Jennie Gerhardt: A Novel

The father of this unfortunate family, William Gerhardt, was a man of considerable interest on his personal side. Born in the kingdom of Saxony, he had had character enough to o...

Gerhardt, having become an inmate of the Hyde Park home, at once bestirred himself about the labors which he felt instinctively concerned him. He took charge of the furnace and...

One morning, in the fall of 1880, a middle-aged woman, accompanied by a young girl of eighteen, presented herself at the clerk's desk of the principal hotel in Columbus, Ohio, a...

The junior Senator, George Sylvester Brander, was a man of peculiar mold. In him there were joined, to a remarkable degree, the wisdom of the opportunist and the sympathetic nat...

Having been led by circumstances into an attitude of obligation toward the Senator, it was not unnatural that Jennie should become imbued with a most generous spirit of apprecia...

The days of man under the old dispensation, or, rather, according to that supposedly biblical formula, which persists, are threescore years and ten. It is so ingrained in the ra...

The drift of events for a period of five years carried Lester and Jennie still farther apart; they settled naturally into their respective spheres, without the renewal of the ol...

During the three years in which Jennie and Lester had been associated there had grown up between them a strong feeling of mutual sympathy and understanding. Lester truly loved h...

The trouble with Jennie's plan was that it did not definitely take into consideration Lester's attitude. He did care for her in an elemental way, but he was hedged about by the...

It was while traveling abroad that Lester came across, first at the Carlton in London and later at Shepheards in Cairo, the one girl, before Jennie, whom it might have been said...

The desire to flee which Jennie experienced upon seeing the Senator again was attributable to what she considered the disgrace of her position. She was ashamed to think that he,...

Jennie took the paper with but ill-concealed trembling and went into the adjoining room. There she stood by the front window and looked at it again, a sickening sensation of dre...

The business of arranging for this sudden departure was really not so difficult as it first appeared. Jennie proposed to tell her mother the whole truth, and there was nothing t...

The end came after four days during which Jennie was by his bedside almost constantly. The nurse in charge welcomed her at first as a relief and company, but the physician was i...

The fact that Lester had seen this page was made perfectly clear to Jennie that evening, for he brought it home himself, having concluded, after mature deliberation, that he oug...

The social and business worlds of Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and other cities saw, during the year or two which followed the breaking of his relationship with Jennie, a cur...

The reason why Jennie had been called was nothing more than one of those infantile seizures the coming and result of which no man can predict two hours beforehand. Vesta had bee...

Lester had thought of his predicament earnestly enough, and he would have been satisfied to act soon if it had not been that one of those disrupting influences which sometimes c...

Gerhardt was in despair; he did not know any one to whom he could appeal between the hours of two and nine o'clock in the morning. He went back to talk with his wife, and then t...

The little town of Sandwood, "this side of Kenosha," as Jennie had expressed it, was only a short distance from Chicago, an hour and fifteen minutes by the local train. It had a...

The fact that Gerhardt was dead made no particular difference to Lester, except as it affected Jennie. He had liked the old German for his many sterling qualities, but beyond th...

The explanation which Lester had concluded to be inevitable, whether it led to separation or legalization of their hitherto banal condition, followed quickly upon the appearance...

During this period the dissatisfaction of the Kane family with Lester's irregular habit of life grew steadily stronger. That it could not help but become an open scandal, in the...

For three years now Lester had been happy in the companionship of Jennie. Irregular as the connection might be in the eyes of the church and of society, it had brought him peace...

Bass met Jennie at the depot in Cleveland and talked hopefully of the prospects. "The first thing is to get work," he began, while the jingling sounds and the changing odors whi...

This added blow from inconsiderate fortune was quite enough to throw Jennie back into that state of hyper-melancholia from which she had been drawn with difficulty during the fe...

It would be useless to chronicle the events of the three years that followed--events and experiences by which the family grew from an abject condition of want to a state of comp...

The fatal Friday came, and Jennie stood face to face with this new and overwhelming complication in her modest scheme of existence. There was really no alternative, she thought....

Now that his engagement to Mrs. Gerald was an accomplished, fact, Lester found no particular difficulty in reconciling himself to the new order of things; undoubtedly it was all...

The following spring the show-rooms and warehouse were completed, and Lester removed his office to the new building. Heretofore, he had been transacting all his business affairs...

While the real estate deal was in progress Mrs. Gerald decided to move to Chicago. She had been staying in Cincinnati for a few months, and had learned a great deal as to the re...

