The Project Gutenberg EBook of Christie Johnstone, by Charles Reade

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Title: Christie Johnstone

Author: Charles Reade

Release Date: January, 2003 [Etext #3671]
Posting Date: December 8, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTIE JOHNSTONE ***

Produced by James Rusk

CHRISTIE JOHNSTONE

A NOVEL

By Charles Reade

Transcriber's Note: Italics are indicated by the underscore character.
Acute accents are indicated by a single quote (') after the vowel,
while grave accents have a single quote before the vowel. All other
accents are ignored.

I dedicate all that is good in this work to my mother.--C. R.,

NOTE.

THIS story was written three years ago, and one or two topics in it are
not treated exactly as they would be if written by the same hand to-day.
But if the author had retouched those pages with his colors of 1853, he
would (he thinks) have destroyed the only merit they have, viz., that
of containing genuine contemporaneous verdicts upon a cant that was
flourishing like a peony, and a truth that was struggling for bare life,
in the year of truth 1850.

He prefers to deal fairly with the public, and, with this explanation
and apology, to lay at its feet a faulty but genuine piece of work.

CHAPTER I.

VISCOUNT IPSDEN, aged twenty-five, income eighteen thousand pounds per
year, constitution equine, was unhappy! This might surprise some people;
but there are certain blessings, the non-possession of which makes more
people discontented than their possession renders happy.

Foremost among these are "Wealth and Rank." Were I to add "Beauty" to
the list, such men and women as go by fact, not by conjecture, would
hardly contradict me.

The fortunate man is he who, born poor, or nobody, works gradually up
to wealth and consideration, and, having got them, dies before he finds
they were not worth so much trouble.

Lord Ipsden started with nothing to win; and naturally lived for
amusement. Now nothing is so sure to cease to please as pleasure--to
amuse, as amusement. Unfortunately for himself he could not at this
period of his life warm to politics; so, having exh