{"product_id":"2940014655477","title":"FORD MADOX FORD THE GREATEST WORKS [Authoritative and Complete Nook Edition] THE WORLDWIDE BESTSELLER The Complete Works Collection of FORD MADOX FORD'S Critically Acclaimed Writings including THE GOOD SOLDIER and THE FIFTH QUEEN TRILOGY (NOOKBook)","description":"THE GREATEST WORKS OF FORD MADOX FORD \u003cbr\u003e[Authoritative and Complete Nook Edition] \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE WORLDWIDE BESTSELLER \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Complete Works Collection of FORD MADOX FORD'S Critically Acclaimed Writings including THE GOOD SOLDIER and THE FIFTH QUEEN TRILOGY\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEXCERPT\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"You may well ask why I write. And yet my reasons are quite many. For it is not unusual in human beings who have witnessed the sack of a city or the falling to pieces of a people to desire to set down what they have witnessed for the benefit of unknown heirs or of generations infinitely remote; or, if you please, just to get the sight out of their heads.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSome one has said that the death of a mouse from cancer is the whole sack of Rome by the Goths, and I swear to you that the breaking up of our little four-square coterie was such another unthinkable event. Supposing that you should come upon us sitting together at one of the little tables in front of the club house, let us say, at Homburg, taking tea of an afternoon and watching the miniature golf, you would have said that, as human affairs go, we were an extraordinarily safe castle. We were, if you will, one of those tall ships with the white sails upon a blue sea, one of those things that seem the proudest and the safest of all the beautiful and safe things that God has permitted the mind of men to frame. Where better could one take refuge? Where better?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePermanence? Stability? I can't believe it's gone. I can't believe that that long, tranquil life, which was just stepping a minuet, vanished in four crashing days at the end of nine years and six weeks. Upon my word, yes, our intimacy was like a minuet, simply because on every possible occasion and in every possible circumstance we knew where to go, where to sit, which table we unanimously should choose; and we could rise and go, all four together, without a signal from any one of us, always to the music of the Kur orchestra, always in the temperate sunshine, or, if it rained, in discreet shelters. No, indeed, it can't be gone. You can't kill a minuet de la cour. You may shut up the music-book, close the harpsichord; in the cupboard and presses the rats may destroy the white satin favours. The mob may sack Versailles; the Trianon may fall, but surely the minuet—the minuet itself is dancing itself away into the furthest stars, even as our minuet of the Hessian bathing places must be stepping itself still. Isn't there any heaven where old beautiful dances, old beautiful intimacies prolong themselves? Isn't there any Nirvana pervaded by the faint thrilling of instruments that have fallen into the dust of wormwood but that yet had frail, tremulous, and everlasting souls?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTABLE OF CONTENTS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE INHERITORS\u003cbr\u003eROMANCE\u003cbr\u003eTHE FIFTH QUEEN\u003cbr\u003ePRIVY SEAL\u003cbr\u003eTHE FIFTH QUEEN CROWNED\u003cbr\u003eTHE GOOD SOLDIER\u003cbr\u003eSOME DO NOT\u003cbr\u003eNO MORE PARADES\u003cbr\u003eA MAN COULD STAND UP\u003cbr\u003eI DID BUT VIEW","brand":"The Complete Works Collection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070787666160,"sku":"2940014655477","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940014655477_p0.jpg?v=1763612907","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940014655477","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}