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 donā€™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, donā€™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 Ā» Fiction Ā» Silas Marner by George Eliot (popular books to read .TXT) šŸ“–

Book online Ā«Silas Marner by George Eliot (popular books to read .TXT) šŸ“–Ā». Author George Eliot



1 ... 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 ... 37
Go to page:
one, and there was love between the child and the worldā€”from men and women with parental looks and tones, to the red lady-birds and the round pebbles.

Silas began now to think of Raveloe life entirely in relation to Eppie: she must have everything that was a good in Raveloe; and he listened docilely, that he might come to understand better what this life was, from which, for fifteen years, he had stood aloof as from a strange thing, with which he could have no communion: as some man who has a precious plant to which he would give a nurturing home in a new soil, thinks of the rain, and the sunshine, and all influences, in relation to his nursling, and asks industriously for all knowledge that will help him to satisfy the wants of the searching roots, or to guard leaf and bud from invading harm. The disposition to hoard had been utterly crushed at the very first by the loss of his long-stored gold: the coins he earned afterwards seemed as irrelevant as stones brought to complete a house suddenly buried by an earthquake; the sense of bereavement was too heavy upon him for the old thrill of satisfaction to arise again at the touch of the newly-earned coin. And now something had come to replace his hoard which gave a growing purpose to the earnings, drawing his hope and joy continually onward beyond the money.

In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little childā€™s.

CHAPTER XV

There was one person, as you will believe, who watched with keener though more hidden interest than any other, the prosperous growth of Eppie under the weaverā€™s care. He dared not do anything that would imply a stronger interest in a poor manā€™s adopted child than could be expected from the kindliness of the young Squire, when a chance meeting suggested a little present to a simple old fellow whom others noticed with goodwill; but he told himself that the time would come when he might do something towards furthering the welfare of his daughter without incurring suspicion. Was he very uneasy in the meantime at his inability to give his daughter her birthright?

I cannot say that he was. The child was being taken care of, and would very likely be happy, as people in humble stations often wereā€”

happier, perhaps, than those brought up in luxury.

That famous ring that pricked its owner when he forgot duty and followed desireā€”I wonder if it pricked very hard when he set out on the chase, or whether it pricked but lightly then, and only pierced to the quick when the chase had long been ended, and hope, folding her wings, looked backward and became regret?

Godfrey Cassā€™s cheek and eye were brighter than ever now. He was so undivided in his aims, that he seemed like a man of firmness. No Dunsey had come back: people had made up their minds that he was gone for a soldier, or gone ā€œout of the countryā€, and no one cared to be specific in their inquiries on a subject delicate to a respectable family. Godfrey had ceased to see the shadow of Dunsey across his path; and the path now lay straight forward to the accomplishment of his best, longest-cherished wishes. Everybody said Mr. Godfrey had taken the right turn; and it was pretty clear what would be the end of things, for there were not many days in the week that he was not seen riding to the Warrens. Godfrey himself, when he was asked jocosely if the day had been fixed, smiled with the pleasant consciousness of a lover who could say ā€œyesā€, if he liked. He felt a reformed man, delivered from temptation; and the vision of his future life seemed to him as a promised land for which he had no cause to fight. He saw himself with all his happiness centred on his own hearth, while Nancy would smile on him as he played with the children.

And that other childā€”not on the hearthā€”he would not forget it; he would see that it was well provided for. That was a fatherā€™s duty.

PART TWO CHAPTER XVI

It was a bright autumn Sunday, sixteen years after Silas Marner had found his new treasure on the hearth. The bells of the old Raveloe church were ringing the cheerful peal which told that the morning service was ended; and out of the arched doorway in the tower came slowly, retarded by friendly greetings and questions, the richer parishioners who had chosen this bright Sunday morning as eligible for church-going. It was the rural fashion of that time for the more important members of the congregation to depart first, while their humbler neighbours waited and looked on, stroking their bent heads or dropping their curtsies to any large ratepayer who turned to notice them.

Foremost among these advancing groups of well-clad people, there are some whom we shall recognize, in spite of Time, who has laid his hand on them all. The tall blond man of forty is not much changed in feature from the Godfrey Cass of six-and-twenty: he is only fuller in flesh, and has only lost the indefinable look of youthā€”

a loss which is marked even when the eye is undulled and the wrinkles are not yet come. Perhaps the pretty woman, not much younger than he, who is leaning on his arm, is more changed than her husband: the lovely bloom that used to be always on her cheek now comes but fitfully, with the fresh morning air or with some strong surprise; yet to all who love human faces best for what they tell of human experience, Nancyā€™s beauty has a heightened interest. Often the soul is ripened into fuller goodness while age has spread an ugly film, so that mere glances can never divine the preciousness of the fruit. But the years have not been so cruel to Nancy. The firm yet placid mouth, the clear veracious glance of the brown eyes, speak now of a nature that has been tested and has kept its highest qualities; and even the costume, with its dainty neatness and purity, has more significance now the coquetries of youth can have nothing to do with it.

Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey Cass (any higher title has died away from Raveloe lips since the old Squire was gathered to his fathers and his inheritance was divided) have turned round to look for the tall aged man and the plainly dressed woman who are a little behindā€”

Nancy having observed that they must wait for ā€œfather and Priscillaā€ā€”and now they all turn into a narrower path leading across the churchyard to a small gate opposite the Red House. We will not follow them now; for may there not be some others in this departing congregation whom we should like to see againā€”some of those who are not likely to be handsomely clad, and whom we may not recognize so easily as the master and mistress of the Red House?

But it is impossible to mistake Silas Marner. His large brown eyes seem to have gathered a longer vision, as is the way with eyes that have been short-sighted in early life, and they have a less vague, a more answering gaze; but in everything else one sees signs of a frame much enfeebled by the lapse of the sixteen years. The weaverā€™s bent shoulders and white hair give him almost the look of advanced age, though he is not more than five-and-fifty; but there is the freshest blossom of youth close by his sideā€”a blonde dimpled girl of eighteen, who has vainly tried to chastise her curly auburn hair into smoothness under her brown bonnet: the hair ripples as obstinately as a brooklet under the March breeze, and the little ringlets burst away from the restraining comb behind and show themselves below the bonnet-crown. Eppie cannot help being rather vexed about her hair, for there is no other girl in Raveloe who has hair at all like it, and she thinks hair ought to be smooth. She does not like to be blameworthy even in small things: you see how neatly her prayer-book is folded in her spotted handkerchief.

That good-looking young fellow, in a new fustian suit, who walks behind her, is not quite sure upon the question of hair in the abstract, when Eppie puts it to him, and thinks that perhaps straight hair is the best in general, but he doesnā€™t want Eppieā€™s hair to be different. She surely divines that there is some one behind her who is thinking about her very particularly, and mustering courage to come to her side as soon as they are out in the lane, else why should she look rather shy, and take care not to turn away her head from her father Silas, to whom she keeps murmuring little sentences as to who was at church and who was not at church, and how pretty the red mountain-ash is over the Rectory wall?

ā€œI wish we had a little garden, father, with double daisies in, like Mrs. Winthropā€™s,ā€ said Eppie, when they were out in the lane; ā€œonly they say it ā€˜ud take a deal of digging and bringing fresh soilā€”and you couldnā€™t do that, could you, father? Anyhow, I shouldnā€™t like you to do it, for it ā€˜ud be too hard work for you.ā€

ā€œYes, I could do it, child, if you want a bit oā€™ garden: these long evenings, I could work at taking in a little bit oā€™ the waste, just enough for a root or two oā€™ flowers for you; and again, iā€™ the morning, I could have a turn wiā€™ the spade before I sat down to the loom. Why didnā€™t you tell me before as you wanted a bit oā€™

garden?ā€

ā€œI can dig it for you, Master Marner,ā€ said the young man in fustian, who was now by Eppieā€™s side, entering into the conversation without the trouble of formalities. ā€œItā€™ll be play to me after Iā€™ve done my dayā€™s work, or any odd bits oā€™ time when the workā€™s slack. And Iā€™ll bring you some soil from Mr. Cassā€™s gardenā€”heā€™ll let me, and willing.ā€

ā€œEh, Aaron, my lad, are you there?ā€ said Silas; ā€œI wasnā€™t aware of you; for when Eppieā€™s talking oā€™ things, I see nothing but what sheā€™s a-saying. Well, if you could help me with the digging, we might get her a bit oā€™ garden all the sooner.ā€

ā€œThen, if you think well and good,ā€ said Aaron, ā€œIā€™ll come to the Stone-pits this afternoon, and weā€™ll settle what landā€™s to be taken in, and Iā€™ll get up an hour earlier iā€™ the morning, and begin on it.ā€

ā€œBut not if you donā€™t promise me not to work at the hard digging, father,ā€ said Eppie. ā€œFor I shouldnā€™t haā€™ said anything about it,ā€ she added, half-bashfully, half-roguishly, ā€œonly Mrs. Winthrop said as Aaron ā€˜ud be so good, and ā€”ā€

ā€œAnd you might haā€™ known it without mother telling you,ā€ said Aaron. ā€œAnd Master Marner knows too, I hope, as Iā€™m able and willing to do a turn oā€™ work for him, and he wonā€™t do me the unkindness to anyways take it out oā€™ my hands.ā€

ā€œThere, now, father, you wonā€™t work in it till itā€™s all easy,ā€

said Eppie, ā€œand you and me can mark out the beds, and make holes and plant the roots. Itā€™ll be a deal livelier at the Stone-pits when weā€™ve got some flowers, for I always

1 ... 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 ... 37
Go to page:

Free ebook Ā«Silas Marner by George Eliot (popular books to read .TXT) šŸ“–Ā» - read online now

Comments (0)

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