you
a fatal truth. But truth should be made to prevail, and there is
nothing in man so cowardly, so detrimental, and so unmanly as its
concealment. I have looked into myself, and have inquired of myself,
and have assured myself, that were I to become your husband, I should
not make you happy. It would be of no use for me now to dilate on the
reasons which have convinced me, but I am convinced, and I consider it
my duty to inform you so at once. I have been closeted with your
mother, and have made her understand that it is so.
I have not a word to say in my own justification but this: that I am
sure I am acting honestly in telling you the truth. I would not wish to
say a word animadverting on yourself. If there must be blame in this
matter, I am willing to take it all on my own shoulders. But things
have been done of late, and words have been spoken, and habits have
displayed themselves, which would not, I am sure, conduce to our mutual
comfort in this world, or to our assistance to each other in our
struggles to reach the happiness of the world to come.
I think that you will agree with me, Camilla, that when a man or a
woman has fallen into such a mistake as that which I have now made, it
is best that it should be acknowledged. I know well that such a change
of arrangements as that which I now propose will be regarded most
unfavourably. But will not anything be better than the binding of a
matrimonial knot which cannot be again unloosed, and which we should
both regret?
I do not know that I need add anything further. What can I add further?
Only this, that I am inflexible. Having resolved to take this step and
to bear the evil things that may be said of me, for your happiness and
for my own tranquillity, I shall not now relinquish my resolution. I do
not ask you to forgive me. I doubt much whether I shall ever be quite
able to forgive myself. The mistake which I have made is one which
should not have been committed. I do not ask you to forgive me; but I
do ask you to pray that I may be forgiven.
Yours, with feelings of the truest friendship,
THOMAS GIBSON.’
The letter had been very difficult, but he was rather proud of it than
otherwise when it was completed. He had felt that he was writing a
letter which not improbably might become public property. It was
necessary that he should be firm, that he should accuse himself a
little in order that he might excuse himself much, and that he should
hint at causes which might justify the rupture, though he should so
veil them as not to appear to defend his own delinquency by ungenerous
counter-accusation. When he had completed the letter, he thought that
he had done all this rather well, and he sent the despatch off to
Heavitree by the clerk of St. Peter’s Church, with something of that
feeling of expressible relief which attends the final conquest over
some fatal and all but insuperable misfortune. He thought that he was
sure now that he would not have to marry Camilla on the 29th of the
month and there would probably be a period of some hours before he
would be called upon to hear or read Camilla’s reply.
Camilla was alone when she received the letter, but she rushed at once
to her mother. ‘There,’ said she; ‘there I knew that it was coming!’
Mrs French took the paper into her hands and gasped, and gazed at her
daughter without speaking. ‘You knew of it, mother.’
‘Yesterday when he told me, I knew of it.’
‘And Bella knows it.’
‘Not a word of it.’
‘She does. I am sure she does. But it is all nothing. I will not accept
it. He cannot treat me so. I will drag him there, but he shall come.’
‘You can’t make him, my dear.’
‘I will make him. And you would help me, mamma, if you had any spirit.
What, a fortnight before the time, when the things are all bought! Look
at the presents that have been sent! Mamma, he doesn’t know me. And he
never would have done it, if it had not been for Bella, never. She had
better take care, or there shall be such a tragedy that nobody ever
heard the like. If she thinks that she is going to be that man’s wife
she is mistaken.’ Then there was a pause for a moment.
‘Mamma,’ she said, ‘I shall go to him at once. I do not care in the
least what anybody may say. I shall go to him at once.’ Mrs French felt
that at this moment it was best that she should be silent.
THE ROWLEYS GO OVER THE ALPS
By the thirteenth of May the Rowley family had established itself in
Florence, purposing to remain either there or at the baths of Lucca
till the end of June, at which time it was thought that Sir Marmaduke
should begin to make preparations for his journey back to the Islands.
