Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Return Of The Soul 1896
    The Return Of The Soul 1896
    The Return Of The Soul 1896
    Ebook102 pages1 hour

    The Return Of The Soul 1896

    By Robert Smythe Hichens

    ()

    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 25, 2013
    The Return Of The Soul 1896

    Read more from Robert Smythe Hichens

    Related to The Return Of The Soul 1896

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      You only LIVE TWICE

      Apr 14, 2020

      You only LIVE TWICE
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Volcano That Shrouded the Earth and Gave Birth to a Monster

      Oct 5, 2017

      Two hundred years ago, the greatest eruption in Earth’s recorded history took place. Mount Tambora—located on Sumbawa Island in the East Indies—blew itself up with apocalyptic force in April 1815. After perhaps 1,000 years’ dormancy, the devastating

      18 min read

    • Article

      View And Manage Your IPhone Widgets

      Aug 15, 2019

      Although it’s fair to say that many of us overlook widgets, they can be very useful. By grabbing snippets of information from apps and services or allowing easy access to a specific feature, they’re invariably productive or fun. Apple thinks so, whic

      1 min read

    • Article

      I Am The Tooth Fairy

      Nov 1, 2020

      I Am The Tooth Fairy
      6 min read

    • Article

      Whom He May Devour: Saving her planet would ban her from paradise.

      Jan 7, 2016

      Lydia watched Ahad play the guitar. He leaned against a boulder, eyes shut, his face positioned to catch the last warm rays of the setting sun. His long, slender fingers caressed the strings, producing a slow, haunting melody. The music almost made h

      17 min read

    • Article

      Queen Of Salt

      Feb 6, 2020

      Queen Of Salt
      10 min read

    • Article

      Mrs Macarthur’s Secret Diary

      Jun 17, 2020

      Mrs Macarthur’s Secret Diary
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Inherited Imagination

      Aug 18, 2020

      The Inherited Imagination
      9 min read

    • Article

      Mrs Macarthur’s Secret Diary

      Jun 17, 2020

      Mrs Macarthur’s Secret Diary
      7 min read

    • Article

      Unlearnable Lessons on My Father’s Deathbed

      Mar 21, 2017

      I was at my father’s side much of the time in his final weeks, a witness to both the gifts and miseries of being near death. Nurses came and went, patient, long-suffering. They sat beside him for hours at a time, dousing spongy lollipops in water and

      5 min read

    • Article

      Six Sonnets

      Jan 1, 2021

      Goldenrod, I could say, you know, everybody wants somethingfrom me, but, well, everybody wants something and nobody wantsnothing from me, goldenrod, towhead, beast. Goldenrod, you packthe meadows like gold-plated sardines. I have heart palpitationsbu

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Last Friend on Earth

      May 4, 2023

      It was as if Doreen Saunders had been waiting for me, passing the time until my arrival. She might as well have been sitting in a rocking chair, knitting needles clicking, jam tarts cooling on the side, the door wide open, waiting for the next visito

      6 min read

    • Article

      Holiday For One

      Mar 24, 2023

      Holiday For One
      4 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Nov 1, 2022

      Day after Thanksgiving. I give thanks for Eveto beat the rush of appreciating hernext year and let her sleep inuntil three hundred o’clock.Thank you light on the mountainfor being my star on cloudy nights.Thank you all the guns I’ve never ownedand ki

      6 min read

    • Article

      A WING AND a prayer

      Sep 28, 2021

      A raven saved my life Cate McMurray, 47, from West Midlands I ’d always known I was different. As a small child, I used to see and hear people who weren’t there. One day, I was playing hide ‘n’ seek with my two sisters, and tucked myself away in a cu

      4 min read

    • Article

      My Best Friend

      Oct 1, 2020

      My Best Friend
      6 min read

    • Article

      Journey To Solace

      Aug 12, 2019

      Journey To Solace
      5 min read

    • Article

      You’ve Heard This Before, The Only Way Out Is Through.

      Jul 1, 2019

      When my family burnt it all, weeven burnt the dolls. I writeabout this all the time, but have youever seen anything like it? A pitof ashes and dozens of porcelainhands, sprouting up like girlishweeds. So far in this life, I haveheard a number of unac

      2 min read

    • Article

      Bloodlines and Bitter Syrup

      Sep 1, 2020

      Bloodlines and Bitter Syrup
      18 min read

    • Article

      A Lost Cause

      Dec 6, 2020

      A Lost Cause
      9 min read

    • Article

      To Live a Little

      Oct 3, 2022

      To Live a Little
      13 min read

    • Article

      My father MY HERO

      Apr 30, 2020

      My father MY HERO
      4 min read

    • Article

      My Funny, Angry Dad

      Mar 19, 2022

      My Funny, Angry Dad
      6 min read

    • Article

      Ashleigh Bryant Phillips

      Jun 10, 2020

      Ashleigh Bryant Phillips
      6 min read

    Reviews for The Return Of The Soul 1896

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Return Of The Soul 1896 - Robert Smythe Hichens

