This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.
Chapter 1 * * *
DEDICATION
My Dear John Berwick,
When you read her history in MS. you thought well of "Stella Fregelius" and urged her introduction to the world. Therefore I ask you, my severe and accomplished critic, to accept the burden of a book for which you are to some extent responsible. Whatever its fate, at least it has pleased you and therefore has not been written quite in vain.
H. Rider Haggard.
Ditchingham,
25th August, 1903.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
The author feels that he owes some apology to his readers for his boldness in offering to them a modest story which is in no sense a romance of the character that perhaps they expect from him; which has, moreover, few exciting incidents and no climax of the accustomed order, since the end of it only indicates its real beginning.
His excuse must be that, in the first instance, he wrote it purely to please himself and now publishes it in the hope that it may please some others. The problem of such a conflict, common enough mayhap did we but know it, between a departed and a present personality, of which the battle-ground is a bereaved human heart and the prize its complete possession; between earthly duty and spiritual desire also; was one that had long attracted him. Finding at length a few months of leisure, he treated the difficult theme, not indeed as he would have wished to do, but as best he could.
He may explain further that when he drafted this book, now some five years ago, instruments of the nature of the "aerophone" were not so much talked of as they are to-day. In fact this aerophone has little to do with his characters or their history, and the main motive of its introduction to his pages was to suggest how powerless are all such material means to bring within mortal reach the transcendental and unearthly ends which, with their aid, were attempted by Morris Monk.
These, as that dreamer learned, must be far otherwise obtained, whether in truth and spirit, or perchance, in visions only.
Chapter 1 * * *
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Chapter 2 MORRIS, MARY, AND THE AEROPHONE
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Chapter 3 THE COLONEL AND SOME REFLECTIONS
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Chapter 4 "POOR PORSON"
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Chapter 5 MARY PREACHES AND THE COLONEL PREVAILS
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Chapter 6 A PROPOSAL AND A PROMISE
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Chapter 7 THE GOOD OLD DAYS
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Chapter 8 BEAULIEU
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Chapter 9 THE SUNK ROCKS AND THE SINGER
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Chapter 10 MISS FREGELIUS
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Chapter 11 DAWN AND THE LAND
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Chapter 12 A MORNING SERVICE
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Chapter 13 MR. LAYARD'S WOOING
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Chapter 14 TWO QUESTIONS, AND THE ANSWER
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Chapter 15 THE RETURN OF THE COLONEL
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Chapter 16 THREE INTERVIEWS
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Chapter 17 A MARRIAGE AND AFTER
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Chapter 18 THE RETURN OF MARY
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Chapter 19 TWO EXPLANATIONS
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Chapter 20 MORRIS, THE MARRIED MAN
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Chapter 21 STELLA'S DIARY
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Chapter 22 THE END OF STELLA'S DIARY
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Chapter 23 THE EVIL GATE
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Chapter 24 STELLA COMES
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Chapter 25 DREAMS AND THE SLEEP
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