Landlord at Lion's Head - Volume 1 , livre ebook

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pubOne.info present you this new edition. In those dim recesses of the consciousness where things have their beginning, if ever things have a beginning, I suppose the origin of this novel may be traced to a fact of a fortnight's sojourn on the western shore of lake Champlain in the summer of 1891. Across the water in the State of Vermont I had constantly before my eyes a majestic mountain form which the earlier French pioneers had named "Le Lion Couchant, " but which their plainer-minded Yankee successors preferred to call "The Camel's Hump. " It really looked like a sleeping lion; the head was especially definite; and when, in the course of some ten years, I found the scheme for a story about a summer hotel which I had long meant to write, this image suggested the name of 'The Landlord at Lion's Head. ' I gave the title to my unwritten novel at once and never wished to change it, but rejoiced in the certainty that, whatever the novel turned out to be, the title could not be better.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	06 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819947974
Langue	English

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Part I.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL
In those dim recesses of the consciousness wherethings have their beginning, if ever things have a beginning, Isuppose the origin of this novel may be traced to a fact of afortnight's sojourn on the western shore of lake Champlain in thesummer of 1891. Across the water in the State of Vermont I hadconstantly before my eyes a majestic mountain form which theearlier French pioneers had named “Le Lion Couchant, ” but whichtheir plainer-minded Yankee successors preferred to call “TheCamel's Hump. ” It really looked like a sleeping lion; the head wasespecially definite; and when, in the course of some ten years, Ifound the scheme for a story about a summer hotel which I had longmeant to write, this image suggested the name of 'The Landlord atLion's Head. ' I gave the title to my unwritten novel at once andnever wished to change it, but rejoiced in the certainty that,whatever the novel turned out to be, the title could not bebetter.
I began to write the story four years later, when wewere settled for the winter in our flat on Central Park, and as Iwas a year in doing it, with other things, I must have taken theunfinished manuscript to and from Magnolia, Massachusetts, and LongBeach, Long Island, where I spent the following summer. It wasfirst serialized in Harper's Weekly and in the London IllustratedNews, as well as in an Australian newspaper— I forget which one;and it was published as a completed book in 1896.
I remember concerning it a very becoming despairwhen, at a certain moment in it, I began to wonder what I wasdriving at. I have always had such moments in my work, and if Icannot fitly boast of them, I can at least own to them in freedomfrom the pride that goes before a fall. My only resource at suchtimes was to keep working; keep beating harder and harder at thewall which seemed to close me in, till at last I broke through intothe daylight beyond. In this case, I had really such a very goodgrip of my characters that I need not have had the usual fear oftheir failure to work out their destiny. But even when the thingwas done and I carried the completed manuscript to my dear oldfriend, the late Henry Loomis Nelson, then editor of the Weekly, itwas in more fear of his judgment than I cared to show. As oftenhappened with my manuscript in such exigencies, it seemed to go allto a handful of shrivelled leaves. When we met again and heaccepted it for the Weekly, with a handclasp of hearty welcome, Icould scarcely gasp out my unfeigned relief. We had talked thescheme of it over together; he had liked the notion, and he easilymade me believe, after my first dismay, that he liked the resulteven better.
I myself liked the hero of the tale more than I haveliked worthier men, perhaps because I thought I had achieved in hima true rustic New England type in contact with urban life underentirely modern conditions. What seemed to me my esthetic successin him possibly softened me to his ethical shortcomings; but I donot expect others to share my weakness for Jeff Durgin, whosestrong, rough surname had been waiting for his personality eversince I had got it off the side of an ice-cart many yearsbefore.
At the time the story was imagined Harvard had beenfor four years much in the direct knowledge of the author, and Ipleased myself in realizing the hero's experience there from evenmore intimacy with the university moods and manners than hadsupported me in the studies of an earlier fiction dealing withthem. I had not lived twelve years in Cambridge withoutacquaintance such as even an elder man must make with theundergraduate life; but it is only from its own level that this canbe truly learned, and I have always been ready to stand correctedby undergraduate experience. Still, I have my belief that as a jay—the word may now be obsolete— Jeff Durgin is not altogether out ofdrawing; though this is, of course, the phase of his characterwhich is one of the least important. What I most prize in him, if Imay go to the bottom of the inkhorn, is the realization of thatanti-Puritan quality which was always vexing the heart ofPuritanism, and which I had constantly felt one of the mostinteresting facts in my observation of New England.
