The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories, by
William D. Howells

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Title: A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories

Author: William D. Howells

Release Date: January 20, 2007 [EBook #20403]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY

AND OTHER STORIES

BY

WILLIAM D. HOWELLS

AUTHOR OF "THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK," "THE UNDISCOVERED
COUNTRY," ETC.

[Illustration: Publisher's logo]

BOSTON
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY
1881

_Copyright, 1881,_
BY W. D. HOWELLS.

_All rights reserved._

UNIVERSITY PRESS
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY 1

AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE 165

TONELLI'S MARRIAGE 209

A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY.

I.

Every loyal American who went abroad during the first years of our great
war felt bound to make himself some excuse for turning his back on his
country in the hour of her trouble. But when Owen Elmore sailed, no one
else seemed to think that he needed excuse. All his friends said it was
the best thing for him to do; that he could have leisure and quiet over
there, and would be able to go on with his work.

At the risk of giving a farcical effect to my narrative, I am obliged to
confess that the work of which Elmore's friends spoke was a projected
history of Venice. So many literary Americans have projected such a work
that it may now fairly be regarded as a national enterprise. Elmore was
too obscure to have been announced in the usual way by the newspapers as
having this design; but it was well known in his town that he was
collecting materials when his professorship in the small inland college
with which he was connected lapsed through the enlistment of nearly all
the students. The president became colonel of the college regimen