The Literary Sense

E. Nesbit

• Publisher: Read & Co. Classics
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781528713061
• eBook ISBN: 9781528787567

"The Literary Sense" is a 1903 collection of short stories for adults by Edith Nesbit (1858 – 1924). Nesbit was an English poet and author who published more than 60 children's books under the name E. Nesbit. She was also a political activist and co-founded the Fabian Society, which had a significant influence on the Labour Party and British politics in general. Other notable works by this author include: "The Prophet's Mantle" (1885), "Something Wrong" (1886), and "The Marden Mystery" (1896). Contents include: "The Unfaithful Lover", "Rounding off a Scene", "the Obvious", "The Lie Absolute", "The Girl with the Guitar", "The Man with the Boots", "The Second Best", "A Holiday", "The Force of Habit". "The Brute". "Dick, Tom and Harry", "Miss Eden's Baby". "The Lover, the Girl, and the Onlooker", "The Duel", "Cinderella", "With an E", "Under the New Moon", etc. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author.

WITH AN E

SHE had been thinking of him all day—of the incredible insignificance of the point on which they had quarrelled; the babyish folly of the quarrel itself, the silly pride that had made the quarrel strong till the very memory of it was as a bar of steel to keep them apart. Three years ago, and so much had happened since then. Three years! and not a day of them all had passed without some thought of him; sometimes a happy, quiet remembrance transfigured by a wise forgetfulness; sometimes a sudden recollection, sharp as a knife. But not on many days had she allowed the quiet remembrance to give place to the knife-thrust, and then kept the knife in the wound, turning it round with a scientific curiosity, which, while it ran an undercurrent of breathless pleasure beneath the pain, yet did not lessen this—intensified it, rather. To-day she had thought of him thus through the long hours on deck, when the boat sped on even keel across the blue and gold of the Channel, in the dusty train from Ostend—even in the little open carriage that carried her and her severely moderate luggage from the station at Bruges to the Hôtel du Panier d'Or. She had thought of him so much that it was no surprise to her to see him there, drinking coffee at one of the little tables which the hotel throws out like tentacles into the Grande Place.

There he sat, in a grey flannel suit. His back was towards her, but she would have known the set of his shoulders anywhere, and the turn of his head. He was talking to someone—a lady, handsome, but older than he—oh! evidently much older.

Elizabeth made the transit from carriage to hotel door in one swift, quiet movement. He did not see her, but the lady facing him put up a tortoiseshell-handled lorgnon and gazed through it and through narrowed eyelids at the new comer.

Elizabeth reappeared no more that evening. It was the waiter who came out to dismiss the carriage and superintend the bringing in of the luggage. Elizabeth, stumbling in a maze of forgotten French, was met at the stair-foot by a smiling welcome, and realised in a spasm of grateful surprise that she need not have brought her dictionary. The hostess of the "Panier d'Or," like everyone else in Belgium, spoke English, and an English far better than Elizabeth's French had been.

She secured a tiny bedroom, and a sitting room that looked out over the Place, so that whenever he drank coffee she might, with luck, hope to see the back of his dear head.

"Idiot!" said Elizabeth, catching this little thought wandering in her mind, and with that she slapped the little thought and put it away in disgrace. But when she woke in the night, it woke, too, and cried a little.

That night it seemed to her that she would have all her meals served in the little sitting-room, and never go downstairs at all, lest she should meet him. But in the morning she perceived that one does not save up one's money for a year in order to have a Continental holiday, and sweeten all one's High-school teaching with one thought of that holiday, in order to spend its precious hours between four walls, just because—well, for any reason whatsoever.

So she went down to take her coffee and rolls humbly, publicly, like other people.

The dining-room was dishevelled, discomposed; chairs piled on tables and brooms all about. It was in the hotel café, where the marble-topped little tables were, that Mademoiselle would be served. Here was a marble-topped counter, too, where later in the day apéritifs and petits verres would be handed. On this, open for the police to read, lay the list of those who had spent the night at the "Panier d'Or."

The room was empty. Elizabeth caught up the list. Yes, his name was there, at the very top of the column—Edward Brown, and below it "Mrs. Brown—"

Elizabeth dropped the paper as though it had bitten her, and, turning sharply, came face to face with that very Edward Brown. He raised his hat gravely, and a shiver of absolute sickness passed over her, for his glance at her in passing was the glance of a stranger. It was not possible.... Yet it was true. He had forgotten her. In three little years! They had been long enough years to her, but now she called them little. In three little years he had forgotten her very face.

Elizabeth, chin in air, marched down the room and took possession of the little table where her coffee waited her.

She began to eat. It was not till the sixth mouthful that her face flushed suddenly to so deep a crimson that she dared not raise her eyes to see how many of the folk now breaking their rolls in her company had had eyes for her face. As a matter of fact, only one observed the sudden colour, and he admired and rejoiced, for he had seen such a colour in that face be...

Table of contents

• E. Nesbit
• THE UNFAITHFUL LOVER
• ROUNDING OFF A SCENE
• THE OBVIOUS
• THE LIE ABSOLUTE
• THE GIRL WITH THE GUITAR
• THE MAN WITH THE BOOTS
• THE SECOND BEST
• A HOLIDAY
• THE FORCE OF HABIT
• THE BRUTE
• DICK, TOM, AND HARRY
• MISS EDEN'S BABY
• THE LOVER, THE GIRL, AND THE ONLOOKER
• THE DUEL
• CINDERELLA
• WITH AN E
• UNDER THE NEW MOON
• THE LOVE OF ROMANCE