A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance
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Lever Charles James. A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance
CHAPTER I. I PREPARE TO SEEK ADVENTURES
CHAPTER II. BLONDEL AND I SET OUT
CHAPTER III. TRUTH NOT ALWAYS IN WINE
CHAPTER IV. PLEASANT REFLECTIONS ON AWAKING
CHAPTER V. THE ROSARY AT INISTIOGE
CHAPTER VI. MY SELF-EXAMINATION
CHAPTER VII. FATHER DYKE’S LETTER
CHAPTER VIII. IMAGINATION STIMULATED BY BRANDY AND WATER
CHAPTER IX. HIS INTEREST IN A LADY FELLOW-TRAVELLER
CHAPTER X. THE PERILS OF MY JOURNEY TO OSTEND
CHAPTER XI. A JEALOUS HUSBAND
CHAPTER XII. THE DUCHY OF HESSE-KALBBRATONSTADT
CHAPTER XIII. I CALL AT THE BRITISH LEGATION
CHAPTER XIV. SHAMEFUL NEGLECT OF A PUBLIC SERVANT
CHAPTER XV. I LECTURE THE AMBASSADOR’S SISTER
CHAPTER XVI. UNPLEASANT TURN TO AN AGREEABLE CONVERSE
CHAPTER XVII. MRS. KEATS MOVES MY INDIGNATION
CHAPTER XVIII. AN IMPATIENT SUMMONS
CHAPTER XIX. MRS. KEATS’S MYSTERIOUS COMMUNICATION
CHAPTER XX. THE MYSTERY EXPLAINED
CHAPTER XXI. HOW I PLAY THE PRINCE
CHAPTER XXII. INCIDENTS OF THE SECOND DAY’S JOURNEY
CHAPTER XXIII. JEALOUSY UNSUPPORTED BY COURAGE
CHAPTER XXIV. MY CANDOR AS AN AUTOBIOGRAPHER
CHAPTER XXV. I MAINTAIN A DIGNIFIED RESERVE
CHAPTER XXVI. VATERCHEN AND TINTEFLECK
CHAPTER XXVII. I ATTEMPT TO OVERTHROW SOCIAL PREJUDICES
CHAPTER XXVIII. RESULTS OF THE EXPERIMENT
CHAPTER XXIX. ON FOOT AND IN LOW COMPANY
CHAPTER XXX. VATERCHEN’S NARRATIVE
CHAPTER XXXI. A GENIUS FOR CARICATURE
CHAPTER XXXII. I RELIEVE MYSELF OF MY PURSE
CHAPTER XXXIII. MY ELOQUENCE BEFORE THE CONSTANCE MAGISTRATES
CHAPTER XXXIV. A SUMPTUOUS DINNER AND AN EMPTY POCKET
CHAPTER XXXV. HART CROFTON’S COMMISSION
CHAPTER XXXVI. FURTHER INTERCOURSE WITH HARPAR
CHAPTER XXXVII. MY EXPLOSION AT THE TABLE D’HÔTE
CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE DUEL WITH PRINCE MAX
CHAPTER XXXIX. ON THE EDGE OF A TORRENT
CHAPTER XL. I AM DRAGGED AS A PRISONER TO FELDKIRCH
CHAPTER XLI. THE ACT OF ACCUSATION
CHAPTER XLII. A GLIMPSE OF AN OLD FRIEND
CHAPTER XLIII. I AM CONFINED IN THE AMBRAS SCHLOSS
CHAPTER XLIV. A VISIT FROM THE HON. GREY BULLER
CHAPTER XLV. MY CANDID AVOWAL TO KATE HERBERT
CHAPTER XLVI. CAPTAIN ROGERS STANDS MY FRIEND
CHAPTER XLVII. MY DUELLING AMBITION AGAIN DISAPPOINTED
CHAPTER XLVIII. FINAL ADVENTURES AND SETTLEMENT
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I had heard and read frequently of the exhilarating sensations of horse exercise. My fellow-students were full of stories of the hunting-field and the race-course. Wherever, indeed, a horse figured in a narrative, there was an almost certainty of meeting some incident to stir the blood and warm up enthusiasm. Even the passing glimpses one caught of sporting-prints in shop-windows were suggestive of the pleasure imparted by a noble and chivalrous pastime. I never closed my eyes all night, revolving such thoughts in my head. I had so worked up my enthusiasm that I felt like one who is about to cross the frontier of some new land where people, language, ways, and habits are all unknown to him. “By this hour to-morrow night,” thought I, “I shall be in the land of strangers, who have never seen, nor so much as heard of me. There will invade no traditions of the scoffs and jibes I have so long endured; none will have received the disparaging estimate of my abilities, which my class-fellows love to propagate; I shall simply be the traveller who arrived at sundown mounted on a cream-colored palfrey, – a stranger, sad-looking, but gentle, withal, of courteous address, blandly demanding lodging for the night. ‘Look to my horse, ostler,’ shall I say, as I enter the honeysuckle-covered porch of the inn. ‘Blondel’ – I will call him Blondel – ‘is accustomed to kindly usage.’” With what quiet dignity, the repose of a conscious position, do I follow the landlord as he shows me to my room. It is humble, but neat and orderly. I am contented. I tell him so. I am sated and wearied of luxury; sick of a gilded and glittering existence. I am in search of repose and solitude. I order my tea; and, if I ask the name of the village, I take care to show by my inattention that I have not heard the answer, nor do I care for it.
Now I should like to hear how they are canvassing me in the bar, and what they think of me in the stable. I am, doubtless, a peer, or a peer’s eldest son. I am a great writer, the wondrous poet of the day; or the pre-Raphaelite artist; or I am a youth heart-broken by infidelity in love; or, mayhap, a dreadful criminal. I liked this last the best, the interest was so intense; not to say that there is, to men who are not constitutionally courageous, a strong pleasure in being able to excite terror in others.
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“I ‘d do with him as Tomkinson did,” said his Lordship; “he had him down at his lodge in Scotland, and bet him fifty pounds that he could n’t pass a week without a wager. Jack booked the bet and won it, and Tomkinson franked the company.”
“What an artful villain my counterpart must be!” I said. I stared in the glass to see if I could discover the sheepish-ness they laid such stress on. I was pale, to be sure, and my hair a light brown, but so was Shelley’s; indeed, there was a wild, but soft expression in my eyes that resembled his, and I could recognize many things in our natures that seemed to correspond. It was the poetic dreaminess, the lofty abstractedness from all the petty cares of every-day life which vulgar people set down as simplicity; and thus, —
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