conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me a plot for a book about Langton, Cardboard, Crown entitled The Cardboard Crown.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Cardboard Crown: The novel follows the story of Alice Langton as told by her grandson Guy de Teba Langton who pieces the story together from her diaries and family gossip.\nAlice is trapped in a life where her happiness is a secondary consideration among the rest of the family who make continual demands on her money.\nAlice moves contstantly between her homes in Australia and Europe, always longing for the home she does not inhabit.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first five paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Cardboard Crown
  While the plot of this novel is founded on fact, the characters and certain episodes are fictitious. This is most particularly true of the characters of Hetty and her children, and her relationship with Austin.
  At last I left the Princes Highway, and roared up the hill, where my grandfather eighty years earlier had driven his four-in-hand and blown his coaching horn. I passed the smart new gate of Burns the dairy farmer, and came to my own, which was removed from its posts, one of which was knocked askew, while the gate itself, old and weather-stained, leaned against the stump of a fallen tree. At this height I was above the rain and I could see only too clearly, as I bumped up the stony drive, the general disorder of this property which I had inherited from Dominic a year ago, and which it would take at least another two years to put straight. The naked white branches of the gum trees, broken and hanging at strange cubist angles, were illuminated eerily by the headlights, while tangles of blackberries and fallen fencing made my back ache at the thought that even if I could find labourers, the heaviest and dirtiest jobs would still be left to me.
  I drove through the tall brick gateposts, from which the gates made by my father had also gone, into the stable yard, and left the car in the dilapidated coach house. My labrador retriever raced from the house, like a lion roaring after its prey, and leapt against me with such force that my foot slipped on a cobble and I fell over. He was delighted to find me prone at his mercy. He put his foot on my shirtfront and joyfully licked my ear. I put my arm round the soft golden neck of this noble and beautiful creature, partly to lift myself up, but also to embrace him, for nowadays when we are hardened to endure so many evil things, the sight of the innocent melts and disarms us. My dog seemed to me a higher order of creation than the fashionable doctor, or than the smart lady who sniggered at the tale of Dominic delirious, and wandering lost in the back passages of a hospital. With the superb integrity of animals he decided his demonstration was adequate, and drew away until I stood up, when proudly waving the banner of his tail, he led me into the house.
  He said that he had come up after dinner, and was just leaving. This was a polite fiction, to provoke an invitation to stay, which I gave, though I knew that it was almost certain that Mrs Briar had insisted on his staying and that his pyjamas were already laid out on the bed. His family are like that. Words have little relation to reality. It was even possible that Mrs Briar had given him dinner, and that he had drunk the rest of the liqueur brandy which I was keeping for a bishop who was coming up to luncheon the next day. But it was probably true that he had arrived after the dinner hour, and only speculating on a meal, and therefore from a vague delicacy wished me to understand that he had not deliberately dined in my house in my absence.
  I was a little startled. The hungry generations had at last trodden into oblivion my grandfather, whose forceful and highly-coloured personality, even after his death had dominated the scenes of my earliest childhood.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me four more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: It was true that if the Dells had not existed the importance of our clan would have been diminished. Except for Arthur's brother Walter who became a High Court judge, they were our most prominent, wealthy and successful relatives. Hetty, never forgetting that she was the daughter of a dean, sent two of them into the Church. One became Bishop of Yackandandah, and the other an archdeacon. Her third son made a fortune on the Stock Exchange and had a fashionable wife and a mansion in Toorak. The fourth became a General in the 1914 War, was knighted and actually killed in battle. His statue stands in the St Kilda Road. It is annoying when we pass this only to be able to say: 'That is our cousin'—when he was really our uncle, but like Sir Launcelot's, our honour rooted in dishonour stands. Arthur seemed puzzled by these considerations and reluctant to continue, but then he said:
  I thought I had made some kind of gaffe, but was not sure what. Was Arthur annoyed at my referring even so indirectly to his unfortunate marriage? Or was he cross because I affected to know more than he did about his grand connections, his honour again like Sir Launcelot's? Or were his feelings identical with mine when Julian spoke with detachment about my grandparents? I remember thinking old people were difficult, and now probably Julian thinks just the same of me.
  Arthur paused again. This was probably the first time that he had related this story in full to anyone, and as he did so new aspects of it occured to him, and he found that now in his old age he did not quite hold the views he had thought he held.
