Fated to Be Free by Ingelow, Jean, 1820-1897

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The Project Gutenberg eBook, Fated to Be Free, by Jean Ingelow

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Title: Fated to Be Free
Author: Jean Ingelow
Release Date: May 8, 2004 [eBook #12303]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FATED TO BE FREE***

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FATED TO BE FREE
A Novel
By JEAN INGELOW
Author of "Off The Skelligs," "Studies for Stories,"

"Mopsa the Fairy," Etc.

1875

AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION

When authors attempt to explain such of their works as should explain
themselves, it makes the case no better that they can say they do it on
express invitation. And yet, though I think so, I am about to give some
little account of two stories of mine which are connected
together,--"Off the Skelligs," and "Fated to be Free."

I am told that they are peculiar; and I feel that they must be so, for
most stories of human life are, or at least aim at being, works of
art,--selections of interesting portions of life, and fitting incidents,

put together and presented as a picture is; and I have not aimed at
producing a work of art at all, but a piece of nature. I have attempted
to beguile my readers into something like a sense of reality; to make
them fancy that they were reading the unskillful chronicle of things
that really occurred, rather than some invented story as interesting as
I knew how to make it.

It seemed to me difficult to write, at least in prose, an artistic

story; but easy to come nearer to life than most stories do.

Thus, after presenting a remarkable child, it seemed proper to let him
(through the force of circumstance) fall away into a very commonplace
man. It seemed proper indeed to crowd the pages with children, for in
real life they run all over; the world is covered thickly with the
prints of their little footsteps, though, as a rule, books written for
grown-up people are kept almost clear of them. It seemed proper also to
make the more important and interesting events of life fall at rather a
later age than is commonly chosen, and also to make the more important
and interesting persons not extremely young; for, in fact, almost all
the noblest and finest men and the loveliest and sweetest women of real
life are considerably older than the vast majority of heroes and
heroines in the world of fiction.

I have also let some of the same characters play a part in both stories,
though the last opens long before the first, and runs on after it is
finished. It is by this latter device that I have chiefly hoped to give
to each the air of a family history, and thus excite curiosity and
invite investigation; the small portion known to a young girl being told
by her from her own point of view and mingled into her own life and
love, and the larger narrative taking a different point of view and
giving both events and motives.

But in general, while describing the actions and setting down the words,
I have left the reader to judge my people; for I think many writers must
feel as I do, that, if characters are at all true to life, there is just
as much uncertainty as to how far they are to blame in any course that
they may have taken as there is in the case of our actual living
contemporaries.

But why then, you may ask, do I write this preface, which must, if
nothing else had done so, destroy any such sense of truth and reality?
Why, my American friends, because I am told that a great many of you
are pleased to wish for some explanation. I am sure you more than
deserve of me some efforts to please you. I seldom have an opportunity
of saying how truly I think so; and besides, even if I had declined to
give it, I know very well that for all my pains you would still have
never been beguiled into the least faith as to the reality of these two
stories!

London, June, 1875.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I.

A WATCHER OF LILIES

II.

THE LESSON

III.

GOLD, THE INCORRUPTIBLE WITNESS

IV.

SWARMS OF CHILDREN

V.

OF A FINE MAN AND SOME FOOLISH WOMEN

VI.

THE SHADOW OF A SHADE

VII.

AN OLD MAN DIGS A WELL

VIII.

THEY MEET AN AUTHOR

IX.

SIGNED "DANIEL MORTIMER."--CANADA

X.

CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES

XI.

WANTED A DESERT ISLAND

XII.

VALENTINE

XIII.

VENERABLE ANCIENTRY

XIV.

EMILY

XV.

THE AMERICAN GUEST

XVI.

WEARING THE WILLOW

XVII.

AN EASY DISMISSAL
XVIII. A MORNING CALL
XIX.

MR. MORTIMER GOES THROUGH THE TURNPIKE

XX.

THE RIVER

XXI.

THE DEAD FATHER ENTREATS

XXII.

SOPHISTRY
XXIII. DANTE AND OTHERS
XXIV.

SELF-WONDER AND SELF-SCORN

XXV.

THAT RAINY SUNDAY

XXVI.

MRS. BRANDON ASKS A QUESTION

XVII.

THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY
XXVIII. MELCOMBE
XXIX.

UNHEARD-OF LIBERTIES

XXX.

A CHAPTER OF TROUBLES

XXXI.

A WOMAN'S SYMPATHY

XXII.

MR. BRANDON IS MADE THE SUBJECT OF AN

HONOURABLE COMPARISON
XXXIII. THE TRUE GHOST STORY
XXXIV. VALENTINE AND LAURA
XXXV.

A VISIT TO MELCOMBE

XXVI.

A PRIVATE CONSULTATION

XXXVII. HIS VISITOR

CHAPTER I.

A WATCHER OF LILIES.

"Unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no

secrets are hid."--_Collect, English Communion Service._

In one of the south-western counties of England, some years ago, and in
a deep, well-wooded valley where men made perry and cider, wandered
little and read less, there was a hamlet with neither farm nor cottage
in it, that had not stood two hundred and fifty years, and just beyond
there was a church nearly double that age, and there were the mighty
wrecks of two great oak-trees, said to be more ancient still.

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