Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER III MARY-ANN Mv youthful studies have developed in me at least one passion that has absorbed all otherscuriosity. Until the day I set out for Athens my greatest glory in life was to learn; and my greatest sorrow to be obliged to acknowledge myself an ignoramus. I loved science as a man does his mistress, and hitherto nothing had disputed her place in my heart. On the other hand, I had but little sensibility, and sentiment rarely troubled me. I went about the world with a magnifyingglass, as though the said world were a colossal museum. The pleasures and sufferings of others seemed to me worthy of study, but unworthy either of envy or pity. I could no more feel jealous of a happy married couple than of a pair of palm-trees growing side by side; and I had just as much compassion for a broken heart as for a geranium shrivelled by the frost. One is not easily shocked if one ever has vivisected a rat, and I frankly own that I should have thoroughly enjoyed a combat of gladiators. The love of Photini for John Harris would have excited pity in any one else but a naturalist. To use Henri IV's expression, the poor creature "loved at random," and it was pretty evident that her love never would be requited. She was too timid to express it; John, too careless to divine its existence. Even if he had suspected the true state of her heart, how could so ugly a creature excite the slightest emotion in so handsome a man? Photini passed all the four Sundays of April with us. She gazed adoringly at Harris from morning to night with languishing, longing eyes, but never found courage to open her lips in his presence. Harris whistled quietly, Dimitrius growled like a whipped puppy, and I smiled at these queer manifestations of a malady from which my...