The Good Soldier [eBook]

Finally available, a high quality book of the original classic edition of The Good Soldier. This is a new and freshly published edition of this culturally important work by Ford Madox Ford, which is now, at last, again available to you. Enjoy this classic work today.

These selected paragraphs distill the contents and give you a quick look inside The Good Soldier: Upon my word, yes, our intimacy was like a minuet, simply because on every possible occasion and in every possible circumstance we knew where to go, where to sit, which table we unanimously should choose; and we could rise and go, all four together, without a signal from any one of us, always to the music of the Kur orchestra, always in the temperate sunshine, or, if it rained, in discreet shelters. ...

The warm hearthside!-Well, there was Florence: I believe that for the twelve years her life lasted, after the storm that seemed irretrievably to have weakened her heart-I dont believe that for one minute she was out of my sight, except when she was safely tucked up in bed and I should be downstairs, talking to some good fellow or other in some lounge or smoking-room or taking my final turn with a cigar before going to bed. ...

We never did take another look at Beaucaire, of course-beautiful Beaucaire, with the high, triangular white tower, that looked as thin as a needle and as tall as the Flatiron, between Fifth and Broadway-Beaucaire with the grey walls on the top of the pinnacle surrounding an acre and a half of blue irises, beneath the tallness of the stone pines, What a beautiful thing the stone pine is!......

I havent, unfortunately, so that the world is full of places to which I want to return-towns with the blinding white sun upon them; stone pines against the blue of the sky; corners of gables, all carved and painted with stags and scarlet flowers and crowstepped gables with the little saint at the top; and grey and pink palazzi and walled towns a mile or so back from the sea, on the Mediterranean, between Leghorn and Naples. ...

Whole castles have vanished from my memory, whole cities that I have never visited again, but that white room, festooned with papier-mache fruits and flowers; the tall windows; the many tables; the black screen round the door with three golden cranes flying upward on each panel; the palm-tree in the centre of the room; the swish of the waiters feet; the cold expensive elegance; the mien of the diners as they came in every evening-their air of earnestness as if they must go through a meal prescribed by the Kur authorities and their air of sobriety as if they must seek not by any means to enjoy their meals-those things I shall not easily forget.