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The Project Gutenberg eBook, Chivalry, by James Branch Cabell, et al This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: Chivalry Author: James Branch Cabell Release Date: March 28, 2004 [eBook #11752] [Date last updated: September 30, 2005] Language: English Character set encoding: US-ASCII ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHIVALRY*** E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Joris Van Dael, Susan Lucy, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders CHIVALRY JAMES BRANCH CABELL 1921 TO ANNE BRANCH CABELL "AINSI A VOUS, MADAME, A MA TRES HAULTE ET TRES NOBLE DAME, A QUI J'AYME A DEVOIR ATTACHEMENT ET OBEISSANCE, J'ENVOYE CE LIVRET." Introduction Few of the more astute critics who have appraised the work of James Branch Cabell have failed to call attention to that extraordinary cohesion which makes his very latest novel a further flowering of the seed of his very earliest literary work. Especially among his later books does the scheme of each seem to dovetail into the scheme of the other and the whole of his writing take on the character of an uninterrupted discourse. To this phenomenon, which is at once a fact and an illusion of continuity, Mr. Cabell himself has consciously contributed, not only by a subtly elaborate use of conjunctions, by repetition, and by reintroducing characters from his other books, but by actually setting his expertness in genealogy to the genial task of devising a family tree for his figures of fiction. If this were an actual continuity, more tangible than that fluid abstraction we call the life force; if it were merely a tireless reiteration and recasting of characters, Mr. Cabell's work would have an unbearable monotony. But at bottom this apparent continuity has no more material existence than has the thread of lineal descent. To insist upon its importance is to obscure, as has been obscured, the epic range of Mr. Cabell's creative genius. It is to fail to observe that he has treated in his many books every mainspring of human action and that his themes have been the cardinal dreams and impulses which have in them heroic qualities. Each separate volume has a unity and harmony of a complete and separate l
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