• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
Project Gutenberg's Fate Knocks at the Door, by Will Levington Comfort

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Fate Knocks at the Door

A Novel
Author: Will Levington Comfort
Release Date: March 22, 2004 [EBook #11655]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FATE KNOCKS AT THE DOOR ***

Produced by Charles Aldarondo, GF Untermeyer and PG Distributed
Proofreaders
Fate Knocks At The Door

_A Novel_
By
Will Levington Comfort

Author of
"Routledge Rides Alone,"

"She Buildeth Her House," etc.
1912
In speaking of the first four notes of the opening movement, Beethoven

said, some time after he had finished the Fifth Symphony: "So pocht das

Shicksal an die Pforte" ("Thus Fate Knocks at the Door"); and between that opening knock, and the tremendous rush and sweep of the Finale, the emotions which come into play in the great conflicts of life are depicted.

--From Upton's _Standard Symphonies_.
To
THE MOTHERS OF MEN
Contents
I. ASIA. (_Allegro con brio_.)

First Chapter: The Great Wind Strikes
Second Chapter: The Pack-Train in Luzon
Third Chapter: Red Pigment of Service
Fourth Chapter: That Adelaide Passion
Fifth Chapter: A Flock of Flying Swans
Sixth Chapter: That Island Somewhere
Seventh Chapter: _Andante con Moto_--Fifth
Eighth Chapter: The Man from _The Pleiad_

II. NEW YORK. (_Andante con moto_.)

Ninth Chapter: The Long-Awaited Woman
Tenth Chapter: The Jews and the Romans
Eleventh Chapter: Two Davids Come to Beth
Twelfth Chapter: Two Lesser Adventures
Thirteenth Chapter: About Shadowy Sisters
Fourteenth Chapter: This Clay-and-Paint Age
Fifteenth Chapter: The Story of the Mother
Sixteenth Chapter: "Through Desire for Her."
Seventeenth Chapter: The Plan of the Builder
Eighteenth Chapter: That Park Predicament
Nineteenth Chapter: In the House of Grey One
Twentieth Chapter: A Chemistry of Scandal
Twenty-first Chapter: The Singing Distances
Twenty-second Chapter: Beth Signs the Picture
Twenty-third Chapter: The Last Ride Together
Twenty-fourth Chapter: A Parable of Two Horses

III. EQUATORIA. (_Allegro. Scherzo_.)

Twenty-fifth Chapter: Bedient for _The Pleiad_
Twenty-sixth Chapter: How Startling is Truth
Twenty-seventh Chapter: The Art of Miss Mallory
Twenty-eighth Chapter: A Further Note from Rey
Twenty-ninth Chapter: At _Treasure Island Inn_
Thirtieth Chapter: Miss Mallory's Mastery
Thirty-first Chapter: The Glow-worm's One Hour
Thirty-second Chapter: In the Little Room Next
Thirty-third Chapter: The Hills and the Skies

Thirty-fourth Chapter: The Supreme Adventure
Thirty-fifth Chapter: Fate Knocks at the Door
IV. NEW YORK. (_Allegro. Finale_.)

Thirty-sixth Chapter: The Great Prince House
Thirty-seventh Chapter: Beth and Adith Mallory
Thirty-eighth Chapter: A Self-Conscious Woman
Thirty-ninth Chapter: Another _Smilax_ Affair
Fortieth Chapter: Full Day Upon the Plain

FATE KNOCKS AT THE DOOR

IASIA
_Allegro con brio_
FIRST CHAPTER

THE GREAT WIND STRIKES

Andrew Bedient, at the age of seventeen, in a single
afternoon,--indeed, in one moment of a single afternoon,--performed an
action which brought him financial abundance for his mature years.
Although this narrative less concerns the boy Bedient than the man as
he approaches twice seventeen, the action is worthy of account, beyond
the riches that it brought, because it seems to draw him into somewhat
clearer vision from the shadows of a very strange boyhood.

April, 1895, the _Truxton_, of which Andrew was cook, found herself
becalmed in the China Sea, midway between Manila and Hong Kong, her
nose to the North. She was a smart clipper of sixty tons burden, with a
slightly uptilted stern, and as clever a line forward as a pleasure
yacht. She was English, comparatively new, and, properly used by the
weather, was as swift and sprightly of service as an affectionate
woman. Her master was Captain Carreras, a tubby little man of
forty-five, bald, modest, and known among the shipping as "a perfect
lady." He wore a skull-cap out of port; and as constantly, except
during meals, carried one of a set of rarely-colored meerschaum-bowls,
to which were attachable, bamboo-stems, amber-tipped and of various
lengths.

The little Captain was fastidious in dress, wearing soft shirts of
white silk, fine duck trousers and scented silk handkerchiefs, which he
carried in his left hand with the meerschaum-bowl. The Carreras
perfume, mingled with fresh tobacco, was never burdensome, and unlike
any other. The silk handkerchief was as much a feature of the Captain's
appearance as the skull-cap. To it was due the really remarkable polish

of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...