The Project Gutenberg EBook of Malbone, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson

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Title: Malbone
An Oldport Romance

Author: Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Posting Date: July 27, 2008 [EBook #993]
Release Date: July 1997

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MALBONE ***

Produced by Judy Boss

MALBONE

AN OLDPORT ROMANCE.

By Thomas Wentworth Higginson

"What is Nature unless there is an eventful human life
passing within her?

Many joys and many sorrows are the lights and shadows in
which she shows most beautiful."

--THOREAU, MS. Diary.

CONTENTS.

PRELUDE
I. AN ARRIVAL
II. PLACE AUX DAMES!
III. A DRIVE ON THE AVENUE
IV. AUNT JANE DEFINES HER POSITION
V. A MULTIVALVE HEART
VI. "SOME LOVER'S CLEAR DAY"
VII. AN INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION
VIII. TALKING IT OVER
IX. DANGEROUS WAYS
X. REMONSTRANCES
XI. DESCENSUS AVERNI
XII. A NEW ENGAGEMENT
XIII. DREAMING DREAMS
XIV. THE NEMESIS OF FASHION
XV. ACROSS THE BAY
XVI. ON THE STAIRS
XVII. DISCOVERY
XVIII. HOPE'S VIGIL
XIX. DE PROFUNDIS
XX. AUNT JANE TO THE RESCUE
XXI. A STORM
XXII. OUT OF THE DEPTHS
XXIII. REQUIESCAT

MALBONE.

PRELUDE.

AS one wanders along this southwestern promontory of the Isle of Peace,
and looks down upon the green translucent water which forever bathes the
marble slopes of the Pirates' Cave, it is natural to think of the ten
wrecks with which the past winter has strewn this shore. Though almost
all trace of their presence is already gone, yet their mere memory lends
to these cliffs a human interest. Where a stranded vessel lies, thither
all steps converge, so long as one plank remains upon another. There
centres the emotion. All else is but the setting, and the eye sweeps
with indifference the line of unpeopled rocks. They are barren, till the
imagination has tenanted them with possibilities of danger and dismay.
The ocean provides the scenery and properties of a perpetual