The Quest of the Golden Girl: a Romance

BOOK I. Chapter

CHAPTER

I. AN OLD HOUSE AND ITS BACHELOR

II. IN WHICH I DECIDE TO GO ON PILGRIMAGE

III. AN INDICTMENT OF SPRING

IV. IN WHICH I EAT AND DREAM

V. CONCERNING THE PERFECT WOMAN, AND THEREFORE CONCERNING ALL FEMININE READERS

VI. IN WHICH THE AUTHOR ANTICIPATES DISCONTENT ON THE PART OF HIS READER

VII. PRANDIAL

VIII. STILL PRANDIAL

IX. THE LEGEND OF HEBES OR THE HEAVENLY HOUSEMAID

X. AGAIN ON FOOT-THE GIRLS THAT NEVER CAN BE MINE

XI. AN OLD MAN OF THE HILLS, AND THE SCHOOLMASTER'S STORY

XII. THE TRUTH ABOUT THE GIPSIES

XIII. A STRANGE WEDDING

XIV. THE MYSTERIOUS PETTICOAT

XV. STILL OCCUPIED WITH THE PETTICOAT

XVI. CLEARS UP MY MYSTERIOUS BEHAVIOUR OF THE LAST CHAPTER

XVII. THE NAME UPON THE PETTICOAT

XVIII. IN WHICH THE NAME OF A GREAT POET IS CRIED OUT IN A SOLITARY PLACE

XIX. WHY THE STRANGER WOULD NOT LOSE HIS SHELLEY FOR THE WORLD

BOOK II. I. in Which I Decide to Be Young Again

I. IN WHICH I DECIDE TO BE YOUNG AGAIN

II. AT THE SIGN OF THE SINGING STREAM

III. IN WHICH I SAVE A USEFUL LIFE

IV. 'T IS OF NICOLETE AND HER BOWER IN THE WILDWOOD

V. 'T IS OF AUCASSIN AND NICOLETE

VI. A FAIRY TALE AND ITS FAIRY TAILORS

VII. FROM THE MORNING STAR TO THE MOON

VIII. THE KIND OF THING THAT HAPPENS IN THE MOON

IX. WRITTEN BY MOONLIGHT

X. HOW ONE MAKES LOVE AT THIRTY

XI. HOW ONE PLAYS THE HERO AT THIRTY

XII. IN WHICH I REVIEW MY ACTIONS AND RENEW MY RESOLUTIONS

BOOK III. I. in Which I Return to My Right Age and Encounter a Common

I. IN WHICH I RETURN TO MY RIGHT AGE AND ENCOUNTER A COMMON OBJECT OF THE COUNTRY

II. IN WHICH I HEAL A BICYCLE AND COME TO THE WHEEL OF PLEASURE

III. TWO TOWN MICE AT A COUNTRY INN

IV. MARRIAGE A LA MODE

V. CONCERNING THE HAVEN OF YELLOW SANDS

VI. THE MOORLAND OF THE APOCALYPSE

VII. "COME UNTO THESE YELLOW SANDS!"

VIII. THE TWELVE GOLDEN-HAIRED BAR-MAIDS

IX. SYLVIA JOY

X. IN WHICH ONCE MORE I BECOME OCCUPIED IN MY OWN AFFAIRS

XI. "THE HOUR FOR WHICH THE YEARS FOR WHICH I DID SIGH"

XII. AT THE CAFE DE LA PAIX

XIII. THE INNOCENCE OF PARIS

XIV. END OF BOOK THREE

BOOK IV. The Postscript to a Pilgrimage

THE POSTSCRIPT TO A PILGRIMAGE

I. SIX YEARS AFTER

II. GRACE O' GOD

III. THE GOLDEN GIRL

Gennem de Mange til En!

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

AN OLD HOUSE AND ITS BACHELOR

When the knell of my thirtieth birthday sounded, I suddenly realised, with a desolate feeling at the heart, that I was alone in the world. It was true I had many and good friends, and I was blessed with interests and occupations which I had often declared sufficient to satisfy any not too exacting human being. Moreover, a small but sufficient competency was mine, allowing me reasonable comforts, and the luxuries of a small but choice library, and a small but choice garden. These heavenly blessings had seemed mere than enough for nearly five years, during which the good sister and I had kept house together, leading a life of tranquil happy days. Friends and books and flowers! It was, we said, a good world, and I, simpleton,--pretty and dainty as Margaret was,--deemed it would go on forever. But, alas! one day came a Faust into our garden,--a good Faust, with no friend Mephistopheles,--and took Margaret from me. It is but a month since they were married, and the rice still lingers in the crevices of the pathway down to the quaint old iron-work gate. Yes! they have gone off to spend their honeymoon, and Margaret has written to me twice to say how happy they are together in the Hesperides. Dear happiness! Selfish, indeed, were he who would envy you one petal of that wonderful rose--Rosa Mundi--God has given you to gather.

