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. The Maid of Maiden Lane by Amelia E. Barr (adventure books to read TXT) 📖
- Author: Amelia E. Barr
Book online «The Maid of Maiden Lane by Amelia E. Barr (adventure books to read TXT) 📖». Author Amelia E. Barr
“After all, it was a lie she told, Joris.”
“That is so, but I think her life was worth a few words. And Thomas Jefferson says she was ten thousand times welcome to the protection his name gave her. I thank my God I have never had such temptation. I will say one thing though, Lysbet, that if coming home some night, a thief should say to me ‘your money I must have’ and if in my pocket I had some false money, as well as true money, the false money I would give the thief and think no shame to do it. Overly righteous we must not be, Lysbet.”
“I am astonished also. I thought Arenta would cry out and that only.”
“What a man or a woman will do and suffer, and how they will do and suffer, no one knows till comes some great occasion. When the water is ice, who could believe that it would boil, unless they had seen ice become boiling water? All the human heart wants, is the chance.”
“As men and women have in Paris to live, I wonder me, that they can wish to live at all! Welcome to them must be death.”
“So wrong are you, Lysbet. Trouble and hardship make us love life. A zest they give to it. It is when we have too much money, too much good food and wine, too much pleasure of all kinds, that we grow melancholy and sad, and say all is vanity and vexation. You may see that it is always so, if you look in the Holy Scriptures. It was not from the Jews in exile and captivity, but from the Jews of Solomon’s glory came the only dissatisfied, hopeless words in the Bible. Yes, indeed! it is the souls that have too much, who cry out vanity, vanity, all is vanity! For myself, I like not the petty prudencies of Solomon. There is better reading in Isaiah, and in the Psalms, and in the blessed Gospels.”
“To-morrow, Joris, I will go and see Arenta. She is fair, and she knows it; witty, and she knows it; of good courage, and she knows it; the fashion, and she knows it; and when she speaks, she speaks oracles that one must believe, even though one does not understand them. To Aurelia Van Zandt she said, my heart will ache forever for my beloved Athanase, and Aurelia says, that her old lover Willie Nicholls is at her feet sitting all the day long—yet for all these things, she is a brave woman and I will go and see her.”
“Willie Nicholls is a good young man, and he is rich also; but of him I saw nothing at all. Cornelia Moran was there and no flower of Paradise is so sweet, so fair!”
“A very proud girl! I am glad she said ‘no’ to my Joris.”
“Come, my Lysbet, we will now pray and sleep. There is so much NOT to say.”
CHAPTER XIII — THE NEW DAYS COME
One afternoon in the late autumn Annie was sitting watching Hyde playing with his dog, a big mastiff of noble birth and character. The creature sat erect with his head leaning against Hyde, and Hyde’s arm was thrown around his neck as he talked to him of their adventures on the Broad that day. Annie’s small face, though delicate and fragile looking was full of peace, and her eyes, soft, deep and heavenly, held thoughts that linked her with heaven.
Outside there was in the air that November feeling which chills like the passing breath of death, the deserted garden looked sad and closed-in, and everywhere there was a sense of the languishing end of the year, of the fading and dropping of all living things. But in the house Annie and Hyde and the dog sat within the circle of warmth and light made by the blazing ash logs, and in that circle there was at least an atmosphere of sweet content. Suddenly George looked up and his eyes caught those of Annie watching him. “What have you been reading, Annie?” he asked, as he stooped forward and took a thin volume from her lap. “Why!” he cried, “‘tis Paul and Virginia. Do you indeed read love stories?”
“Yes. The mystery of a love affair pleases every one; and I think we shall not tire of love stories till we tire of the mystery of spring, or of primroses and daffodils. Every one I know takes their tale of love to be quite a new tale.”
“Love has been cruel to me. It has made a cloud on my life that will help to cover me in my grave.”
“You still love Cornelia?”
“I cannot cure myself of a passion so hopeless. However, as I see no end to my unhappiness, I try to submit to what I cannot avoid. What is the use of longing for that which I have no hope to get?”
“My uncle grows anxious for you to marry. He would be glad to see the succession of Hyde assured.”
“Oh, indeed, I have no mind to take a wife. I hear every day that some of my acquaintance have married, I hear of none that have done worse.”
“You believe nothing of what you say. My uncle was much pleased with Sarah Capel. What did you think of the beauty?”
“Cornelia has made all other women so indifferent to me, that if I cannot marry her, my father may dispose of me as he chooses.”
“Cannot you forget Cornelia?”
“It is impossible. Every day I resolve to think of her no more, and then I continue thinking; and every day I am more and more in love with her. Her very name moves me beyond words.”
“There is no name, George, however sweet and dear, however lovingly spoken, whose echo does not at last grow faint.”
“Cornelia will echo in my heart as long as my heart beats.”
Then they were silent, and Hyde drew his dog closer and watched the blaze
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