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Double Harness — Inside the Classic

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In Category - Historical Social Novels

Authors: Hope, Anthony, 1863-1933 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2013 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Marriage -- Fiction Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 124,670

Reading time 543 min

Text sections 11

For Double Harness — Inside the Classic, the stored edition analysis reports 124,670 words, 9 hr 3 min estimated reading time, and 11 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 13.2 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #42222

Anthony Hope's 1904 novel examines a strained marriage through precise dialogue and shifting narrative pace, from leisurely country-house openings to tense confrontations. The excerpts reveal a story built on verbal sparring, psychological pressure, and a pivotal ultimatum, without relying on action or melodrama.

Editorial Edition Score 4.8/5

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Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg42222

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CHAPTER I. SOME VIEWS OF THE INSTITUTION 1 II. THE FAIRY RIDE 12 III. THE WORLDLY MIND 24 IV. INITIATION 36 V. THE BIRTH OF STRIFE 49 VI. NOT PEACE BUT A SWORD 62 VII. A VINDICATION OF CONSCIENCE 73 VIII. IDEALS AND ASPIRATIONS 85 IX. A SUCCESSFUL MISSION 98 X. THE FLINTY WALL 112 XI. THE OLIVE BRANCH 126 XII. IMAGES AND THEIR WORK 139 XIII. THE DEAD AND ITS DEAD 152 XIV. FOR HIS LOVE AND HIS QUARREL 165 XV. IN THE TEETH OF THE STORM 181 XVI. THE UPPER AND THE NETHER STONE 196 XVII. WANDERING WITS 210 XVIII. THE RISING GENERATION 224 XIX. IN THE CORNER 238 XX. THE HOUR OF WRATH 252 XXI. AN UNCOMPROMISING EXPRESSION 265 XXII. ASPIRATIONS AND COMMON SENSE 278 XXIII. A THING OF FEAR 293 XXIV. FRIENDS 304 XXV. PICKING UP THE PIECES 320 XXVI. THE GREAT WRONG 335 XXVII. SAMPLES OF THE BULK 351 XXVIII. TO LIFE AND LIGHT AGAIN 365 XXIX. WITH OPEN EYES 379

SOME VIEWS OF THE INSTITUTION

The house--a large, plain white building with no architectural pretensions--stood on a high swell of the downs and looked across the valley in which Milldean village lay, and thence over rolling stretches of close turf, till the prospect ended in the gleam of waves and the silver-grey mist that lay over the sea. It was a fine, open, free view. The air was fresh, with a touch of salt in it, and made the heat of the sun more than endurable--even welcome and nourishing. Tom Courtland, raising himself from the grass and sitting up straight, gave utterance to what his surroundings declared to be a very natural exclamation:

"What a bore to leave this and go back to town!"

"Stay a bit longer, old chap," urged his host, Grantley Imason, who lay full length on his back on the turf, with a straw hat over his eyes and nose, and a pipe, long gone out, between his teeth.

"Back to my wife!" Courtland went on, without noticing the invitation.

With a faint sigh Grantley Imason sat up, put his hat on his head, and knocked out his pipe. He glanced at his friend with a look of satirical amusement.

"You're encouraging company for a man who's just got engaged," he remarked.

"It's the devil of a business--sort of thing some of those fellows would write a book about. But it's not worth a book. A page of strong and indiscriminate swearing--that's what it's worth, Grantley."

Grantley sighed again as he searched for his tobacco-pouch. The sigh seemed to hover doubtfully between a faint sympathy and a resigned boredom.

"And no end to it--none in sight! I don't know whether it's legal cruelty to throw library books and so on at your husband's head----"

"Depends on whether you ever hit him, I should think; and they'd probably conclude a woman never would."

"But what an ass I should look if I went into court with that sort of story!"

"Yes, you would look an ass," Grantley agreed. "Doesn't she give you--well, any other chance, you know?"

"Not she! My dear fellow, she's most aggressively the other way."

"Then why don't you give her a chance?"

"What, you mean----?"

"Am I so very cryptic?" murmured Grantley as he lit his pipe.

"I'm a Member of Parliament."

"Yes, I forgot. That's a bit awkward."

"Besides, there are the children. I don't want my children to think their father a scoundrel." He paused, and added grimly: "And I don't want them to be left to their mother's bringing-up either."

"Then we seem to have exhausted the resources of the law."

