Part 1 (1/2)

When the World Shook

by H Rider Haggard

DEDICATION

Ditchingham, 1918

MY DEAR CURZON,

More than thirty years ago you tried to protect er to you, fronant accusations ever ainst a writer

So complete was your exposure of the methods of those at work to blacken a person whom they knew to be innocent, that, as you will remember, they refused to publish your analysis which destroyed their charges and, incidentally, revealed their h for this reason vindication caotten, since, whatever the immediate issue of any effort, in the end it is the intention that avails

Therefore in gratitude and memory I ask you to accept this romance, as I know that you do not disdain the study of romance in the intervals of your Imperial work

The application of its parable to our state and possibilities--beneath or beyond these glimpses of the moon--I leave to your discernment

Believe me,

Ever sincerely yours,

H RIDER HAGGARD

WHEN THE WORLD SHOOK

Chapter I Arbuthnot Describes Hiin this history in which Destiny has caused me to play so prominent a part, with some short account of myself and of o in this very Devonshi+re village in which I write, but not in the same house Now I live in the Priory, an ancient place and a fine one in its ith its panelled rooardens where, in this mild climate, in addition to our own, flourish so many plants which one would only expect to find in countries that lie nearer to the sun, and its green, undulating park studded with great timber trees The view, too, is perfect; behind and around the rich Devonshi+re landscape with its hills and valleys and its scarped faces of red sandstone, and at a distance in front, the sea There are little towns quite near too, that live for the most part on visitors, but these are so hidden away by the contours of the ground that from the Priory one cannot see theh for obvious reasons I do not give it its real nao my father, the Rev Humphrey Arbuthnot, whose only child I am, after whom also I am named Humphrey, was the vicar of this place hich our faue hereditary connection If so, it was severed in the Carolian tiht on the side of Parliament

My father was a recluse, and a er, for myvery High Church for those days he was not popular with the family that owned the Priory before ar person of the name of Enfield who had made money in trade, al the local nate and the owner of the rectorial tithes

Ito it as a boy I made up my mind that one day I would buy that place and sit in his seat, a wild enough idea at the tirained in me, as do such aspirations of our youth, and when the opportunity arose in after years I carried it out Poor old Enfield! He fell on evil fortunes, for in trying to bolster up a favourite son as a garateful scamp, in the end he was practically ruined and when the bad times came, was forced to sell the Fulcoood toand leave to fish for trout in the river

By the poor people, however, of all the district round, for the parish itself is very sh he did practise confession, wear vesthted candles on the altar, and was even said to have openly expressed the wish, to which however he never attained, that he could see a censer swinging in the chancel Indeed the church which, as e and fine, was always full on Sundays, though many of the worshi+ppers came from far away, some of them doubtless out of curiosity because of its papistical repute, also because, in a learned fashi+on, ood indeed

For h-Church views They opened certain doors toof the ions and therefore have their hoions are born Only the pity is that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred he never discovers, never even guesses at that entombed aspiration, never sinks a shaft down on to this secret but most precious vein of ore

I have said that my father was learned; but this is a mild description, for never did I know anyone quite so learned He was one of those ood all round that he beca A classic of the first water, a very respectable y, a student of sundry foreign languages and literature in his lighter y, a theoretical an excruciated most people because it was too correct, a really first-class authority upon flint instruetables in the county, also of apples--such were some of his attainments That hat made his sermons so popular, since at times one or the other of these subjects would break out into theh all of these things