Hugh Crichton's Romance

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Coleridge Christabel Rose. Hugh Crichton's Romance

Part 1, Chapter I. Hugh’s Story

Part 1, Chapter II. Violante

Part 1, Chapter III. Mr Spencer Crichton

Part 1, Chapter IV. The Singing-Class

Part 1, Chapter V. The Mattei Family

Part 1, Chapter VI. Il Don Giovanni

Part 1, Chapter VII. Brotherly Counsel

Part 1, Chapter VIII. White Flowers

Part 2, Chapter IX. Contrasts

Part 2, Chapter X. The Time of Roses

Part 2, Chapter XI. Oxley Manor

Part 2, Chapter XII. Pros and Cons

Part 2, Chapter XIII. Contrary Winds

Part 2, Chapter XIV. Left to Herself

Part 3, Chapter XV. Arthur’s Story

Part 3, Chapter XVI. Mysie

Part 3, Chapter XVII. Smooth Waters

Part 3, Chapter XVIII. Out in the Cold

Part 3, Chapter XIX. Sunday and Monday

Part 3, Chapter XX. The Golden Wedding

Part 3, Chapter XXI. The Morning Light

Part 3, Chapter XXII. Dark Days

Part 3, Chapter XXIII. Flossy

Part 4, Chapter XXIV. Chance and Change

Part 4, Chapter XXV. Private Theatricals

Part 4, Chapter XXVI. Lost

Part 4, Chapter XXVII. Caletto

Part 4, Chapter XXVIII. Signor Arthur

Part 4, Chapter XXI. No Good at All

Part 4, Chapter XXX. New Kensington

Part 4, Chapter XXXI. Relations New and Old

Part 4, Chapter XXXII. Old Acquaintance

Part 5, Chapter XXXIII. Haunted

Part 5, Chapter XXXIV. School

Part 5, Chapter XXXV. Discords

Part 5, Chapter XXXVI. Beginning Afresh

Part 5, Chapter XXXVII. Faint-Hearted

Part 5, Chapter XXXVIII. Pin-Pricks

Part 5, Chapter XXXIX. Divided!

Part 5, Chapter XL. Mr Blandford of Fordham

Part 5, Chapter XLI. Among the Primroses

Part 6, Chapter XLII. At the Year’s End

Part 6, Chapter XLIII. Another Chance

Part 6, Chapter XLIV. Jem’s Ideal

Part 6, Chapter XLV. Past and Present

Part 6, Chapter XLVI. Perplexities

Part 6, Chapter XLVII. Thunder-Showers

Part 6, Chapter XLVIII. The Meeting of the Waters

Part 6, Chapter XLIX. The Lesson of Love

Part 6, Chapter L. The Lesson of Life

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The sunshine of a summer evening was bathing Civita Bella with an intensity of beauty rare even in that fair Italian town. When the shadows are sharp, and the lights clear, and the sky a serene and perfect blue, even fustian and broadcloth have a sort of picturesqueness, slates and bricks show unexpected colours, and chance tree tops tell with effect even in London squares and suburbs. Then harsh tints harmonise and homely faces look fair, while fair ones catch the eye more quickly; every flower basket in the streets shows whiter pinks and redder roses than those which were passed unseen in yesterday’s rain, the street gutters catch a sparkle of distant streamlets, and the street children at their play group into pictures. For the sun is a great enchanter, and nothing in nature but sad human hearts can resist his brightness. Civita Bella needed no adventitious aid to enhance its beauty. The fretted spires and carved balconies, quaint gables and decorated walls, were the inheritance of centuries of successful art, and their varied hues were only harmonised by the years that had passed since some master spirit had given them to the world, or since they had grown up in obedience to the inspiring influence of an art-loving generation. Down a side street, apart from the chief centres of modern life, stood an old ducal palace. The very name of its princely owners had long ago faded out of the land, and no one alive bore on his shield the strange devices carved over its portico. It lay asleep in the sunshine, lifting its broken pinnacles and mutilated carvings to the blue sky, still beautiful with the pathetic beauty of “the days that are no more.”

The old palace was let in flats, and on one of the upper stories flower-pots and muslin curtains peeped gaily out of the dim, broken marbles with a kind of pleasant incongruity, like a child in a convent.

.....

The speaker had a pleasant voice and accent, spite of a slight formality of address, and although he carried himself with what Signor Mattei called “English stiffness,” there was also an English air of health and strength about his tall figure. The lack of colour and vivacity in his fair grave features prevented their regularity of form from striking a casual observer, just as a want of variety in their expression caused people to say that Hugh Spencer Crichton had no expression at all. But spite of all detractors, he looked handsome, sensible, and well bred, and none of his present companions had ever had reason to say that he was grave because their society bored him, formal because he was too proud to be familiar, or silent because he was too unsympathetic to have anything to say. Such remarks had sometimes been made upon him, but it is always well to see people for the first time under favourable circumstances, and so we first see Hugh Crichton in the old Italian palace, enjoying a private view of the future prima donna in her stage dress.

“We shall be delighted to see your brother, signor,” said the musician, “as your brother, and, I understand, as a distinguished patron of our beloved art.”

.....