"The children complicate it so. Wait till you have some of your own, Grantley."

"Look here--steady!" Grantley expostulated. "Don't be in such a hurry to give me domestic encumbrances. The bloom's still on my romance, old chap. Talking of children to a man who's only been engaged a week!" His manner resumed its air of languid sympathy as he went on: "You needn't see much of her, Tom, need you?"

"Oh, needn't I?" grumbled Courtland. He was a rather short, sturdily built man, with a high colour and stiff black hair which stood up on his head. His face was not wanting in character, but a look of plaintive worry beset it. "You try living in the same house with a woman--with a woman like that, I mean!"

"Thanks for the explanation," laughed Grantley.

"I must go and wire when I shall be back, or Harriet'll blow the roof off over that. You come too; a stroll'll do you good."

Continue Reading →

The novel opens with a leisurely scene on the downs: Grantley Imason lies on the turf, a straw hat over his eyes, while his friend Tom Courtland complains about returning to his wife. The pace is unhurried, the dialogue satirical. Yet by the closing excerpt, the same Grantley delivers a cold ultimatum: if his wife Sibylla persists in leaving him for Frank Blake, he will kill Frank and himself. The shift from idle banter to mortal threat is stark, and it is accomplished almost entirely through changes in speech rhythm and physical stillness—Grantley’s hand on the table, his slow weighing of words.

From Satirical Ease to Bitter Meditation

The opening chapter establishes a tone of worldly irony. Courtland calls marriage “the devil of a business” and says it is “not worth a book—a page of strong and indiscriminate swearing.” Grantley’s response is a “faint sigh” and a “look of satirical amusement.” The prose is relaxed, the setting open and free. But as the novel progresses, the voice tightens. By the later excerpt, Grantley’s speech becomes measured and deliberate: “I don’t accept the position you propose for me.” The narrative no longer describes gestures of ease but of tension—a hand passed across the brow, a ring twisted on a finger. The change in pace is not abrupt but cumulative, mirroring a marriage moving from complacency to crisis.

Dialogue as a Weapon of Precision

Hope builds conflict through controlled verbal exchanges rather than physical action. In the climactic scene, Grantley and Sibylla speak in short, clipped sentences that escalate in weight. Sibylla declares their marriage a “life of sham and fraud and failure and heartbreak.” Grantley replies not with anger but with a question: “Have you thought of the consequences to me?” The dialogue is layered with subtext—Sibylla’s bitter laugh, Grantley’s “short laugh” when Blake fears violence. Each character uses words to probe, wound, or defend. Blake, by contrast, speaks in impatient, colloquial outbursts (“Don’t be so damned absurd”), marking him as an outsider to the couple’s more refined cruelty. The narrative voice remains detached, reporting speech without commentary, letting the reader gauge the shifting power dynamics.

Stillness and Movement as Narrative Cues

Hope varies pace by alternating physical stillness with sudden movement. In the opening, Grantley lies “full length on his back” and later “sat up, put his hat on his head, and knocked out his pipe.” These small actions punctuate the dialogue. In the later scene, stillness dominates: Grantley “passed his hand across his brow—almost the first movement that he had made.” Sibylla “leant forward across the table,” while Blake “leant back with a scornful toss of his head.” The only abrupt motion is Blake’s “leaning forward, ready to spring up,” which Grantley defuses with a word. The narrative pace slows to a standstill around the ultimatum, then quickens with Blake’s laugh and Grantley’s smile. This choreography of stillness and gesture gives the confrontation its taut, theatrical quality.

Readers attentive to voice will notice how Hope uses register to distinguish characters: Grantley’s formal, almost legal phrasing (“I refuse them root and branch”) versus Sibylla’s emotional crescendos and Blake’s bluntness. The novel’s title, Double Harness, suggests a partnership of equal strain, and the excerpts bear this out—neither spouse is wholly sympathetic. The narrative never rushes to judgment, leaving the reader to weigh the consequences of pride and love as they unfold in the spaces between words.

I finished Double Harness and kept thinking about how silence in a marriage can speak louder than words. That same tension—the weight of things unsaid between people bound together—lingers in The Three Perils of Man; or, War, Women, and Witchcraft, Vol. 1 (of 3) — Themes and Context, where wit and witchcraft weave through human frailty. It stayed with me like a half-remembered conversation.