Library / Literature & Fiction
Scenes and Characters, or, Eighteen Months at Beechcroft
- Pages
- about 313
- Category
- Literature & Fiction
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 5.7 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
Transcribed from the 1889 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org
BY
CHARLOTTE M. YOUNGE
AUTHOR OF ‘THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE,’ ‘THE TWO GUARDIANS,’ ETC.
OF those who are invited to pay a visit to Beechcroft, there are some
who, honestly acknowledging that amusement is their object, will be
content to feel with Lilias, conjecture with Jane, and get into scrapes
with Phyllis, without troubling themselves to extract any moral from
their proceedings; and to these the Mohun family would only apologise for
having led a very humdrum life during the eighteen months spent in their
company.
There may, however, be more unreasonable visitors, who, professing only
to come as parents and guardians, expect entertainment for themselves, as
well as instruction for those who had rather it was out of sight,—look
for antiques in carved cherry-stones,—and require plot, incident, and
catastrophe in a chronicle of small beer.
To these the Mohuns beg respectfully to observe, that they hope their
examples may not be altogether devoid of indirect instruction; and lest
it should be supposed that they lived without object, aim, or principle,
they would observe that the maxim which has influenced the delineation of
the different Scenes and Characters is, that feeling, unguided and
unrestrained, soon becomes mere selfishness; while the simple endeavour
to fulfil each immediate claim of duty may lead to the highest acts of
self-devotion.
PERHAPS this book is an instance to be adduced in support of the advice I
have often given to young authors—not to print before they themselves are
old enough to do justice to their freshest ideas.
Not that I can lay claim to its being a production of tender and
interesting youth.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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