Stanhope Author:Joseph Middleton General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1845 Original Publisher: Saunders and Otley Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you ... more »can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER II. Having fairly emerged into the street, my first thought was, in what direction should I turn my steps ? and, looking around me for a mo- moment, at a loss how to decide, the darkness of the night, the pitiless pelting of the storm, and the strange uncertainty of my task, would well nigh have tempted me to despair, had not my resolution been so thoroughly determined as to set all difficulties at defiance. I turned at once towards the eastern part of the town. "Why I did so, I can scarcely tell; unless it was that my experience had long ago convinced me that there, dwelling amidst the sons of industry and toil, were generally to be found the young aspirants after literary distinction; and I judged, from Stanhope's conduct and demeanour, that he would, in all probability, have chosen his place of abode in a quarter where he would be least likely to draw down upon himself the observation of his neighbours. In no nook or corner of would he run so little dangerof annoyance from prying curiosity as in the quarter to which I was now hurrying away. There were few, indeed, there who had not enough to do in the management of their own affairs, without entering into those of their neighbours. Fletcher was right in his account of the " hurricane." A more stormy, wet, miserable night, I never remember to have seen. The streets were almost deserted, save when, here and there, some poor half-clothed, half-fed wretch, shivering in the cold blast, stole hurriedly past towards his asylum for the night. On turning from the first street, my attention was suddenly struck b...« less