Their future prospects were not altogether settled. It was not decided
whether Lady Rowley should at once return with him, whether Mrs
Trevelyan should return with him, nor was it settled among them what
should be the fate of Nora Rowley. Nora Rowley was quite resolved
herself that she would not go back to the Islands, and had said as much
to her mother. Lady Rowley had not repeated this to Sir Marmaduke, and
was herself in doubt as to what might best be done. Girls are
understood by their mothers better than they are by their fathers. Lady
Rowley was beginning to be aware that Nora’s obstinacy was too strong
to be overcome by mere words, and that other steps must be taken if she
were to be weaned from her pernicious passion for Hugh Stanbury. Mr
Glascock was still in Florence. Might she not be cured by further
overtures from Mr Glascock? The chance of securing such a son-in-law
was so important, so valuable, that no trouble was too great to be
incurred, even though the probability of success might not be great.
It must not, however, be supposed that Lady Rowley carried off all the
family to Italy, including Sir Marmaduke, simply in chase of Mr
Glascock. Anxious as she was on the subject, she was too proud, and
also too well-conditioned, to have suggested to herself such a journey
with such an object. Trevelyan had escaped from Willesden with the
child, and they had heard again through Stanbury that he had returned
to Italy. They had all agreed that it would be well that they should
leave London for awhile, and see something of the continent; and when
it was told to them that little Louis was probably in Florence, that
alone was reason enough for them to go thither. They would go to the
city till the heat was too great and the mosquitoes too powerful, and
then they would visit the baths of Lucca for a month. This was their
plan of action, and the cause for their plan; but Lady Rowley found
herself able to weave into it another little plan of her own, of which
she said nothing to anybody. She was not running after Mr Glascock; but
if Mr Glascock should choose to run after them or her, who could say
that any harm had been done?
Nora had answered that proposition of her lover’s to walk out of the
house in Manchester Street, and get married at the next church, in a
most discreet manner. She had declared that she would be true and firm,
but that she did not wish to draw upon herself the displeasure of her
father and mother. She did not, she said, look upon a clandestine
marriage as a happy resource. But this she added at the end of a long
and very sensible letter: she intended to abide by her engagement, and
she did not intend to go back to the Mandarins. She did not say what
alternative she would choose in the event of her being unable to obtain
her father’s consent before his return. She did not suggest what was to
become of her when Sir Marmaduke’s leave of absence should be expired.
But her statement that she would not go back to the islands was
certainly made with more substantial vigour, though, perhaps, with less
of reasoning, than any other of the propositions made in her letter.
Then, in her postscript, she told him that they were all going to
Italy. ‘Papa and mamma think that we ought to follow poor Mr Trevelyan.
The lawyer says that nothing can be done while he is away with the boy.
We are therefore all going to start to Florence. The journey is
delightful. I will not say whose presence will be wanting to make it
perfect.’
Before they started there came a letter to Nora from Dorothy, which
shall be given entire, because it will tell the reader more of
Dorothy’s happiness than would be learned from any other mode of
narrative.
‘The Close, Thursday.
Dearest Nora,
I have just had a letter from Hugh, and that makes me feel that I
should like to write to you. Dear Hugh has told me all about it, and I
do so hope that things may come right and that we may be sisters. He is
so good that I do not wonder that you should love him. He has been the
best son and the best brother in the world, and everybody speaks well
of him except my dear aunt, who is prejudiced because she does not like
newspapers. I need not praise him to you, for I dare say you think
quite as well of him as I do. I cannot tell you all the beautiful
things he says about you, but I dare say he has told them to you
himself.
I seem to know you so well because Priscilla has talked about you so
often. She says that she knew that you and my brother were fond of each
other because you growled at each other when you were together at the
Clock House, and never had any civil words to say before people. I
don’t know whether growling is a sign of love, but Hugh does growl
sometimes when he is most affectionate. He growls at me, and I
understand him, and I like to be growled at. I wonder whether you like
him to growl at you.
And now I must tell you something about myself because if you are to be
my sister you ought to know it all. I also am going to be married to a
man whom I love oh, so dearly! His name is Mr Brooke Burgess, and he is
a great friend of my aunt’s. At first she did not like our being
engaged, because of some family reason—but she has got over that,
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