As for the sort of summer hotel portrayed in thesepages, it was materialized from an acquaintance with summer hotelsextending over quarter of a century, and scarcely to be surpassedif paralleled. I had a passion for knowing about them andunderstanding their operation which I indulged at everyopportunity, and which I remember was satisfied as to everyreasonable detail at one of the pleasantest seaside hostelries byone of the most intelligent and obliging of landlords. Yet, hotelsfor hotels, I was interested in those of the hills rather thanthose of the shores.
I worked steadily if not rapidly at the story. OftenI went back over it, and tore it to pieces and put it togetheragain. It made me feel at times as if I should never learn mytrade, but so did every novel I have written; every novel, in fact,has been a new trade. In, the case of this one the publishers werehurrying me in the revision for copy to give the illustrator, whowas hurrying his pictures for the English and Australianserializations.
KITTERY POINT, MAINE, July, 1909.
THE LANDLORD AT LION'S HEAD
I.
If you looked at the mountain from the west, theline of the summit was wandering and uncertain, like that of mostmountain-tops; but, seen from the east, the mass of granite showingabove the dense forests of the lower slopes had the form of asleeping lion. The flanks and haunches were vaguely distinguishedfrom the mass; but the mighty head, resting with its tossed maneupon the vast paws stretched before it, was boldly sculpturedagainst the sky. The likeness could not have been more perfect,when you had it in profile, if it had been a definite intention ofart; and you could travel far north and far south before theillusion vanished. In winter the head was blotted by the snows; andsometimes the vagrant clouds caught upon it and deformed it, or hidit, at other seasons; but commonly, after the last snow went in thespring until the first snow came in the fall, the Lion's Head was apart of the landscape, as imperative and importunate as the GreatStone Face itself.
Long after other parts of the hill country wereopened to summer sojourn, the region of Lion's Head remained almostprimitively solitary and savage. A stony mountain road followed thebed of the torrent that brawled through the valley at its base, andat a certain point a still rougher lane climbed from the road alongthe side of the opposite height to a lonely farm-house pushed backon a narrow shelf of land, with a meagre acreage of field andpasture broken out of the woods that clothed all the neighboringsteeps. The farm-house level commanded the best view of Lion'sHead, and the visitors always mounted to it, whether they came onfoot, or arrived on buckboards or in buggies, or drove up in theConcord stages from the farther and nearer hotels. The drivers ofthe coaches rested their horses there, and watered them from thespring that dripped into the green log at the barn; the passengersscattered about the door-yard to look at the Lion's Head, to wonderat it and mock at it, according to their several makes and moods.They could scarcely have felt that they ever had a welcome from thestalwart, handsome woman who sold them milk, if they wanted it, andsmall cakes of maple sugar if they were very strenuous forsomething else. The ladies were not able to make much of her fromthe first; but some of them asked her if it were not rather lonelythere, and she said that when you heard the catamounts scream atnight, and the bears growl in the spring, it did seem lonesome.When one of them declared that if she should hear a catamountscream or a bear growl she should die, the woman answered, Well,she presumed we must all die some time. But the ladies were notsure of a covert slant in her words, for they were spoken with thesame look she wore when she told them that the milk was five centsa glass, and the black maple sugar three cents a cake. She did notchange when she owned upon their urgence that the gaunt man whomthey glimpsed around the corners of the house was her husband, andthe three lank boys with him were her sons; that the children whosefaces watched them through the writhing window panes were her twolittle girls; that the urchin who stood shyly twisted, all but hiswhite head and sunburned face, into her dress and glanced at themwith a mocking blue eye, was her youngest, and that he was threeyears old. With like coldness of voice and face, she assented totheir conjecture that the space walled off in the farther corner ofthe orchard was the family burial ground; and she said, with nomore feeling that the ladies could see than she had shownconcerning the other facts, that the graves they saw were those ofher husband's family and of the children she had lost there hadbeen ten children, and she had lost four. She did not visiblyshrink from the pursuit of the sympathy which expressed itself incuriosity as to the sickness they had died of; the ladies left herwith the belief that they had met a character, and she remainedwith the conviction, briefly imparted to her husband, that theywere tonguey.
The summer folks came more and more, every year,with little variance in the impression on either side. When theytold her that her maple sugar would sell better if the cake had animage of Lion's Head stamped on it, she answered that she gotenough of Lion's Head without wanting to see it on all the sugarshe made. But the next year the cakes bore a rude effigy of Lion'sHead, and she said that one of her boys had cut the stamp out withhis knife; she now charged five cents a cake for the sugar, but hermanner remained the same. It did not change when the excursionistsdrove away, and the deep silence native to the place fell aftertheir chatter. When a cock crew, or a cow lowed, or a horsenei