After a night of heartbreak over Fanny Trevanion, Pisistratus returns to a household alive with tenderness, wit, and quiet strength: his father rejoices over the first proof of his long-awaited great book, Uncle Roland tends practical accounts, and even a canary seems to soften the young man's grief. When Pisistratus finally breaks down, the family's warmth meets his shame with loyalty rather than judgment, and Roland's blunt counsel sends him to Trevanion with courage and honor. The interview is devastating. Pisistratus confesses his love and his wish to leave, only to hear Trevanion's candid refusal, grounded in class, politics, money, and a father's claim on his daughter's future. He leaves in silence, haunted by Fanny's tear-stained face, and returns to the consolations of home. There, the novel turns to a comic, deeply felt meditation on books as medicine for the mind. Pisistratus's father prescribes reading for every emotional ailment, and the remedy that follows is the biography of Robert Hall: a life of spiritual purpose, self-sacrifice, and humane greatness that lifts the narrator above private sorrow and enlarges his sense of what a meaningful life can be. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.
