Ducdame
Language: English
Pages: 468
ISBN: 0571242146
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Ducdame was John Cowper Powys' fourth novel published in 1925. It is set in Dorset. The protagonist, Rook Ashover (a wonderfully Powysian name) is an introverted young squire with a dilemma: to go on loving his mistress, Netta Page, or, make a respectable marriage and produce an heir. Of his early novels (pre- Wolf Solent) this one is often considered to be the most carefully constructed and best organized. Like them all it contains a gallery of rich, complex characters and glorious writing.
Concerto to the Memory of an Angel
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
due to ’ee, Mr. Ash’ver, seeing as you’re Squire and such-like, to let ’ee know how the wind be blowing!” “All right, Twiney; I’m much obliged to you, Twiney; but you mustn’t listen to the village gossip, you know. Good-day to you!” And with unctuous discretion on his tongue but black anger in his heart he strode down the lane. So this was why he had been seeing so little of Lexie during the last fortnight! The rogue had stolen a march on him and had been up to serious mischief with that
father amid the rich loam of Sedgemoor, no one will ever know. There are instinctive actions and gestures of human beings, especially at some great crisis of drastic events such as was then gathering about these people, which will always retain an element of the grotesque and the inexplicable. “I’ll come with you to the village, Pandie,” said the young man, breaking in upon her trance. “Here! For God’s sake drop that rake of yours and pull yourself together! What’s the matter with you, woman?”
children. The wind was still blowing so violently that the rough naphtha-lighted tent, in the midst of which the wooden horses gyrated, shook and shivered and tugged at its supports to such an alarming degree that the older villagers hesitated to enter for fear of having the whole thing come down about their ears. Lexie led Nell to the rear of a little crowd of wind-blown spectators who were standing at the entrance to the tent. “It’s late in the year, isn’t it, for this kind of thing?” he
lithograph of the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, at the old man’s Sunday clothes hanging on wooden pegs, at the mother-of-pearl shells on the little mahogany table, at the shiny horsehair armchair, at the spotted china dogs that glowered at each other from red-tasselled brackets. Finally he could stand it no more. “I’ll have a breath of air,” he said to himself. “A breath of air, Uncle Dick,” he repeated aloud, apostrophizing the form on the bed. “I hope she won’t think I’m running away,” he thought
natural and innocent snobbishness mingled with a quaint personal hero worship‚ the young clergyman was quick enough to catch every emotional nuance of this unexpected visit. “I’m proud to be the one to launch you,” he kept repeating‚ as he dragged them out again, up Antiger Street, up South Street, until they reached the necessary office. The place was closed; but the energetic curate, with his knowledge of local ways, was able to follow up the official trail to such excellent effect that
