Less Black Than We're Painted Author:James Payn General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1878 Original Publisher: Chatto and Windus Subjects: Fiction / General Fiction / Classics Fiction / Literary Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there m... more »ay 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 can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER III. NOT YET. From the day of his friend's visit to Ford's Alley we may date Richard's complete emancipation from what was called by his friends ' his unfortunate entanglement.' He never spoke, and very seldom even thought of Lucy again. But it must be confessed that his freedom -- like that of most persons who have once been slaves -- partook somewhat of the character of license. His tastes for extravagance increased, and very little of his money was spent in the advancement of missionary enterprise, or to any other good purpose. His nature was too genuine to admit of his sinking into the slough of swelldom ; he never pretended to be indifferent to all matters human anddivine -- though it must be confessed he concerned himself with the former rather to the exclusion of the latter. He was not vicious in cold blood. He did not disbelieve in the existence of good men and women because his own mode of life did not bring him into contact with them. But he walked ' in the ways of his own heart, and the sight of his own eyes;' and they were evil. The years were not many since he had rowed Lucy across the Durn to see the Pharos light lit, but the difference between what he had been and what he had become -- between man and boy -- was measureless. His love for the girl now appeared a mere episode in his life, and so far back (or so it seemed) as to have belonged almost to another state of existence. If our bones and flesh, and thews...« less