The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sally Bishop, by E. Temple Thurston

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Title: Sally Bishop
A Romance

Author: E. Temple Thurston

Release Date: October 23, 2005 [EBook #16925]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SALLY BISHOP ***

Produced by Ron Swanson

SALLY BISHOP

A ROMANCE

BY
E. TEMPLE THURSTON

NEW AND CHEAPER EDITION

LONDON
CHAPMAN & HALL, LTD.
1912

_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_.

THE APPLE OF EDEN.
TRAFFIC.
THE REALIST.
THE EVOLUTION OF KATHERINE.
MIRAGE.
THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL NONSENSE.
THE GREATEST WISH IN THE WORLD.
THE PATCHWORK PAPERS.
THE GARDEN OF RESURRECTION.
THIRTEEN.
THE FLOWER OF GLOSTER.
THE ANTAGONISTS.

_Copyright in the United States of America by E. Temple Thurston,
1909_.

To
GERALD DU MAURIER

_MY DEAR GERALD,_

_Amongst the many things which I anticipate in the reception of this
book, is the shrug-shoulder smile of critics at my sub-title--a
Romance. There are canons and rubrics to be observed, it would seem,
in the slightest action that a man attempts in this Great World's
Fair of Conventionality, whose every sideshow is hedged around with
the red-tape of the Law. Witness even that delusive proverb--there
is honour amongst thieves. So is there an unwritten canon in
literature and the making of books, that a Romance must end with a
phrase to convey another illusion--namely, the happiness that is
ever after._

_And so, in this respect, I throw canons to the winds--it sounds a
herculean feat--wash out the printed red of the rubric, and call,
perhaps the saddest story I shall write, a Romance._

_Yet I profess to have a reason beyond mere contrariness. The world
of Romance must be at all times an elusive star--never capable of
being put in the exact same place on any one's calendar. And to me
it conveys no fixed beginning, no fixed end, so long as it possesses
that quality of dreaming imagination in the mind of the character
with whom the circumstances are first concerned. All that we know
certainly of life is reality, and of all those myriad things which
combine to make up the one great sche