The Tale of Chloe

Tale of Chloe, The

The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Tale of Chloe
by George Meredith #100 in our series by George Meredith
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg file.
We encourage you to keep this file, exactly as it is, on your own disk,
thereby keeping an electronic path open for future readers.
Please do not remove this.
This header should be the first thing seen when anyone starts to view
the etext. Do not change or edit it without written permission. The
words are carefully chosen to provide users with the information they
need to understand what they may and may not do with the etext. To
encourage this, we have moved most of the information to the end,
rather than having it all here at the beginning.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since
1971**
*****These Etexts Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get etexts, and further
information, is included below. We need your donations.
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3)

organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541
Find out about how to make a donation at the bottom of this file.

Title: The Tale of Chloe
Author: George Meredith
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
Release Date: September, 2003 [Etext #4494] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on March 5,
2002]
The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Tale of Chloe by George Meredith
*******This file should be named gn00v10.txt or
gn00v10.zip********
Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, gn00v11.txt
VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, gn00v10a.txt
Project Gutenberg Etexts are often created from several printed editions,
all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US unless a
copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not keep etexts in
compliance with any particular paper edition.
The "legal small print" and other information about this book may now
be found at the end of this file. Please read this important information,
as it gives you specific rights and tells you about restrictions in how the
file may be used.

This etext was produced by David Widger

[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making
an entire meal of them. D.W.]

THE TALE OF CHLOE AN EPISODE IN THE HISTORY OF BEAU
BEAMISH
By George Meredith

'Fair Chloe, we toasted of old, As the Queen of our festival meeting;
Now Chloe is lifeless and cold; You must go to the grave for her
greeting. Her beauty and talents were framed To enkindle the proudest
to win her; Then let not the mem'ry be blamed Of the purest that e'er
was a sinner!'
Captain Chanter's Collection.
CHAPTER I
A proper tenderness for the Peerage will continue to pass current the
illustrious gentleman who was inflamed by Cupid's darts to espouse the
milkmaid, or dairymaid, under his ballad title of Duke of Dewlap: nor
was it the smallest of the services rendered him by Beau Beamish, that
he clapped the name upon her rustic Grace, the young duchess, the very
first day of her arrival at the Wells. This happy inspiration of a wit
never failing at a pinch has rescued one of our princeliest houses from
the assaults of the vulgar, who are ever too rejoiced to bespatter and
disfigure a brilliant coat-of-arms; insomuch that the ballad, to which we
are indebted for the narrative of the meeting and marriage of the ducal
pair, speaks of Dewlap in good faith
O the ninth Duke of Dewlap I am, Susie dear!
without a hint of a domino title. So likewise the pictorial historian is

merry over 'Dewlap alliances' in his description of the society of that
period. He has read the ballad, but disregarded the memoirs of the beau.
Writers of pretension would seem to have an animus against
individuals of the character of Mr. Beamish. They will treat of the
habits and manners of highwaymen, and quote obscure broadsheets and
songs of the people to colour their story, yet decline to bestow more
than a passing remark upon our domestic kings: because they are not
hereditary, we may suppose. The ballad of 'The Duke and the
Dairymaid,' ascribed with questionable authority to the pen of Mr.
Beamish himself in a freak of his gaiety, was once popular enough to
provoke the moralist to animadversions upon an order of composition
that 'tempted every bouncing country lass to