Seats of the Mighty

By Parker, Gilbert, Sir

Book Id: WPLBN0000631868
Format Type: PDF eBook
File Size: 463.28 KB
Reproduction Date: 2005

Title:	Seats of the Mighty
Author:	Parker, Gilbert, Sir
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Literature, Literature & thought, Writing.
Collections:	Blackmask Online Collection
Historic Publication Date:
Publisher:	Blackmask Online


Citation APA MLA Chicago Parker, G. (n.d.). Seats of the Mighty. Retrieved from http://self.gutenberg.org/

Excerpt
Introduction: It was in the winter of 1892, when on a visit to French Canada, that I made up my mind I would write the volume which the public knows as ?The Seats of the Mighty,? but I did not begin the composition until early in 1894. It was finished by the beginning of February, 1895, and began to appear in ?The Atlantic Monthly? in March of that year. It was not my first attempt at historical fiction, because I had written ?The Trail of the Sword? in the year 1893, but it was the first effort on an ambitious scale, and the writing of it was attended with as much searching of heart as enthusiasm. I had long been saturated by the early history of French Canada, as perhaps ?The Trail of the Sword? bore witness, and particularly of the period of the Conquest, and I longed for a subject which would, in effect, compel me to write; for I have strong views upon this business of compulsion in the mind of the writer. Unless a thing has seized a man, has obsessed him, and he feels that it excludes all other temptations to his talent or his genius, his book will not convince. Before all else he must himself be overpowered by the insistence of his subject, then intoxicated with his idea, and, being still possessed, become master of his material while remaining the slave of his subject. I believe that every book which has taken hold of the public has represented a kind of self?hypnotism on the part of the writer. I am further convinced that the book which absorbs the author, which possesses him as he writes it, has the effect of isolating him into an atmosphere which is not sleep, and which is not absolute wakefulness, but a place between the two, where the working world is indistinct and the mind is swept along a flood submerging the self?conscious but not drowning into unconsciousness.

Table of Contents
Table of Contents: Seats Of The Mighty, 1 -- Gilbert Parker, 1 -- Introduction TO THE IMPERIAL EDITION, 2 -- PREFATORY NOTE TO FIRST EDITION, 3 -- PRELUDE, 4 -- I. AN ESCORT TO THE CITADEL, 5 -- II. THE MASTER OF THE KING'S MAGAZINE, 11 -- III. THE WAGER AND THE SWORD, 19 -- IV. THE RAT IN THE TRAP, 24 -- V. THE DEVICE OF THE DORMOUSE, 30 -- VI. MORAY TELLS THE STORY OF HIS LIFE, 32 -- VII. QUOTH LITTLE GARAINE, 40 -- VIII. AS VAIN AS ABSALOM, 44 -- IX. A LITTLE CONCERNING THE CHEVALIER DE LA DARANTE, 45 -- X. AN OFFICER OF MARINES, 52 -- XI. THE COMING OF DOLTAIRE, 60 -- XII. THE POINT ENVENOMED TOO!, 65 -- XIII. A LITTLE BOAST, 73 -- XIV. ARGAND COURNAL, 79 -- XV. IN THE CHAMBER OF TORTURE, 86 -- XVI. BE SAINT OR IMP, 92 -- XVII. THROUGH THE BARS OF THE CAGE, 97 -- XVIII. THE STEEP PATH OF CONQUEST, 101 -- XIX. A DANSEUSE AND THE BASTILE, 104 -- XX. UPON THE RAMPARTS, 112 -- XXI. LA JONGLEUSE, 121 -- XXII. THE LORD OF KAMARSKA, 125 -- XXIII. WITH WOLFE AT MONTMORENCI, 133 -- XXIV. THE SACRED COUNTERSIGN, 142 -- XXV. IN THE CATHEDRAL, 150 -- XXVI. THE SECRET OF THE TAPESTRY, 155 -- XXVII. A SIDE?WIND OF REVENGE, 167 -- XXVIII. TO CHEAT THE DEVIL YET., 171 -- XXIX. MASTER DEVIL DOLTAIRE, 177 -- XXX. WHERE ALL THE LOVERS CAN HIDE, 180 -- APPENDIX, 181 -- Seats Of The Mighty