The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II)
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Lever Charles James. The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II)
PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1872
CHAPTER I. CRO’ MARTIN
CHAPTER II. KILKIERAN BAY
CHAPTER III. AN AUTUMN MORNING IN THE WEST
CHAPTER IV. MAURICE SCANLAN, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW
CHAPTER V. A STUDIO AND AN ARTIST
CHAPTER VI. A DASH OF POLITICS
CHAPTER VII. A COLLEGE COMPETITOR
CHAPTER VIII. SOME KNOTTY POINTS THAT PUZZLED JOE NELLIGAN
CHAPTER IX. THE MARTIN ARMS
CHAPTER X. A DINNER-PARTY
CHAPTER XI. YOUNG NELLIGAN, AS INTERPRETED IN TWO WAYS
CHAPTER XII. A VERY “CROSS EXAMINATION”
CHAPTER XIII. “A HOUSEKEEPER’S ROOM”
CHAPTER XIV. A FINE OLD IRISH BARRISTER
CHAPTER XV. “A RUINED FORTUNE”
CHAPTER XVI. “A CHALLENGE”
CHAPTER XVII. A COUNTRY-HOUSE
CHAPTER XVIII. STATECRAFT
CHAPTER XIX. A STUDIO
CHAPTER XX. AN ELECTION ADDRESS
CHAPTER XXI. AN AWKWARD VISITOR
CHAPTER XXII. A DAY “AFTER”
CHAPTER XXIII. A CHARACTERISTIC LETTER
CHAPTER XXIV. THREE COACHES AND THEIR COMPANY
CHAPTER XXV. COUNTRY AUCTION
CHAPTER XXVI. “REVERSES”
CHAPTER XXVII. DARKENING FORTUNES
CHAPTER XXVIII. HOW MR. SCANLAN GIVES SCOPE TO A GENEROUS IMPULSE
CHAPTER XXIX. A SUNDAY MORNING AT CRO’ MARTIN
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When I had made my arrangement with my publishers for this new story, I was not sorry for many reasons to place the scene of it in Ireland. One of my late critics, in noticing “Roland Cashel” and “The Daltons,” mildly rebuked me for having fallen into doubtful company, and half censured – in Bohemian – several of the characters in these novels. I was not then, still less am I now, disposed to argue the point with my censor, and show that there is a very wide difference between the persons who move in the polite world, with a very questionable morality, and those patented adventurers whose daily existence is the product of daily address. The more one sees of life, the more is he struck by the fact that the mass of mankind is rarely very good or very bad, that the business of life is carried on with mixed motives; the best people being those who are least selfish, and the worst being little other than those who seek their own objects with slight regard for the consequences to others, and even less scruple as to the means.
Any uniformity in good or evil would be the deathblow to that genteel comedy which goes on around us, and whose highest interest very often centres in the surprises we give ourselves by unexpected lines of action and unlooked-for impulses. As this strange drama unfolded itself before me, it had become a passion with me to watch the actors, and speculate on what they might do. For this Florence offered an admirable stage. It was eminently cosmopolitan; and, in consequence, less under the influence of any distinct code of public opinion than any section of the several nationalities I might have found at home.
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The expediency of misery had begotten the expediency of morals, and in all the turnings and windings of their shifty natures you could see the suggestions of that abject destitution which had eaten into their very hearts. It would have puzzled a moralist to analyze these “gnarled natures,” wherein some of the best and some of the worst features of humanity warred and struggled together. Who could dare to call them kind-hearted or malevolent, grateful or ungrateful, free-giving or covetous, faithful or capricious, as a people? Why, they were all these, and fifty other things just as opposite besides, every twenty-four hours of their lives! Their moods of mind ranged from one extreme to the other; nothing had any permanency amongst them but their wretchedness. Of all their qualities, however, that which most obstructed their improvement, ate deepest into their natures, and suggested the worst fears for the future, was suspicion. They trusted nothing, – none, – so that every benefit bestowed on them came alloyed with its own share of doubt; and all the ingenuity of their crafty minds found congenial occupation in ascribing this or that motive to every attempt to better their condition.
Mary Martin knew them – understood them – as well as most people; few, indeed, out of their own actual station of life had seen so much of their domesticity. From her very childhood she had been conversant with their habits and their ways. She had seen them patient under the most trying afflictions, manfully braving every ill of life, and submitting with a noble self-devotion to inevitable calamity; and she had also beheld them, with ignorant impatience, resenting the slightest interference when they deemed it uncalled for, and rejecting kindness when it came coupled with the suggestion of a duty.
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