The Collected Works of Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb. Charles Lamb. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Charles Lamb
Издательство: Bookwire
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Жанр произведения: Языкознание
Год издания: 0
isbn: 4064066394691
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rel="nofollow" href="#ue1a5f2e6-5483-5ee5-bb58-392e2e2740f4">REFLECTIONS IN THE PILLORY

       THE LAST PEACH

       "ODES AND ADDRESSES TO GREAT PEOPLE"

       THE RELIGION OF ACTORS

       A POPULAR FALLACY

       REMINISCENCES OF JUKE JUDKINS, ESQ., OF BIRMINGHAM

       CONTRIBUTIONS TO HONE'S EVERY-DAY BOOK AND TABLE BOOK

       AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

       SHAKSPEARE'S IMPROVERS

       SATURDAY NIGHT

       ESTIMATE OF DE FOE'S SECONDARY NOVELS

       CLARENCE SONGS

       RECOLLECTIONS OF A LATE ROYAL ACADEMICIAN

       THE LATIN POEMS OF VINCENT BOURNE

       THE DEATH OF MUNDEN

       THOUGHTS ON PRESENTS OF GAME, &c.

       TABLE-TALK BY THE LATE ELIA

       THE DEATH OF COLERIDGE

       CUPID'S REVENGE

       APPENDIX

       THE MISCELLANY

       COMIC TALES, Etc.,

       DOG DAYS

       THE PROGRESS OF CANT

       MR. EPHRAIM WAGSTAFF, HIS WIFE, AND PIPE

       REVIEW OF MOXON'S SONNETS

       NOTES

       APPENDIX

      ROSAMUND GRAY

       Table of Contents

      (Written 1797–1798. First Edition 1798. Text of 1818)

       CHAPTER I

       CHAPTER II

       CHAPTER III

       CHAPTER IV

       CHAPTER V

       CHAPTER VI

       CHAPTER VII

       CHAPTER VIII

       CHAPTER IX

       CHAPTER X

       CHAPTER XI

       CHAPTER XII

       CHAPTER XIII

      CHAPTER I

       Table of Contents

      It was noontide. The sun was very hot. An old gentlewoman sat spinning in a little arbour at the door of her cottage. She was blind; and her grandaughter was reading the Bible to her. The old lady had just left her work, to attend to the story of Ruth.

      "Orpah kissed her mother-in-law; but Ruth clave unto her." It was a passage she could not let pass without a comment. The moral she drew from it was not very new, to be sure. The girl had heard it a hundred times before—and a hundred times more she could have heard it, without suspecting it to be tedious. Rosamund loved her grandmother.

      The old lady loved Rosamund too; and she had reason for so doing. Rosamund was to her at once a child and a servant. She had only her left in the world. They two lived together.

      They had once known better days. The story of Rosamund's parents, their failure, their folly, and distresses, may be told another time. Our tale hath grief enough in it.

      It was now about a year and a half since old Margaret Gray had sold off all her effects, to pay the debts of Rosamund's father—just after the mother had died of a broken heart; for her husband had fled his country to hide his shame in a foreign land. At that period the old lady retired to a small cottage, in the village of Widford, in Hertfordshire.

      Rosamund, in her thirteenth year, was left destitute, without fortune or friends: she went with her grandmother. In all this time she had served her faithfully and lovingly.

      Old Margaret Gray, when she first came into these parts, had eyes, and could see. The neighbours said, they had been dimmed by weeping: be that as it may, she was latterly grown quite blind. "God is very good to us, child; I can feel you yet." This she would sometimes say; and we need not wonder to hear, that Rosamund clave unto her grandmother.

      Margaret retained a spirit unbroken by calamity. There was a principle within, which it seemed as if no outward circumstances could reach. It was a religious principle, and she had taught it to Rosamund; for the girl had mostly resided with her grandmother from her earliest years.