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Return Of The Soul, by Robert S. Hichens

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

      Title: The Return Of The Soul

             1896

      Author: Robert S. Hichens

      Release Date: November 8, 2007 [EBook #23419]

      Last Updated: December 17, 2012

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RETURN OF THE SOUL ***

      Produced by David Widger

      THE RETURN OF THE SOUL

      By Robert S. Hichens

      1896

          I have been here before, But when, or how, I cannot tell!

          Rossetti.

      Contents

      I.

      Tuesday Night, November 3rd.

      Theories! What is the good of theories? They are the scourges that lash our minds in modern days, lash them into confusion, perplexity, despair. I have never been troubled by them before. Why should I be troubled by them now? And the absurdity of Professor Black's is surely obvious. A child would laugh at it. Yes, a child! I have never been a diary writer. I have never been able to understand the amusement of sitting down late at night and scrawling minutely in some hidden book every paltry incident of one's paltry days. People say it is so interesting to read the entries years afterwards. To read, as a man, the menu that I ate through as a boy, the love-story that I was actor in, the tragedy that I brought about, the debt that I have never paid—how could it profit me? To keep a diary has always seemed to me merely an addition to the ills of life. Yet now I have a hidden book, like the rest of the world, and I am scrawling in it to-day. Yes, but for a reason.

      I want to make things clear to myself, and I find, as others, that my mind works more easily with the assistance of the pen. The actual tracing of words on paper dispels the clouds that cluster round my thoughts. I shall recall events to set my mind at ease, to prove to myself how absurd a man who could believe in Professor Black would be. Little Dry-as-dust I used to call him 'Dry'? He is full of wild romance, rubbish that a school-girl would be ashamed to believe in. Yet he is abnormally clever; his record proves that. Still, clever men are the first to be led astray, they say. It is the searcher who follows the wandering light. What he says can't be true. When I have filled these pages, and read what I have written dispassionately, as one of the outside public might read, I shall have done, once for all, with the ridiculous fancies that are beginning to make my life a burden. To put my thoughts in order will make a music. The evil spirit within me will sleep, will die. I shall be cured. It must be so—it shall be so.

      To go back to the beginning. Ah! what a long time ago that seems! As a child I was cruel. Most boys are cruel, I think. My school companions were a merciless set—merciless to one another, to their masters when they had a chance, to animals, to birds. The desire to torture was in nearly all of them. They loved to bully, and if they bullied only mildly, it was from fear, not from love. They did not wish their boomerang to return and slay them. If a boy were deformed, they twitted him. If a master were kind, or gentle, or shy, they made his life as intolerable as they could. If an animal or a bird came into their power, they had no pity. I was like the rest; indeed, I think that I was worse. Cruelty is horrible. I have enough imagination to do more than know that—to feel it.

      Some say that it is lack of imagination which makes men and women brutes. May it not be power of imagination? The interest of torturing is lessened, is almost lost, if we can not be the tortured as well as the torturer.

      As a child I was cruel by nature, by instinct. I was a handsome, well-bred, gentlemanlike, gentle-looking little brute. My parents adored me, and I was good to them. They were so kind to me that I was almost fond of them. Why not? It seemed to me as politic to be fond of them as of anyone else. I did what I pleased, but I did not always let them know it; so I pleased them. The wise child will take care to foster the ignorance of its parents. My people were pretty well off, and I was their only child; but my chief chances of future pleasure in life were centred in my grandmother, my mother's mother. She was immensely rich, and she lived here. This room in which I am writing now was her favourite sitting-room. On that hearth, before a log fire, such as is burning at this moment, used to sit that wonderful cat of hers—that horrible cat! Why did I ever play my childish cards to win this house, this place? Sometimes, lately—very lately only—I have wondered, like a fool perhaps. Yet would Professor Black say so? I remember, as a boy of sixteen, paying my last visit here to my grandmother. It bored me very much to come. But she was said to be near death, and death leaves great houses vacant for others to fill. So when my mother said that I had better come, and my father added that he thought my grandmother was fonder of me than of my other relations, I gave up all my boyish plans for the holidays with apparent willingness. Though almost a child, I was not short-sighted. I knew every boy had a future as well as a present. I gave up my plans, and came here with a smile; but in my heart I hated my grandmother for having power, and so bending me to relinquish pleasure for boredom. I hated her, and I came to her and kissed her, and saw her beautiful white Persian cat sitting

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1