Project Gutenberg's The Passionate Friends, by Herbert George Wells

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Title: The Passionate Friends

Author: Herbert George Wells

Release Date: October 26, 2009 [EBook #30340]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS ***

Produced by Carl Hudkins, Martin Pettit and the Online
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The Passionate Friends

By H. G. WELLS

Author of "Marriage."

[Illustration]

WITH FRONTISPIECE

A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS

114-120 East Twenty-third Street - - New York

PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH HARPER & BROTHERS

COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY HARPER & BROTHERS

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1913

TO
L. E. N. S.

[Illustration: "OUR KISSES WERE KISSES OF MOONLIGHT" See p. 85]

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. MR. STRATTON TO HIS SON 1

II. BOYHOOD 14

III. INTENTIONS AND THE LADY MARY CHRISTIAN 40

IV. THE MARRIAGE OF THE LADY MARY CHRISTIAN 73

V. THE WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA 102

VI. LADY MARY JUSTIN 132

VII. BEGINNING AGAIN 197

VIII. THIS SWARMING BUSINESS OF MANKIND 220

IX. THE SPIRIT OF THE NEW WORLD 246

X. MARY WRITES 280

XI. THE LAST MEETING 318

XII. THE ARRAIGNMENT OF JEALOUSY 358

THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS

CHAPTER THE FIRST

MR. STRATTON TO HIS SON

Sec. 1

I want very much to set down my thoughts and my experiences of life. I
want to do so now that I have come to middle age and now that my
attitudes are all defined and my personal drama worked out I feel that
the toil of writing and reconsideration may help to clear and fix many
things that remain a little uncertain in my thoughts because they have
never been fully stated, and I want to discover any lurking
inconsistencies and unsuspected gaps. And I have a story. I have lived
through thing