Wenderholme.
A STORY OF LANCASHIRE AND YORKSHIRE.
BY
PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON,
AUTHOR OF "THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE," ETC.
"It takes a deal o' sorts to make a world."
Popular Proverb.
BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1876.
Author's Edition.
Cambridge:
Press of John Wilson and Son.
TO AN OLD LADY IN YORKSHIRE.
You remember a time when the country in which this story is placed wasquite different from what it is to-day; when the old proprietors livedin their halls undisturbed by modern innovation, and neither enriched bybuilding leases, nor humiliated by the rivalry of mighty manufacturers.You have seen wonderful changes come to pass,—the valleys filled withtowns, and the towns connected by railways, and the fields covered withsuburban villas. You have seen people become richer and more refined,though perhaps less merry, than they used to be; till the simple,unpretending life of the poorer gentlefolks of the past has become analmost incredible tradition, which few have preserved in their memory.
When this story was first written, some passages of it were read to you,and they reminded you of those strong contrasts in the life of the Northof England which are now so rapidly disappearing. Wenderholme istherefore associated with you in my mind as one of its first hearers,and I dedicate it to you affectionately.
PREFACE
TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.
It happened, some time before this story was originally composed, thatthe author had a conversation, about the sale of novels, with one of themost eminent publishers of fiction in London.[1] The result of hisexperience was, that in the peculiar conditions of the English marketshort novels did not pay, whilst long ones, of the same quality, were amuch safer investment. Having incurred several successive losses onshort novels, my friend, the publisher, had made up his mind never tohave any thing more to do with them, and strongly recommended me, if Iattempted a work of fiction, to go boldly into three volumes at once,and not discourage myself by making an experiment on a smaller scale,which would only make failure a certainty. The reader may easily imaginethe effect of such a conversation as this upon an author who, whatevermay have been his experience in other departments of literature, hadnone at all in the publication of novels. The practical consequence ofit was, that, when the present story was written, commercial reasonsprevailed, as they unhappily so often do prevail, over artistic[Pg viii]reasons, and the book was made far longer than, as a work of art, itought to have been.
The present edition, though greatly abridged, is not by any means, fromthe author's point of view, a mutilated edition. On the contrary, itrather resembles a building of moderate dimensions, from whichexcrescences have been removed. The architect has been careful topreserve every thing essential, and equally careful to take away everything which had been added merely for the sake of size. The work istherefore at the present time much nearer in cha