Résumé
Résumé de La cocarde joyeuse
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
Readers who like romance with a wry smile, vivid clothes and candlelit rooms, and tales that end with a turn of the heart. Anyone who enjoys short stories in the old magazine style will feel at home.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
What does a person give up to become great, and what does love really cost? The tales are set in the years around the First World War, in Washington, Virginia, Nantucket, California and the small towns between. Each is a self-contained romance with warmth, humor and a surprise of the heart. A poet, a Viking, a dying wife and a sandwich seller all wait inside. The first story begins in a tired government office.
Dans ce résumé
- 1Youth, ambition, and a wife's planFree
- 2A play, a heroine, and a rival
- 3A Viking, a cloak, and a girl in gray
- 4The letter and the doubts of a modern girl
- 5The storm that brings Olaf back
- 6A dying wife, a soldier, and a husband
- 7Stage heroes and quiet gifts
- 8Love, money, and what people really need
Point clé 1 sur 8
Youth, ambition, and a wife's plan
The title story is told by Miss Standish, a government clerk who has grown tired and gray. Into her office walks Jimmie Harding, young and swaggering, who wears his youth like a bright plume. The whole office borrows his color. When he falls in love with a girl named Elise, the clerks follow the romance as if it were a play.
Elise tells Jimmie he can write and must leave the Department. They marry in April and settle in his old house in Albemarle, Virginia. Elise fills it with candles, old books and mahogany. Years pass. Jimmie writes plays that no one takes, so he writes novels and sketches that sell. Gray creeps into his hair, and Elise keeps him at the grindstone.
At a Christmas visit, Jimmie reads a draft of his big play by the fire. Miss Standish says it is not his masterpiece. Jimmie cries out that he wants to live, and Elise answers with a cold voice. The story asks what a person gives up in order to become great.
That’s 1 of 8 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
Questions about La cocarde joyeuse
What is The Gay Cockade about?
It is a collection of short romantic stories by Temple Bailey. Each tale follows people in love, ambition or doubt, such as a poet and his driven wife, a woman drawn to a Viking-like yachtsman, and a dying wife choosing between two men.
What does the title The Gay Cockade mean?
In the title story, a young clerk named Jimmie Harding wears his youth like one, and the narrator suggests the name for his play.
Who is Sandwich Jane?
She is Jane, a red haired girl in the oil town of Tinkersfield, California, who sells homemade sandwiches to support her sick mother. She meets O-liver Lee, a bareheaded philosopher on fifteen dollars a week, and helps him in a town election.
When was The Gay Cockade written and where do the stories appeared first?
Temple Bailey wrote them in the years around the First World War, and they first appeared in magazines such as Harper's, Scribner's, Collier's, the Saturday Evening Post and Good Housekeeping before being collected.
Is The Gay Cockade easy to read?
Yes, in the sense that each story is short and self-contained, with lively dialogue, clear scenes and a strong turn at the end. You can read one tale at a time and still enjoy the whole.