The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lore of Proserpine, by Maurice Hewlett

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: Lore of Proserpine

Author: Maurice Hewlett

Release Date: July 1, 2006 [EBook #18730]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORE OF PROSERPINE ***

Produced by Ted Garvin, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

LORE OF PROSERPINE

BY

MAURICE HEWLETT

"Thus go the fairy kind,
Whither Fate driveth; not as we
Who fight with it, and deem us free
Therefore, and after pine, or strain
Against our prison bars in vain;
For to them Fate is Lord of Life
And Death, and idle is a strife
With such a master ..."

_Hypsipyle_.

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

NEW YORK : : : : 1913

COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

* * * * *

TO

DESPOINA

FROM WHOM, TO WHOM

ALL

* * * * *

PREFACE

I hope nobody will ask me whether the things in this book are true,
for it will then be my humiliating duty to reply that I don't know.
They seem to be so to me writing them; they seemed to be so when they
occurred, and one of them occurred only two or three years ago. That
sort of answer satisfies me, and is the only one I can make. As I grow
older it becomes more and more difficult to distinguish one kind of
appearance from another, and to say, that is real, and again, that is
illusion. Honestly, I meet in my daily walks innumerable beings, to
all sensible signs male and female. Some of them I can touch, some
smell, some speak with, some see, some discern otherwise than by
sight. But if you cannot trust your eyes, why should you trust your
nose or your fingers? There's my difficulty in talking about reality.

Ther