The Project Gutenberg EBook of Virginia, by Ellen Glasgow

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Title: Virginia

Author: Ellen Glasgow

Release Date: August 14, 2008 [EBook #26316]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIRGINIA ***

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VIRGINIA

By ELLEN GLASGOW

GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
MCMXIII

_Copyright, 1913, by_
Doubleday, Page & Company

_All rights reserved, including that of
translation into Foreign Languages,
including the Scandinavian._

TO THE RADIANT SPIRIT WHO WAS MY SISTER CARY GLASGOW McCORMACK

CONTENTS

BOOK FIRST--THE DREAM

I. The System

II. Her Inheritance

III. First Love

IV. The Treadwells

V. Oliver, the Romantic

VI. A Treadwell in Revolt

VII. The Artist in Philistia

VIII. White Magic

IX. The Great Man Moves

X. Oliver Surrenders

BOOK SECOND--THE REALITY

I. Virginia Prepares for the Future

II. Virginia's Letters

III. The Return

IV. Her Children

V. Failure

VI. The Shadow

VII. The Will to Live

VIII. The Pang of Motherhood

IX. The Problem of the South

BOOK THIRD--THE ADJUSTMENT

I. The Changing Order

II. The Price of Comfort

III. Middle-age

IV. Life's Cruelties

V. Bitterness

VI. The Future

BOOK FIRST

THE DREAM

CHAPTER I

THE SYSTEM

Toward the close of a May afternoon in the year 1884, Miss Priscilla
Batte, having learned by heart the lesson in physical geography she
would teach her senior class on the morrow, stood feeding her canary on
the little square porch of the Dinwiddie Academy for Young Ladies. The
day had been hot, and the fitful wind, which had risen in the direction
of the river, was just beginning to blow in soft gusts under the old
mulberry trees in the street, and to scatter the loosened petals of
syringa b