Books with title The courtship of Morrice Buckler: a romance

TELLS OF AN INTERRUPTED MESSAGE It chanced that as I was shifting the volumes in my library this morning, more from sheer fatigue of idleness than with any set intention—for, alas this long time since I have lost the savour of books—a little Elzevir copy of Horace fell from the back of a shelf between my hands. It lay in my palm, soiled and faded with the dust of twenty years; and as I swept clean its cover and the edges of the leaves, the look and feel of it unlocked my mind to such an inrush of glistening memories that I seemed to be sweeping those years and the overlay of their experience from off my consciousness. I lived again in that brief but eventful period which laid upon the unaccustomed shoulders of a bookish student a heavy burden of deeds, but gave him in compensation wherewith to reckon the burden light. The book fell open of its own accord at the Palinodia at Tyndaridem. On the stained and fingered leaf facing the ode I could still decipher the plan of Lukstein Castle, and as I gazed, that blurred outline filled until it became a picture. I looked into the book as into a magician’s crystal. The great angle of the building, the level row of windows, the red roofs of the turrets, the terrace, and the little pinewood pavilion, all were clearly limned before my eyes, and were overswept by changing waves of colour. I saw the Castle as on the first occasion of my coming, hung disconsolately on a hill-side in a far-away corner of the Tyrol, a black stain upon a sloping wilderness of snow; I saw it again under a waning moon in the stern silence of a frosty night, as each window grew angry with a tossing glare of links; but chiefly I saw it as when I rode thither on my last memorable visit, sleeping peacefully above the cornfields in the droning Sabbath of a summer afternoon. I turned my eyes to the ode. The score of my pencil was visible against the last verse Nunc ego mitibus Mutare qunro tristia don mihi Fias recantatis amica Opprobriis animumque reddas. On the margin beside the first line was the date, Sept 14, 1685, and beneath the verse yet another date, Sept. 12, 1687. And as I looked, it came upon me that I would set down with what clearness I might the record of those two years, in the hope that my memories might warm and cheer these later days of loneliness, much as the afterglow lingers purple on yonder summit rocks when the sun has already sunk behind the Cumberland fells. For indeed that short interspace of time shines out in my remembrance like a thick thread of gold in a woof of homespun. I would not, however, be understood to therefore deprecate the quiet years of happiness which followed. The two years of which I speak in their actual passage occasioned me more anxiety and suffering than happiness. But they have a history of their own. They mark out a portion of my life whereof the two dates in my Horace were the beginning and the end, and the verse between the dates, strangely enough, its best epitome.

Alfred Edward Woodley Mason (1865-1948) was a British author. He studied at Dulwich College and graduated from Trinity College, Oxford in 1888. His first novel, A Romance of Wastdale, was published in 1895. He is the author of more than twenty books, among them The Four Feathers, originally published in London in 1902. His next successful work was At the Villa Rose (1910), where he introduced his French detective, Hanaud. He was elected as a Liberal Member of Parliament for Coventry in the 1906 general election. He served only a single term in Parliament, retiring at the next general election in January 1910. He contributed a short story, The Conjurer, to The Queen’s Book of the Red Cross. His other works include The Philanderers (1897), Miranda of the Balcony (1899), Clementina (1901), Ensign Knightley and Other Stories (1901), Running Water (1907), The Witness for the Defence (1913), The Summons (1920), No Other Tiger (1927), The Prisoner in the Opal (1929), Fire Over England (1937) and The House of the Arrow (1924).

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"The Courtship of Morrice Buckler" by A. E. W. Mason. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Excerpt from The Courtship of Morrice Buckler: A RomanceI took up his book which he had flung upon the table. It contained naught but pictures of the Professor in divers humiliating attitudes, with John Larke ever towering above him, his honest features twisted into so heroical an expression of scorn as set me laughing till my sides ached.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.