A Modern Chronicle [Hardcover]

Winston Churchill (Author), J. H. Gardner Soper (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 25, 2007

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III Concerning Providence What quality was it in Honora that compelled Bridget to stop her ironing on Tuesdays in order to make hot waffles for a young woman who was late to breakfast? Bridget, who would have filled the kitchen with righteous wrath if Aunt Mary had transgressed the rules of the house, which were like the laws of the Medes and Persians! And in Honora's early youth Mary Ann, the housemaid, spent more than one painful evening writing home for cockle shells and other articles to propitiate our princess, who rewarded her with a winning smile and a kiss, which invariably melted the honest girl into tears. The Queen of Scots never had a more devoted chamber woman than old Catherine, who would have gone to the stake with a smile to save her little lady a single childish ill, and who spent her savings, until severely taken to task by Aunt Mary, upon objects for which a casual wish had been expressed. The saints themselves must at times have been aweary from hearing Honora's name. Not to speak of Christmas! Christmas in the little house was one wild delirium of joy. The night before the festival was, to all outward appearances, an ordinary evening, when Uncle Tom sat by the fire in his slippers, as usual, scouting the idea that there would be any Christmas at all. Aunt Mary sewed, and talked with maddening calmness of the news of the day; but for Honora the air was charged with coming events of the first magnitude. The very furniture of the little sitting-room had a different air, the room itself wore a mysterious aspect, and the cannel-coal fire seemed to give forth a special quality of unearthly light. "Is to-morrow Christmas?" Uncle Tom would exclaim. "Bless me! Honora, I am so glad you reminded me." "Now, Uncle Tom, you knewitwas Christmas all the...

Product Details

• Hardcover: 536 pages
• Publisher: Kessinger Publishing, LLC (July 25, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0548016224
• ISBN-13: 978-0548016220
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Money and position aren't everything (in case you didn't know), July 5, 2006

By 

Bomojaz (South Central PA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Modern Chronicle (Hardcover)

How many stories and novels have been written about the pursuance of wealth and position only to find that, once achieved, neither offers much happiness? Well, here's another one. Honora Leffingwell is born into wealth, but when her parents die in an accident, she is raised by a middle-class aunt and uncle in St. Louis. She dreams of the good life, especially of the upper crust in social position, and her chance comes when a rich schoolmate invites her to spend some time at her mansion. Her head spins with the possibilities, especially when she's introduced to a number of eligible bachelors. She chooses to marry Howard Spence, a rising stockbroker. But when Honora realizes he's good at making money (it's his abiding passion) but not so hot in introducing her into society, she grows tired of him. When she meets the handsome and dynamic and well placed Hugh Chiltern, she decides to divorce Howard and marry him. Churchill spends a good deal of time with the details of this divorce, which ends up occurring in Reno, because he's very much appalled by it all.

Honora is aware that her actions will seem shocking to Chiltern's society she so desperately wants to be a part of, but thought they would accept her at last. How wrong she is! They shun her like the plague, and then Hugh turns out to be no knight in shining armor; when he dies in a riding accident, she moves to Paris and spends years repenting her foolish ambitions and destructive ways. And here's where the book should end, but Churchill couldn't imagine a novel without a happy ending, no matter how insincere. So he re-introduces Peter Erwin, a young man Honora had thrown over for Howard because he couldn't offer her the wealth and position she most wanted then to insure his happy ending. But it's terrible, corny and trite, and almost ruins the whole book, much of which has been pretty good. Up to that ending it was, without a doubt, Churchill's best novel. Honora, the main character, is well drawn by the author and retains our interest throughout the story. His satire of Howard Spence's devotion to money-making, no matter how shady the circumstances, is also well done. And the scenes of Chiltern's society people raising their venomous heads in opposition to Honora are powerful. But if only he had left Mr. Erwin out of the book! The book offers an interesting view of the "divorce question," circa 1910, though, and a well-written account of yet another woman (in this case) who learns the hard way that money and society aren't everything.