The Cathedral: A Novel

It must certainly be difficult for chroniclers of contemporary history to determine significant dates to define the beginning and end of succeeding periods. But I fancy that any...

He could neither force nor falsify this emotion. If he did not feel it he did not feel it, and himself was the loser. But it sometimes occurred that the weather was bright, that...

Every one has known, at one time or another in life, that strange unexpected calm that always falls like sudden snow on a storm-tossed country, after some great crisis or upheav...

I find it difficult now to realise how apart from the life of the world Polchester was in those days. Even now, when the War has shaken up and jostled together every small villa...

She had never had hysterics before; the fit came upon her now when she was sitting in front of her glass brushing her hair. She was dressing for dinner and could see her reflect...

Ronder sat in his study waiting for young Falk Brandon. The books smiled down upon him from their white shelves; because the spring evening was chill a fire glittered and sparkl...

It was a strange truth that until this return of his from Oxford he had never considered his mother at all. It was not that he had grown to disregard her, as do many sons, becau...

Brandon was not surprised when, on the morning after Falk's escape, his son was not present at family prayers. That was not a ceremony that Falk had ever appreciated. Joan was t...

Ronder had now spent several months in Polchester and was able to come to an opinion about it, and the opinion that he had come to was that he could be very comfortable there. H...

Archdeacon Brandon had surmounted with surprising celerity the shock of Falk's unexpected return. He was helped to this firstly by his confident belief in a God who had him espe...

Joan was in her hedroom preparing for the Ball. It was now only half-past six and the Ball was not until half-past nine, but Mr. Mumphit, the be-curled, the be-scented young ass...

Adam Brandon was born at Little Empton in Kent in 1839. He was educated at the King's School, Canterbury, and at Pembroke College, Cambridge. Ordained in 1863, he was first cura...

Dear Joan--Mother has been here. I could get nothing out of her. I had only one thing to say--that she must go back to father. That was the one thing that she asserted, over and...

Falk Brandon was still, in reality, a boy. He, of course, did not know this and would have been very indignant had any one told him so; it was nevertheless the truth.

There was nothing either strange or unusual about this. Having had all his life the conviction that he and God were on the most intimate of terms, that God knew and understood h...

As Brandon left the Cathedral Ronder came up to him. Brandon, with bowed head, had turned into the Cloisters, although that was not the quickest way to his home. The two men wer...

Brandon had been talking to the Precentor at the far end of the ballroom, when suddenly Ronder had appeared in their midst. Appeared the only word! And Brandon, armoured, he had...

May is the finest month of all the year in Glebeshire. The days are warm but not too hot; the sky is blue but not too blue, the air is soft but with a touch of sharpness The val...

I must have been thirteen or fourteen years of age--it may have been indeed in this very year '97--when I first read Stevenson's story of _Treasure Island_. It is the fashion, I...

On the morning of the Chapter Meeting Ronder went in through the West door, intending to cross the nave by the Cloisters. Just as he closed the heavy door behind him there spran...

Every one has, at one time or another, known the experience of watching some friend or acquaintance moved suddenly from the ordinary atmosphere of every day into some dramatic r...

The Great Day arrived, escorted sumptuously with skies of burning blue. How many heads looked out of how many windows, the country over, that morning! In Polchester it was consi...

Mrs. Brandon hated her husband. No one in Polchester had the slightest suspicion of this; certainly her husband least of all. She herself had been first aware of it one summer a...

That night he slept well and soundly, and in the morning woke tranquil and refreshed. His life seemed suddenly to have taken a new turn. As he lay there and watched the sunlight...

The train that brought Falk Brandon back to Polchester brought also the Ronders--Frederick Ronder, newly Canon of Polchester, and his aunt, Miss Alice Ronder. About them the sta...

Joan came home about seven o'clock that evening. Dinner was at half-past seven, and after dinner she was going to the Deanery to watch the Torchlight Procession from the Deanery...

Later, that day, she went from the house. It was a strange evening. Two different weathers seemed to have met over the Polchester streets. First there was the deep serene beauty...

The cloud seemed to creep like smoke from the funnel of the Cathedral tower. The sun was setting in a fiery wreath of bubbling haze, shading in rosy mist the mountains of grey s...

I. June 17, Thursday: Anticipation II. Friday, June 18: Shadow Meets Shadow III. Saturday, June 19: The Ball IV. Sunday, June 20: In the Bedroom V. Tuesday, June 22: I. The Cath...

I. Five O'Clock--The Green Cloud II. Souls on Sunday III. The May-Day Prologue IV. The Genial Heart V. Falk by the River VI. Falk's Flight VII. Brandon Puts On His Armour VIII....

I. Brandons II. Ronders III. One of Joan's Days IV. The Impertinent Elephan V. Mrs. Brandon Goes Out to Tea VI. Seatown Mist and Cathedral Dust VII. Ronder's Day VIII. Son--Father