Constance Sherwood: An Autobiography of the Sixteenth Century

Оглавление

Fullerton Georgiana. Constance Sherwood: An Autobiography of the Sixteenth Century

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

Отрывок из книги

A year elapsed betwixt the period of the so brief, but to me so memorable, visit of the welcomest guests our house ever received – to wit, my Lady Mounteagle and her grand-daughters – and that in which I met with an accident, which compelled my parents to carry me to Lichfield for chirurgical advice. Four times in the course of that year I was honored with letters writ by the hand of Mistress Ann Dacre; partly, as the gracious young lady said, by reason of her grandmother's desire that the bud acquaintanceship which had sprouted in the short-lived season of the aforesaid visit should, by such intercourse as may be carried on by means of letters, blossom into a flower of true friendship; and also that that worthy lady and my good mother willed such a correspondence betwixt us as would serve to the sharpening of our wits, and the using our pens to be good servants to our thoughts. In the course of this history I will set down at intervals some of the letters I received at divers times from this noble lady; so that those who read these innocent pictures of herself, portrayed by her own hand, may trace the beginnings of those virtuous inclinations which at an early age were already working in her soul, and ever after appeared in her.

On the 15th day of January of the next year to that in which my eyes had feasted on this creature so embellished with rare endowments and accomplished gracefulness, the first letter I had from her came to my hand; the first link of a chain which knit together her heart and mine through long seasons of absence and sore troubles, to the great comforting, as she was often pleased to say, of herself, who was so far above me in rank, whom she chose to call her friend, and of the poor friend and servant whom she thus honored beyond her deserts. In as pretty a handwriting as can well be thought of, she thus wrote:

.....

"If thou diligently seekest for sign-posts, my good boy," my father answered, "fear not but that he who said, 'Seek, and you shall find,' will furnish thee with them. He has not left himself without witnesses, or his religion to be groped after in hopeless darkness, so that men may not discern, even in these troublous times, where the truth lies, so they be in earnest in their search after it. But I will not urge thee by the cogency of arguments, or be drawn out of the reserve I have hitherto observed in these matters, which be nevertheless the mightiest that can be thought of as regards the soul's health."

And so, breaking off this discourse, he walked out upon the terrace; and I withdrew to the table, where my mother was sitting, and once more conned over the last pages of my lady's letter, which, when the reader hath read, he will perceive the writer's rank and her right to be thus titled.

.....