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By James Lane Allen: Falconer
Amy, in the mean time, has made her home with her aunt and uncle, Major and Mrs. Falconer. Mrs. Falconer stands out against a background of high-born Virginian ancestry--a background of jewels, brocades, fans, and satin slippers; of balls and minuets; of wide-reaching plantations and slaves. The major has been one of those who has heroically fought in the Revolution, and to whom the Southern beauty out of patriotic gratitude has given her hand, bravely following him into the Kentucky wilderness. Unfortunately, although neither of the pair confesses it, the marriage has been an uncongenial one. Both, however, are too noble-minded to do otherwise than be true to the union that holds them together. Yet there is a scar of disappointment beneath the surface, and in the woman's heart a weariness and longing that nothing satisfies. During John Gray's visits to her niece Mrs. Falconer has become deeply interested in the young schoolmaster, who is about her own age and whose tastes she shares. Between them a companionship has sprung up which each honestly mistakes for friendship.
Amy's attraction for the man has been an untutored impulse of the senses; but Jessica Falconer's power over him is one of deep spiritual inspiration. When he awakens to the discovery that in reality it is Mrs. Falconer whom he loves, his reverence for her, her purity, and her loyalty to her husband all bind him to silence. She also loves him, but is in honor bound to give him no sign, and hence, with their love unspoken, he goes East ostensibly to recover the legacy he expects to inherit, but determined never to return. The lawsuit for his property goes against him and he is cast into jail for debt, from which ignominy the efforts of friends release him. He is a proud man and, wishing to pay this debt of gratitude, he proposes to marry the daughter of the family that has befriended him. Before the marriage, however, he tells his future bride quite frankly that he loves some one else who is not free, and it is with this knowledge that she accepts him. While the wedding is in preparation a letter comes to him from Mrs. Falconer announcing the death of her husband, and in the silent hope that his fiancee will give him his liberty he acquaints her with the change in his prospects. We gather from the text that the girl is unwilling to give him up, and as he is too honorable to demand his freedom he carries out his pledge.
All ignorant of this turn of events, Mrs. Falconer in the mean time is so sure of his love that she erects in distant Kentucky a stately mansion modeled after the home of her early youth. She is still in the thirties and beautiful, and, deluded into the belief that at last her dreams are to be fulfilled, she makes ready for her marriage. A paper telling of John's union with some one else rudely destroys her paradise. Twice she has missed the prize of happiness. The intense joy of womanhood she is never to know. "I shall go softly all my days," she murmurs.
Time sweeps on, but her beauty does not fade. She becomes the great lady of the Southern settlement and at her home Aaron Burr and many another famous American are entertained. More than one man lays his fortune at her feet and goes away disappointed.
There are women who never experience the heights and the depths of life. "Gazing deep into their eyes, we are reminded of the light of dim churches. They are the women who have missed happiness and who know it; but, having failed of affection, give themselves to duty. It was into the company of these quieter pilgrims that she had passed."
One day long afterward, when she is alone in her garden, she sees coming toward her a magnificent young fellow at the brink of manhood. He lifts his hat with courtly gesture. "I am John Gray, the son of your old friend, and my father sends me to you to stay, if you will let me. And he desires me to deliver this letter." "John Gray!" she cried. "You John Gray! You! Take off your hat." For a moment she looked at his forehead and his hair; her eyes became blinded with tears. She threw her arms around his neck with a sob and covered his face with kisses.
Alone in the solitude of her bedroom she reads the letter. John tells her that he loves her, that he has always loved her; and that it is the fire of this love that through the years has kept his ideals aglow. "Many a time this candle has gone out; but as quickly as I could snatch any torch--with your sacred name on my lips--it has been relighted. "If," he adds, "I have kept unbroken faith with any of mine, thank you. And thank God!"
Thus ends the novel It was an early book of Mr. Allen's, the second one he wrote, and it abounds in all the charm of olden-time atmosphere and in the beauty of description and delicacy of feeling so characteristic of his work. Historically it gives us a delightful picture of Kentucky life in 1795.
Condensed from The Choir Invisible, by James Lane Allen. Copyright, 1897, by the Macmillan Company. Used by permission of author and publisher. HUGO VICTOR MARIE HUGO was born at Besancon, France, on February 25, 1802, so puny an infant that it was not believed he could live. He was the third son of a distinguished soldier under Napoleon. He came from sturdy but not noble stock, his ancestors on his father's side having been simple peasants. He was well educated in France and in Spain, where his father held high rank under Napoleon's brother. He was a precocious lad, writing long plays in verse and prose while hardly more than a child. Before his twenty-first year he had won several high prizes for his verse. But, thrown on his own resources by the death of his mother, he found it difficult to live by his pen. He moved into an attic, where he had his only experience of actual poverty. His writings, however, soon became popular and he was able to marry, at the age of twenty-one, Adele Foucher, his playmate of childhood days. It was a happy marriage for ten years. Then Hugo became infatuated with an actress, to whom he was devoted fifty years.
From his youth until his death, on May 22, 1885, Hugo wrote rapidly--poems, plays, and novels. No other man of his time had such an international reputation. Swinburne hailed him as "the greatest man born since the death of Shakespeare."
His most famous novel, "Les Miserables," was published in 1862, but he had been working on it for fifteen years. Thirty years before had appeared his first great prose romance, "Notre Dame," and the third, "Toilers of the Sea," came out in 1865.