The arrival of this letter, coming after a week of silence and after she had had a chance to think, moved Jennie deeply. What did she want to do? What ought she to do? How did s...

Jennie was now going through the agony of one who has a varied and complicated problem to confront. Her baby, her father, her brothers, and sisters all rose up to confront her....

The return of Gerhardt brought forward the child question in all its bearings. He could not help considering it from the standpoint of a grandparent, particularly since it was a...

The shock of this sudden encounter was so great to Jennie that she was hours in recovering herself. At first she did not understand clearly just what had happened. Out of clear...

In the meantime Jennie had been going through a moral crisis of her own. For the first time in her life, aside from the family attitude, which had afflicted her greatly, she rea...

During the remainder of Gerhardt's stay he was shy in Jennie's presence and endeavored to act as though he were unconscious of her existence. When the time came for parting he e...

This attempt at coercion was the one thing which would definitely set Lester in opposition to his family, at least for the time being. He had realized clearly enough of late tha...

The significance of the material and spiritual changes which sometimes overtake us are not very clear at the time. A sense of shock, a sense of danger, and then apparently we su...

Certain processes of the all-mother, the great artificing wisdom of the power that works and weaves in silence and in darkness, when viewed in the light of the established opini...

The inconclusive nature of this interview, exciting as it was, did not leave any doubt in either Lester Kane's or Jennie's mind; certainly this was not the end of the affair. Ka...

In the meantime Jennie was going her way, settling herself in the markedly different world in which henceforth she was to move. It seemed a terrible thing at first--this life wi...

The trip home did bring another week with Mrs. Gerald, for after mature consideration she had decided to venture to America for a while. Chicago and Cincinnati were her destinat...

That night after dinner the music was already sounding in the ball-room of the great hotel adjacent to the palm-gardens when Mrs. Gerald found Lester smoking on one of the veran...

The world into which Jennie was thus unduly thrust forth was that in which virtue has always vainly struggled since time immemorial; for virtue is the wishing well and the doing...

There was peace and quiet for some time after this storm. Jennie went the next day and brought Vesta away with her. The joy of the reunion between mother and child made up for m...

"I don't want to be inquisitive, Lester. I didn't come up for that. I'm simply here because the family felt that I ought to come. Mother was so very much distressed that I could...

But worse was to follow. The American public likes gossip about well-known people, and the Kanes were wealthy and socially prominent. The report was that Lester, one of its prin...

The peculiarity of this particular proposition was that it had the basic elements of success. Mr. Ross had the experience and the judgment which were quite capable of making a s...

The problem of the Gerhardt family and its relationship to himself comparatively settled, Kane betook himself to Cincinnati and to his business duties. He was heartily intereste...

Bass was no sooner in Cleveland than the marvel of that growing city was sufficient to completely restore his equanimity of soul and to stir up new illusions as to the possibili...

The sullen, philosophic Lester was not so determined upon his future course of action as he appeared to be. Stern as was his mood, he did not see, after all, exactly what ground...

The days spent in the employ of the Bracebridge household were of a broadening character. This great house was a school to Jennie, not only in the matter of dress and manners, b...

Lester had been doing some pretty hard thinking, but so far he had been unable to formulate any feasible plan for his re-entrance into active life. The successful organization o...

For a man of Lester's years--he was now forty-six--to be tossed out in the world without a definite connection, even though he did have a present income (including this new ten...

The spirit of Jennie--who shall express it? This daughter of poverty, who was now to fetch and carry the laundry of this distinguished citizen of Columbus, was a creature of a m...

A month later Jennie was able to announce that Lester intended to marry her. His visits had of course paved the way for this, and it seemed natural enough. Only Gerhardt seemed...

Lester returned to Chicago. He realized that he had offended his father seriously, how seriously he could not say. In all his personal relations with old Archibald he had never...

It is difficult to say whether Lester might not have returned to Jennie after all but for certain influential factors. After a time, with his control of his portion of the estat...

The plan for a residence in Hyde Park was not long in taking shape. After several weeks had passed, and things had quieted down again, Lester invited Jennie to go with him to So...

In this world of ours the activities of animal life seem to be limited to a plane or circle, as if that were an inherent necessity to the creatures of a planet which is perforce...

He led the way back to the sitting-room where they chatted over business and home news until the chime of the clock in the hall warned the guests up-stairs that dinner had been...

Outraged in her family pride, Louise lost no time in returning to Cincinnati, where she told the story of her discovery, embellished with many details. According to her, she was...