A City of Bells
Who was Gabriel Ferranti? Why had he disappeared?
Jocelyn Irvin has just returned from the Boer War with an incurably lamed leg. He heads for the cathedral town or Torminster, where he recovers his love of life in the invigorating company of his cousin, Hugh Anthony, his grandfather, the Canon and Henrietta.
When Jocelyn moved into the little house where Ferranti once had lived, a dark Byronic spirit haunted its rooms. Was Ferranti alive or dead? Until they knew, Jocelyn and Felicity must reach out to him. Until Ferranti no longer needed them, they must yield slowly to the madness of love. So the ghost of Gabriel Ferranti guided their lives in surprising ways, and more than one bewildered heart was restored to the wonder and magic of living.
Series
Series
1 primary book#1 in Torminster Saga
Torminster Saga is a 1-book series first released in 1936 with contributions by Elizabeth Goudge.
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“Nothing whatsoever, not even the existence of God to his lovers, can be proved, but...every man, if he is to live at all finely, must deliberately adopt certain assertions as true, and those assertions should, for the sake of the enrichment of the human race, always be creative ones. He may, as life goes on, modify his beliefs, but he must never modify them on the side of destruction.”
A somewhat creaky, old-fashioned, definitely far-fetched tale of a lovely place and of the kind of delightfully varied, human characters which Goudge excels in creating and making completely real to us. Some find it “too pious,” but I find that the piety is couched in bracing philosophical terms like the above, which emphasize the bravery and daring it actually takes to be a person of faith, to place oneself on the side of creation in an age full of destruction. It's not about taking comfort in bland platitudes or fixed certainties, but it does give me comfort to think that (as is said elsewhere in the book) it doesn't matter what happens to one in life, or how long life lasts, as long as one strives to live beautifully.
