He confessed that he had been a spy in the pay of the Eastasian government as far back as 1968. He confessed that he was a religious believer, an admirer of capitalism, and a sexual pervert. He confessed that he had murdered his wife, although he knew, and his questioners must have known, that his wife was still alive.
Three seconds before the arrival of J. B. Hobson's letter I no more thought of pursuing the unicorn than``of attempting the passage of the North Sea. Three seconds after reading the letter of the honourable``Secretary of Marine, I felt that my true vocation, the sole end of my life, was to chase this disturbing``monster and purge it from the world.
Beware of Monks bearing gifts. Short fantastic tales from the subcontinent.
Cheap rip-off of Journey to Center of the Earth. Hey, if you liked Wing Commander, you'll love this one. Or at least appreciate it. By Roy Rockwood.
But I recovered my calm. What she said reached my understanding at last. "Submit!" I said, "but to what?``To come and turn us from our homes, to wrap our town in darkness, to banish our wives and our``children, to leave us here to be scorched by the sun and drenched by the rain, -- this is not to convince``us, my Agnès. And to what then do you bid us submit ----?" -- OK, more a historical romance.
Eight-and-twenty years of age, neither particularly good-looking nor, if some people are to be believed, particularly amiable, six feet two in my stockings, and forty-six inches round the chest; strong as a Hakodate wrestler, and perfectly willing at any moment to pay ten pounds sterling to the man who can put me on my back. -- Guy Boothby (also a mystery, but Australia seemed lonely.)
H.B. Irving compiled this anthology.
Of all the heroes who have waged a private and undeclared war upon their neighbours,``Louis-Dominique Cartouche was the most generously endowed. It was but his resolute contempt for``politics, his unswerving love of plunder for its own sake, that prevented him from seizing a throne or``questing after the empire of the world. -- By Charles Whibley
It is supposed that the Phoenicians, who were an ancient people, famous for carrying on trade, came in ships to these Islands, and found that they produced tin and lead; both very useful things, as you know, and both produced to this very hour upon the sea-coast. The most celebrated tin mines in Cornwall are, still, close to the sea. (OK, not fiction)
Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon `Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to.
In his haste, he had given me two volumes of the Encyclopædia instead of Berthoud. Fascinated, however, by the announcement of such marvels, I devoured the mysterious pages, and the further my reading advanced, the more I saw laid bare before me the secrets of an art for which I was unconsciously predestined. -- M. Robert-Houdin
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
MAINLY the Round Table talk was monologues -- narrative accounts of the adventures in which these prisoners were captured and their friends and backers killed and stripped of their steeds and armor. As a general thing -- as far as I could make out -- these murderous adventures were not forays undertaken to avenge injuries, nor to settle old disputes or sudden fallings out; no, as a rule they were simply duels between strangers
Hardly a phenomenal success. But I'd had this job where I listened to NPR for seven hours a day and had to pay attention to it -- coming back from that was rather hard, hard to write one chapter a day to get the thing done.
The colour of their dresses varied, but in most cases different shades of blue and subdued``yellow predominated. In all, the stockings showed deeper and richer shades of colour than the other``garments; and in their curiously segmented appearance, and in the harmonious arrangement of the``tints, they seemed to represent the skins of pythons and other beautifully variegated serpents.--by William Henry Hudson
The family of Lord Marshmoreton.
One of Gaskell's biggest fans -- a Japanese scholar -- has converted many of her works. But he uses double-secret HTML to prove he's the one done it. http://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/etexts.zipl
Rene Descartes. COGITO ERGO SUM. I webmast, therefore I am.
A Discourse on Political Economy
If our politicians were less blinded by their ambition, they would see how impossible it is for any establishment whatever to act in the spirit of its institution, unless it is guided in accordance with the law of duty; they would feel that the greatest support of public authority lies in the hearts of the citizens, and that nothing can take the place of morality in the maintenance of government.--by Jean Jacques Rousseau
That is like a woman! But seriously, Nora, you know what I think about that. No debt, no borrowing. There can be no freedom or beauty about a home life that depends on borrowing and debt. We two have kept bravely on the straight road so far, and we will go on the same way for the short time longer that there need be any struggle. --by Henrik Ibsen
A Double-Barreled Detective Story
It thus transpired that the Extraordinary Man's nephew was the only person in the camp who had a killing-grudge against Flint Buckner.
A Dream of John Ball and a King's Lesson
Then he sung out, "Hob Wright, Rafe Wood, John Pargetter, and thou Will Green, bestir ye and marshal the bowshot; and thou Nicholas Woodyer shall be under me Jack Straw in ordering of the staves. Gregory Tailor and John Clerk, fair and fine are ye clad in the arms of the Canterbury bailiffs; ye shall shine from afar
A Far-Away Melody and Other Stories
Be still, woman! returned her husband, jerking the reins from her hand. "What think ye 'twould profit us``to turn back to Salem village? I trow if there be one black beast here, there is a full herd of them there.``There is naught left but to ride past it as best we may. Sit fast, an' listen you not to it, whatever it promise``you."
Apia, the port and mart, is the seat of the political sickness of Samoa. At the foot of a peaked, woody mountain, the coast makes a deep indent, roughly semicircular. In front the barrier reef is broken by the fresh water of the streams; if the swell be from the north, it enters almost without diminution; and the war-ships roll dizzily at their moorings, and along the fringing coral which follows the configuration of the beach, the surf breaks with a continuous uproar--by Robert Louis Stevenson
Haven't read it yet, was just intrigued to find Fyodor doing anything with "gentle" in the title.
Weyman loved 16th Century France -- intrigue, swashbuckling, some said he was like Dumas, without all the tediuous little bits.
