Human Odds and Ends stories and sketches E-Book

George Gissing

• Herausgeber: George Gissing
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Novelist, born at Wakefield. In his novels he depicted the environment and struggles of the lower and lower middle classes with a somewhat pessimistic and depressing realism, although his last work, The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, seemed to usher in the dawn of a somewhat brighter outlook. His other novels include Demos [1886], Thyrza [1887], The Nether World [1889], New Grub Street [1891], Born in Exile [1892], In the Year of Jubilee [1894], and The Town Traveller [1898]. He died at St. Jean de Luz in the Pyrenees.

Leseprobe

Human Odds and Ends stories and sketches

George Gissing

Table of Contents

“Comrades in Arms”

“The Justice and the Vagabond”

“The Firebrand”

“An Inspiration”

“The Poet’s Portmanteau”

“The Day of Silence”

“In Honour Bound”

“The Prize Lodger”

“Our Mr. Jupp”

“The Medicine Man”

“Raw Material”

“Two Collectors”

“An Old Maid’s Triumph”

“The Invincible Curate”

“The Tout of Yarmouth Bridge”

“A Well–Meaning Man”

“A Song of Sixpence”

“A Profitable Weakness”

“The Beggar’s Nurse”

“Transplanted”

“A Parent’s Feelings”

“Lord Dunfield”

“The Little Woman from Lancashire”

“In No–Man’s Land”

“At High Pressure”

“A Conversion”

“A Free Woman”

“A Son of the Soil”

“Out of the Fashion”

“Comrades in Arms”

Luncheon hour was past, and the tide of guests had begun to ebb. From his cushioned corner, his familiar seat in the restaurant, Wilfrid Langley kept an observant eye upon chatting groups and silent solitaries who still lingered at the tables near him. In this quiet half-hour, whilst smoking a cigarette and enjoying his modest claret, he caught the flitting suggestion of many a story, sketch, gossipy paper. A woman’s laugh, a man’s surly visage, couples oddly assorted, scraps of dialogue heard amid the confused noises — everywhere the elements of drama, to be fused and minted in his brain. Success had multiplied his powers a hundredfold; success and the comforts that came with it — savoury meats, wine, companionship. No one was dependent upon him no one restrained his liberty; he lived where he chose, and how he chose. And for all that — his age fell short of thirty — something seemed to him amiss in the bounty of the gods.

A figure was moving in his direction; he looked up from a moment’s reverie, to see a woman seat herself at the opposite side of his table. A laugh of pleased recognition; a clasp of hands.

‘Thought I might find you here,’ said Miss Childerstone. She turned to the waiter. ‘Roast mutton-potatoes — bread. And — soda-water.’

‘Soda!’ Langley exclaimed in surprise. ‘That’s where you women make a mistake. You need a stimulant.’

‘Thanks, old man; I am better acquainted with my needs than you are. Here’s something for you.’

She threw an evening paper at him saying, ‘Page seven.’ Langley opened it, and his eyes sparkled with pleasure. A notice of his new book; three-quarters of a column; high laudation, as he saw immediately.

‘Yours?’ he asked.

‘Take it without questions, and be thankful you’re not slated.’

‘It is yours. Don’t I know the fine Roman hand? Irony in the first sentence.’ He read in silence for a few minutes, then gave his companion a look of warm gratitude. ‘You’re a good sort.’

Miss Childerstone was drinking deep of her soda-water. Neither plain nor pretty, she had noticeable features, a keen good-humoured eye, an air of self-possession and alertness. She dressed well, with a view to the fitness of things. Her years were in the fourth decade.

She began to eat, but, it seemed, with little appetite.

‘I’ve had a headache since yesterday. I should like to go to bed and lie there for a week. But there’s my stuff for Tomlinson. Don’t feel like it, I tell you.’