But, all the same, the reader will admit that it must be lonely for me, and not another sister left to take pity on me, all somewhere happily settled down in the Fortunate Isles.

Poor lonely old house! do you, too, miss the light step of your mistress? No longer shall her little silken figure flit up and down your quiet staircases, no more deck out your silent rooms with flowers, humming the while some happy little song.

The little piano is dumb night after night, its candles unlighted, and there is no one to play Chopin to us now as the day dies, and the shadows stoop out of their corners to listen in vain. Old house, old house! We are alone, quite alone,--there is no mistake about that,--and the soul has gone out of both of us. And as for the garden, there is no company there; that is loneliest of all. The very sunlight looks desolation, falling through the thick-blossoming apple-trees as through the chinks and crevices of deserted Egyptian cities.

While as for the books--well, never talk to me again about the companionship of books! For just when one needs them most of all they seem suddenly to have grown dull and unsympathetic, not a word of comfort, not a charm anywhere in them to make us forget the slow-moving hours; whereas, when Margaret was here--but it is of no use to say any more! Everything was quite different when Margaret was here: that is enough. Margaret has gone away to the Fortunate Isles. Of course she'll come to see us now and again; but it won't be the same thing. Yes! old echoing silent House of Joy that is Gone, we are quite alone. Now, what is to be done?

CHAPTER II. In Which I Decide to Go on Pilgrimage

IN WHICH I DECIDE TO GO ON PILGRIMAGE

Though I have this bad habit of soliloquising, and indeed am absurd enough to attempt conversation with a house, yet the reader must realise from the beginning that I am still quite a young man. I talked a little just now as though I were an octogenarian. Actually, as I said, I am but just gone thirty, and I may reasonably regard life, as the saying is, all before me. I was a little down-hearted when I wrote yesterday. Besides, I wrote at the end of the afternoon, a melancholy time. The morning is the time to write. We are all--that is, those of us who sleep well--optimists in the morning. And the world is sad enough without our writing books to make it sadder. The rest of this book, I promise you, shall be written of a morning. This book! oh, yes, I forgot!--I am going to write a book. A book about what? Well, that must be as God wills. But listen! As I lay in bed this morning between sleeping and waking, an idea came riding on a sunbeam into my room,--a mad, whimsical idea, but one that suits my mood; and put briefly, it is this: how is it that I, a not unpresentable young man, a man not without accomplishments or experience, should have gone all these years without finding that

"Not impossible she Who shall command my heart and me,"--

without meeting at some turning of the way the mystical Golden Girl,--without, in short, finding a wife?

"Then," suggested the idea, with a blush for its own absurdity, "why not go on pilgrimage and seek her? I don't believe you'll find her. She isn't usually found after thirty. But you'll no doubt have good fun by the way, and fall in with many pleasant adventures."

"A brave idea, indeed!" I cried. "By Heaven, I will take stick and knapsack and walk right away from my own front door, right away where the road leads, and see what happens." And now, if the reader please, we will make a start.

CHAPTER III. An Indictment of Spring

AN INDICTMENT OF SPRING

"Marry! an odd adventure!" I said to myself, as I stepped along in the spring morning air; for, being a pilgrim, I was involuntarily in a mediaeval frame of mind, and "Marry! an odd adventure!" came to my lips as though I had been one of that famous company that once started from the Tabard on a day in spring.

It had been the spring, it will be remembered, that had prompted them to go on pilgrimage; and me, too, the spring was filling with strange, undefinable longings, and though I flattered myself that I had set out in pursuance of a definitely taken resolve, I had really no more freedom in the matter than the children who followed at the heels of the mad piper.

A mad piper, indeed, this spring, with his wonderful lying music,--ever lying, yet ever convincing, for when was Spring known to keep his word? Yet year after year we give eager belief to his promises. He may have consistently broken them for fifty years, yet this year he will keep them. This year the dream will come true, the ship come home. This year the very dead we have loved shall come back to us again: for Spring can even lie like that. There is nothing he will not promise the poor hungry human heart, with his innocent-looking daisies and those practised liars the birds. Why, one branch of hawthorn against the sky promises more than all the summers of time can pay, and a pond ablaze with yellow lilies awakens such answering splendours and enchantments in mortal bosoms,--blazons, it would seem, so august a message from the hidden heart of the world,--that ever afterwards, for one who has looked upon it, the most fortunate human existence must seem a disappointment.

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