A Modern Chronicle

A MODERN CHRONICLE

WINSTON CHURCHILL

This 2011 edition published by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.

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ISBN: 978-1-4114-4439-3

CONTENTS

BOOK I

I. WHAT'S IN HEREDITY?

II. PERDITA RECALLED

III. CONCERNING PROVIDENCE

IV. OF TEMPERAMENT

V. IN WHICH PROVIDENCE KEEPS FAITH

VI. HONORA HAS A GLIMPSE OF THE WORLD

VII. THE OLYMPIAN ORDER

VIII. A CHAPTER OF CONQUESTS

IX. IN WHICH THE VICOMTE CONTINUES HIS STUDIES

X. IN WHICH HONORA WIDENS HER HORIZON

XI. WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

XII. WHICH CONTAINS A SURPRISE FOR MRS. HOLT

BOOK II

I. SO LONG AS YE BOTH SHALL LIVE!

II. "STAFFORD PARK"

III. THE GREAT UNATTACHED

IV. THE NEW DOCTRINE

V. QUICKSANDS

VI. GAD AND MENI

VII. OF CERTAIN DELICATE MATTERS

VIII. OF MENTAL PROCESSES—FEMININE AND INSOLUBLE

IX. INTRODUCING A REVOLUTIONIZING VEHICLE

X. ON THE ART OF LION TAMING

XI. CONTAINING SOME REVELATIONS

BOOK III

I. ASCENDI

II. THE PATH OF PHILANTHROPY

III. VINELAND

IV. THE VIKING

V. THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

VI. CLIO, OR THALIA?

VII. "LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS"

VIII. IN WHICH THE LAW BETRAYS A HEART

IX. WYLIE STREET

X. THE PRICE OF FREEDOM

XI. IN WHICH IT IS ALL DONE OVER AGAIN

XII. THE ENTRANCE INTO EDEN

XIII. OF THE WORLD BEYOND THE GATES

XIV. CONTAINING PHILOSOPHY FROM MR. GRAINGER

XV. THE PILLARS OF SOCIETY

XVI. IN WHICH A MIRROR IS HELD UP

XVII. THE RENEWAL OF AN ANCIENT HOSPITALITY

XVIII. IN WHICH MR. ERWIN SEES PARIS

CHAPTER I

WHAT'S IN HEREDITY?

HONORA LEFFINGWELL is the original name of our heroine. She was born in the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century, at Nice, in France, and she spent the early years of her life in St. Louis, a somewhat conservative old city on the banks of the Mississippi River. Her father was Randolph Leffingwell, and he died in the early flower of his manhood, while filling with a grace that many remember the post of United States Consul at Nice. As a linguist he was a phenomenon, and his photograph in the tortoise-shell frame proves indubitably, to anyone acquainted with the fashions of 1870, that he was a master of that subtlest of all arts, dress. He had gentle blood in his veins, which came from Virginia through Kentucky in a coach and six, and he was the equal in appearance and manners of any duke who lingered beside classic seas.

Honora has often pictured to herself a gay villa set high above the curving shore, the amethyst depths shading into emerald, laced with milk-white foam, the vivid colours of the town, the gay costumes; the excursions, the dinner-parties presided over by the immaculate young consul in three languages, and the guests chosen from the haute noblesse of Europe. Such was the vision in her youthful mind, added to by degrees as she grew into young-ladyhood and surreptitiously became familiar with the writings of Ouida and the Duchess, and other literature of an educating cosmopolitan nature.