Oke of Okehurst - or, A Phantom Lover. Vernon Lee
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Название: Oke of Okehurst - or, A Phantom Lover

Автор: Vernon Lee

Издательство: Ingram

Жанр: Публицистика: прочее

Серия:

isbn: 9781473360730

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      OKE OF

      OKEHURST

      OR,

      A PHANTOM LOVER

       Fantasy & Horror Classics

       By

      VERNON LEE

       First published in 1886

      Copyright © 2020 Fantasy and Horror Classics

      This edition is published by Fantasy and Horror Classics,

      an imprint of Read & Co.

      This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in

      any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing.

      British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

      Read & Co. is part of Read Books Ltd.

      For more information visit

      www.readandcobooks.co.uk

      To

      Count Peter

      Boutourline, at Tagantcha,

      Government of Kiew, Russia.

      Contents

       Vernon Lee

       A LETTER

       I

       II

       III

       IV

       V

       VI

       VII

       VIII

       IX

       X

      Vernon Lee

      Violet Paget—who wrote under the pseudonym ‘Vernon Lee’—was born at Château St Leonard, Boulogne, France in 1856.

      She spent most of her life in Continental Europe, although she published most of her work in Britain, and made many trips to London.

      Lee’s literary output was hugely varied; covering nearly forty volumes, it ranged from music criticism and travelogues to novels and academic essays.

      Her first major work was Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy (1880), and at her peak she was considered a major authority on the Italian Renaissance.

      She also contributed much to the philosophical study of aesthetics. However, she is probably best-remembered for her supernatural short fiction, most notably her 1890 collection Hauntings.

      Lee died in 1935.

      A LETTER

      My Dear Boutourline,

      Do you remember my telling you, one afternoon that you sat upon the hearthstool at Florence, the story of Mrs. Oke of Okehurst?

      You thought it a fantastic tale, you lover of fantastic things, and urged me to write it out at once, although I protested that, in such matters, to write is to exorcise, to dispel the charm; and that printers' ink chases away the ghosts that may pleasantly haunt us, as efficaciously as gallons of holy water.

      But if, as I suspect, you will now put down any charm that story may have possessed to the way in which we had been working ourselves up, that firelight evening, with all manner of fantastic stuff—if, as I fear, the story of Mrs. Oke of Okehurst will strike you as stale and unprofitable—the sight of this little book will serve at least to remind you, in the middle of your Russian summer, that there is such a season as winter, such a place as Florence, and such a person as your friend,

      Vernon Lee

      Kensington, July 1886.

      Oke of Okehurst

      or,

      A PHANTOM LOVER

      I

      That sketch up there with the boy's cap? Yes; that's the same woman. I wonder whether you could guess who she was. A singular being, is she not? The most marvellous creature, quite, that I have ever met: a wonderful elegance, exotic, far-fetched, poignant; an artificial perverse sort of grace and research in every outline and movement and arrangement of head and neck, and hands and fingers. Here are a lot of pencil sketches I made while I was preparing to paint her portrait. Yes; there's nothing but her in the whole sketchbook. Mere scratches, but they may give some idea of her marvellous, fantastic kind of grace. Here she is leaning over the staircase, and here sitting in the swing. Here she is walking quickly out of the room. That's her head. You see she isn't really handsome; her forehead is too big, and her nose too short. This gives no idea of her. It was altogether a question of movement. Look at the strange cheeks, hollow and rather flat; well, when she smiled she had the most marvellous dimples here. There was something exquisite and uncanny about it. Yes; I began the picture, but it was never finished. I did the husband first. I wonder who has his likeness now? Help me to move these pictures away from the wall. Thanks. This is her portrait; a huge wreck. I don't suppose you can make much of it; it is merely blocked in, and seems quite mad. You see my idea was to make her leaning against a wall—there was one hung with yellow that seemed almost brown—so as to bring out the silhouette.

      It was very singular I should have chosen СКАЧАТЬ