Tales and Stories: Now First CollectedShelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
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Tales and Stories: Now First Collected
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
English fiction -- 19th century; Short stories, English
THIS slender narrative has no pretensions to the regularity of a story,
or the development of situations and feelings; it is but a slight
sketch, delivered nearly as it was narrated to me by one of the humblest
of the actors concerned: nor will I spin out a circumstance interesting
principally from its singularity and truth, but narrate, as concisely as
I can, how I was surprised on visiting what seemed a ruined tower,
crowning a bleak promontory overhanging the sea, that flows between
Wales and Ireland, to find that though the exterior preserved all the
savage rudeness that betokened many a war with the elements, the
interior was fitted up somewhat in the guise of a summer-house, for it
was too small to deserve any other name. It consisted but of the
ground-floor, which served as an entrance, and one room above, which was
reached by a staircase made out of the thickness of the wall. This
chamber was floored and carpeted, decorated with elegant furniture; and,
above all, to attract the attention and excite curiosity, there hung
over the chimney-piece—for to preserve the apartment from damp a
fireplace had been built evidently since it had assumed a guise so
dissimilar to the object of its construction—a picture simply painted in
water-colours, which deemed more than any part of the adornments of the
room to be at war with the rudeness of the building, the solitude in
which it was placed, and the desolation of the surrounding scenery. This
drawing represented a lovely girl in the very pride and bloom of youth;
her dress was simple, in the fashion of the beginning of the eighteenth
century; her countenance was embellished by a look of mingled innocence
and intelligence, to which was added the imprint of serenity of soul and
natural cheerfulness. She was reading one of those folio romances which
have so long been the delight of the enthusiastic and young; her
mandoline was at her feet—her parroquet perched on a huge mirror near
her; the arrangement of furniture and hangings gave token of a luxurious
dwelling, and her attire also evidently that of home and privacy, yet
bore with it an appearance of ease and girlish ornament, as if she
wished to please. Beneath this picture was inscribed in golden letters,
“The Invisible Girl.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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