  Although Arthur's face was solemn and almost tearful as he told me this, he could not resist his instinct to put it in a ridiculous light. He loved to fix on some commonplace article like a door handle, and turn it into an obscene symbol.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: It was true that if the Dells had not existed the importance of our clan would have been diminished. Except for Arthur's brother Walter who became a High Court judge, they were our most prominent, wealthy and successful relatives. Hetty, never forgetting that she was the daughter of a dean, sent two of them into the Church. One became Bishop of Yackandandah, and the other an archdeacon. Her third son made a fortune on the Stock Exchange and had a fashionable wife and a mansion in Toorak. The fourth became a General in the 1914 War, was knighted and actually killed in battle. His statue stands in the St Kilda Road. It is annoying when we pass this only to be able to say: 'That is our cousin'—when he was really our uncle, but like Sir Launcelot's, our honour rooted in dishonour stands. Arthur seemed puzzled by these considerations and reluctant to continue, but then he said:
  I thought I had made some kind of gaffe, but was not sure what. Was Arthur annoyed at my referring even so indirectly to his unfortunate marriage? Or was he cross because I affected to know more than he did about his grand connections, his honour again like Sir Launcelot's? Or were his feelings identical with mine when Julian spoke with detachment about my grandparents? I remember thinking old people were difficult, and now probably Julian thinks just the same of me.
  Arthur paused again. This was probably the first time that he had related this story in full to anyone, and as he did so new aspects of it occured to him, and he found that now in his old age he did not quite hold the views he had thought he held.
  Although Arthur's face was solemn and almost tearful as he told me this, he could not resist his instinct to put it in a ridiculous light.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last five paragraphs.. End with the sentence ' All that had ended on the evening when she wrote:'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: It was under the heavy ornamental plaster ceilings of Beaumanoir that she was reconciled with Hetty. Arthur was present. 'They had of course met often in other people's houses,' he said, 'but Alice had never received Hetty, who had not been to Westhill for twenty years. Now she wanted to see what Beaumanoir was like. When she wanted a thing she always went for it. She did not even do it as an outrageous lark. She was entirely without humour, which made people think she was very amusing. She did everything like a steamroller. I was with Alice one afternoon when a servant came in and announced Mrs Dell and Miss Mayhew. She was clever enough to bring Sarah, whom Alice could not very well refuse to see, and who shortly afterwards came to live with them again. Hetty came in on the servant's heels. She was quite unsmiling and her eyes were like black agates. She looked at Alice suspiciously to see how she was taking it. A momentary flash came into your grandmother's eyes, as she was not the kind of person with whom one took liberties. Then I saw an extraordinary, really quite beautiful expression come into her face, and she took Hetty's hand and led her to the sofa. When we are old, and things have not gone very well, we feel kindly towards the people we knew when we were young, even if they were then our enemies. And Hetty, though at that time she still had a sort of champion wrestler's physique—really Austin must damn nearly have risked his life—she looked so hang-dog, that Alice wanted to give her back her self-respect. After that she lunched with your grandmother every Friday.'
  At Beaumanoir also, one day Alice wrote: 'George arrived at tea-time. He had heard from Dolly. She says she cannot go against her father's wishes.' It was then five years since they had parted at Nantes. Not very long afterwards Major Potts died, leaving Dolly, for whom he had demanded such a large settlement, with a tiny pittance, as he left nearly all he had to his son, to 'keep up' his name. By that time Aunt Baba had married George for his money.
  In the last summer of the century Austin had reached the stage of complete indifference to public opinion. Every morning he walked across the garden to bathe. He wore only his pyjamas to the beach, and nothing into the sea, even when he bathed on horseback, which he liked to do. The unwarrantable assumption was that no one could see him. He then came back to the house and still wearing his pyjamas had grilled steak and beer for breakfast. He drove about a good deal and arrived at awkward times at other people's houses. All this year there was a look of excitement in his eyes, and the red of his face was not very healthy. Again he began to complain of feeling unwell and he walked about the house at night. The doctor advised that he should go for treatment into a private hospital, as nursing homes are called here. His condition did not improve and they decided to perform what in those days was a very difficult operation, under which he died.
  Slowly, as Alice recovered from the shock, she began to realise that she was completely free. Throughout the months following Austin's death are many allusions to plans forming in her mind. She thinks of taking Diana and Wolfie back to Europe to compensate them for the hard time they have had. She has more money now. Or should she take Steven and Laura and settle again at Waterpark?
  She tries to imagine what it would be like to arrive in Taormina. How would Aubrey welcome her? She examines her face in the glass, and writes: 'I look much older than I did six years ago.' It was no good. She could not go back in time. She could not repeat an experience. Too often we are given what we asked when we no longer have the power to use the gift. She had to go on to the next phase, for her the last, that of the static onion woman, waiting for the angel himself to remove the weight from her skirts, and to pull her up into the skies. For her there was no more vital experience. All that had ended on the evening when she wrote: