The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Энн Бронте. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Энн Бронте
Издательство: HarperCollins
Серия:
Жанр произведения: Классическая проза
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9780007477531
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      THE TENANT

      OF WILDFELL

      HALL

      Anne Brontë

       DEDICATION

      To J. Halford, Esq.

      CONTENTS

       Cover

       Title Page

      Dedication

      Author’s Preface to the Second Edition

      Volume I

      CHAPTER 1: A Discovery

       CHAPTER 17: Further Warnings

       CHAPTER 18: The Miniature

       CHAPTER 19: An Incident

       Volume II

       CHAPTER 20: Persistence

       CHAPTER 21: Opinions

       CHAPTER 22: Traits of Friendship

       CHAPTER 23: First Weeks of Matrimony

       CHAPTER 24: First Quarrel

       CHAPTER 25: First Absence

       CHAPTER 26: The Guests

       CHAPTER 27: A Misdemeanour

       CHAPTER 28: Parental Feelings

       CHAPTER 29: The Neighbour

       CHAPTER 30: Domestic Scenes

       CHAPTER 31: Social Virtues

       CHAPTER 32: Comparisons: Information Rejected

       CHAPTER 33: Two Evenings

       CHAPTER 34: Concealment

       CHAPTER 35: Provocations

       CHAPTER 36: Dual Solitude

       CHAPTER 37: The Neighbour Again

       Volume III

       CHAPTER 38: The Injured Man

       CHAPTER 39: A Scheme of Escape

       CHAPTER 40: A Misadventure

       CHAPTER 41: ‘Hope Springs Eternal in the Human Breast’

       CHAPTER 42: A Reformation

       CHAPTER 43: The Boundary Passed

       CHAPTER 44: The Retreat

       CHAPTER 45: Reconciliation

       CHAPTER 46: Friendly Counsels

       CHAPTER 47: Startling Intelligence

       CHAPTER 48: Further Intelligence

       CHAPTER 49

       CHAPTER 50: Doubts and Disappointments

       CHAPTER 51: An Unexpected Occurrence

       CHAPTER 52: Fluctuations

       CHAPTER 53: Conclusion

       Classic Literature: Words and Phrases Adapted from the Collins English Dictionary

       About the Author

       History of Collins

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

       AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

      While I acknowledge the success of the present work to have been greater than I anticipated, and the praises it has elicited from a few kind critics to have been greater than it deserved, I must also admit that from some other quarters it has been censured with an asperity which I was as little prepared to expect, and which my judgment, as well as my feelings, assures me is more bitter than just. It is scarcely the province of an author to refute the arguments of his censors and vindicate his own productions; but I may be allowed to make here a few observations with which I would have prefaced the first edition, had I foreseen the necessity of such precautions against the misapprehensions of those who would read it with a prejudiced mind or be content to judge it by a hasty glance.

      My object in writing the following pages was not simply to amuse the Reader; neither was it to gratify my own taste, nor yet to ingratiate myself with the Press and the Public: I wished to tell the truth, for truth always conveys its own moral to those who are able to receive it. But as the priceless treasure too frequently hides at the bottom of a well, it needs some courage to dive for it, especially as he that does so will be likely to incur more scorn and obloquy for the mud and water into which he has ventured to plunge, than thanks for the jewel he procures; as, in like manner, she who undertakes the cleansing of a careless bachelor’s apartment will be liable to more abuse for the dust she raises than commendation for the clearance she effects. Let it not be imagined, however, that I consider myself competent to reform the errors and abuses of society, but only that I would fain contribute my humble quota towards so good an aim; and if I can gain the public ear at all, I would rather whisper a few wholesome truths therein than much soft nonsense.

      As the story of ‘Agnes Grey’ was accused of extravagant over-colouring in those very parts that were carefully copied from the life, with a most scrupulous avoidance of all exaggeration, so, in the present work, I find myself censured for depicting con amore, with ‘a morbid love of the coarse, if not of the brutal,’ those scenes which, I will venture to say, have not been more painful for the most fastidious of my critics to read than they were for me to describe. I may have gone too far; in which case I shall be careful not to trouble myself or my readers in the same way again; but when we have to do with vice and vicious characters, I maintain it is better to depict them as they really are than as they would wish to appear. To represent a bad thing in its least