The Ordeal of Richard Feverel by George Meredith 1905 Contents BOOK 1. CHAPTER I. THE INMATES OF RAYNHAM ABBEY CHAPTER II. SHOWING HOW THE FATES SELECTED THE FOURTEENTH BIRTHDAY TO TRY THE STRENGTH OF THE SYSTEM CHAPTER III. THE MAGIAN CONFLICT CHAPTER IV. ARSON CHAPTER V. ADRIAN PLIES HIS HOOK CHAPTER VI. JUVENILE STRATAGEMS CHAPTER VII. DAPHNE'S BOWER CHAPTER VIII. THE BITTER CUP CHAPTER IX. A FINE DISTINCTION CHAPTER X. RICHARD PASSES THROUGH HIS PRELIMINARY ORDEAL, AND IS THE OCCASION OF AN APHORISM CHAPTER XI. IN WHICH THE LAST ACT OF THE BAKEWELL COMEDY IS CLOSED IN A LETTER BOOK 1. CHAPTER I Some years ago a book was published under the title of "The Pilgrim's Scrip." It consisted of a selection of original aphorisms by an anonymous gentleman, who in this bashful manner gave a bruised heart to the world. He made no pretension to novelty. "Our new thoughts have thrilled dead bosoms," he wrote; by which avowal it may be seen that youth had manifestly gone from him, since he had ceased to be jealous of the ancients. There was a half-sigh floating through his pages for those days of intellectual coxcombry, when ideas come to us affecting the embraces of virgins, and swear to us they are ours alone, and no one else have they ever visited: and we believe them. For an example of his ideas of the sex he said: "I expect that Woman will be the last thing civilized by Man." Some excitement was produced in the bosoms of ladies by so monstrous a scorn of them. One adventurous person betook herself to the Heralds' College, and there ascertained that a Griffin between two Wheatsheaves, which stood on the title-page of the book, formed the crest of Sir Austin Absworthy Bearne Feverel, Baronet, of Raynham Abbey, in a certain Western county folding Thames: a man of wealth and honour, and a somewhat lamentable history.