HARD FACTS BY HOWARD SPRING AUTHORS FOREWORD IN a celebrated essay,
Jfacaulay sums up Bacons career as a chequered spectacle of so much
glory and so much shame. The words may fitly enough be applied not
only to Bacons life but to most mens lives and to most large
experiments of human action. In 1942 I began to write a novel whose
purpose was to trace the course of one such experiment from its
beginnings In the eighties of last century up to our present time.
I intended to call this novel, which would, have been very long, So
Much Glory: So Much Shame. It seemed to me as time went on that the
war years, with the paper shortage, were not the best for the
publication of so long a book as I had in mind. And, too, my
writing during the war is so sporadic and occasional that progress
was slow, and it might be years before the book as I con ceived it
or at any rate as my conception worked out in practice was
finished. Things being thus, I decided that it would be better to
publish the book piecemeal. In my plan, it was divided into three
parts called Hard Fads, Dunkerleys and The Banner. The first of
these is the present volume, which makes, I think, a rounded and
selfsufficient story. I hope that, in due course, the other volumes
will do so, too and that finally it may be possible to publish the
three as one book bearing the title originally chosen for it. H. S.
"CHAPTER ONE AT FIVE OCLOCK on a Wednesday afternoon in March,
1885, Theodore Chrystal was walking to his lodgings in Hardiman
Street, in the Levenshulme district of Manchester. He was happy
enough, though no physical reason for happiness was apparent. It
was a vile day the darkness had come down on the breath of a thin
fog, and thestreet lamps had not yet been lit. Even had the full
light of a summers day fallen upon the scene, it would have been
hideous. Theo knew this, although Manchester was a strange town to
him, for there had been light enough when he set out to take tea
with Mr. Burnside, the Vicar of St. Ninians. He had seen then the
little houses standing in rows, with their bare sooty patches of
earth railed off from the streets as though they were precious he
had seen the sky low upon the grey slate roofs, an immense and
everlasting frown that seemed to lie over the whole city he had
seen something of the pale artisan population, depressing and
respectable, appearing now and then from behind doors whose front
steps were yellowed with the daily rubbing of stone, or glancing
through windows hung with lace curtains looped back to reveal ferns
in pots of fantastic shapes, A swan with outspread wings was the
most popular, he noted. The fern fitted neatly down on to the swans
backan improbability alike in botany and ornithology. He crossed
the main road which runs from Manchester to Stockport, and was
impressed by its granitic and uncom promising hideousness. A stony
waste, a weary wilderness, an abomination of desolation: these were
the sort of phrases that crossed his young mindhe was twentyfourbut
he murmured them almost gaily.
General
Imprint: |
Kessinger Publishing Co
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
September 2007 |
First published: |
September 2007 |
Authors: |
Howard Spring
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152 x 17mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback - Trade
|
Pages: |
288 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-548-39090-0 |
Categories: |
Books >
Humanities >
History >
General
Books >
History >
General
|
LSN: |
0-548-39090-8 |
Barcode: |
9780548390900 |
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