Story of General Ermolov, by author M.Y. Lermontov.
Their host had just left the deck-saloon, taking the early coffee apparatus with him, and Miss Zaidie, in the``first flush of her pride and re-found happiness, was taking a promenade of about twelve strides each way,``while Mrs. Van Stuyler, after partially relieving her feelings as above, had seated herself stiffly in her``wicker-chair, and was following her with eyes which were critical-- by George Griffith
At one period of its reverses, the House fell into the occupation of a Showman. He was found registered as its occupier, on the parish books of the time when he rented the House, and there was therefore no need of any clue to his name. But, he himself was less easy to be found; for, he had led a wandering life, and settled people had lost sight of him--by Dickens and others.
What do you suppose would happen if Charon the Boatman got promoted... to Janitor? By John Kendrick Bangs
Kind of amazing, when you think of how many short story collections Constance Garrett translated into English. Right place, right time.
A Journey to the Center of the Earth
The manuscript volume and the smaller document are written in different hands, he said, "the``cryptograph is of much later date than the book; there is an undoubted proof of the correctness of my``surmise. [An irrefragable proof I took it to be.] The first letter is a double M, which was only added to``the Icelandic language in the twelfth century
We call it -- knot it, Mr. Henderson. ``By Susan Glaspell
The Caves of the Daemons are five in number. A broad pathway leads up to the first cave, which is a finely arched cavern at the foot of the mountain, the entrance being beautifully carved and decorated. In it resides the Daemon of Selfishness. Back of this is another cavern inhabited by the Daemon of Envy. The cave of the Daemon of Hatred is next in order, and through this one passes to the home of the Daemon of Malice
After their mother's death a youth desolate and strange indeed lay before them. A spinster who was a poor``relation was the only person of respectable breeding who ever came near them. To save herself from genteel``starvation, she had offered herself for the place of governess to them, though she was fitted for the position``neither by education nor character.
Notwithstanding the proverbial epicurism of the English, --proverbial, that is to say, in Scotland at the``period,--the English visitors made no figure whatever at the entertainment, compared with the portentous``voracity of Captain Dalgetty, although that gallant soldier had already displayed much steadiness and``pertinacity in his attack upon the lighter refreshment set before them at their entrance, by way of forlorn hope.
Not very long after this a very exciting thing happened. Not only Sara, but the entire school, found it exciting, and``made it the chief subject of conversation for weeks after it occurred. In one of his letters Captain Crewe told a``most interesting story. A friend who had been at school with him when he was a boy had unexpectedly come to see him in India. He was the owner of a large tract of land upon which diamonds had been found, and he was engaged in developing the mines.
A Man of Letters as a Man of Business
He can say that, as the thing is, unless he sells his art he cannot live, that society will leave him to starve if he does not hit its fancy in a picture, or a poem, or a statue; and all this is bitterly true. He is, and he must be, only too glad if there is a market for his wares.
Here the captain sat down on the foot of the bed, and glancing at a dreadful libel on Kitty which ornamented the wall,--the production of some wandering limner, whom the captain secretly admired as having studied portraiture from the figure-heads of ships,--motioned to the young man to take the rush-chair on the other side of the small round table. That done, the captain put his hand in the deep breast-pocket of his long-skirted blue coat, and took out of it a strong square case-bottle
Was he to fall without a struggle from amongst the high places, to be stripped``of his wealth, shunned as a man who was morally, if not in fact, a murderer, to be looked upon with``never-ending scorn by the woman whose picture for years had been a religion to him, and whose``appearance only a few hours ago had been the most inspiring thing which had entered into his life?
I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavouring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the publick good of my country, by advancing our trade, providing for infants, relieving the poor, and giving some pleasure to the rich. I have no children, by which I can propose to get a single penny; the youngest being nine years old, and my wife past child-bearing.
It is not of my own will, nor for my own glory, that I, Norman Leslie, sometime of Pitcullo, and in religion called``Brother Norman, of the Order of Benedictines, of Dunfermline, indite this book. But on my coming out of``France, in the year of our Lord One thousand four hundred and fifty-nine, it was laid on me by my Superior,``Richard, Abbot in Dunfermline, that I should abbreviate the Great Chronicle of Scotland
More characters out of Southern Louisiana by Mrs. Chopin, single mom of six.
Bede's Inn has this peculiarity, that it faces, receives from, and discharges into a bustling thoroughfare``speaking only of wealth and respectability, whilst its postern abuts on as crowded and poverty-stricken a``network of alleys as are to be found anywhere in the metropolis. The moral consequences are, first, that``those who occupy chambers in the Inn may see a great deal of shirtless humanity's habits and``enjoyments
Woslosky began to doubt. The pigeons might have seen his flashlight, might have heard his own stealthy``movements. He was intensely irritated. The shooting, if the alarm had been false, had ruined everything. He``saw, as in a vision, Doyle's sneering face when he told him. Beside him Cusick was reloading his revolver in``the darkness.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo His father told him that story: his father looked at him through a glass: he had a hairy face.
I am a very old man; how old I do not know. Possibly I am a hundred, possibly more; but I cannot tell because I have never aged as other men, nor do I remember any childhood. So far as I can recollect I have always been a man, a man of about thirty. I appear today as I did forty years and more ago, and yet I feel that I cannot go on living forever
Regard for the lovers of the Old Masters, and for the moral well-being of society, forbids me to be particular about the nature of my labors, or to go into dangerous detail on the subject of my first failures and my subsequent success. I may, however, harmlessly admit that my Rembrandt was to be of the small or cabinet size, and that, as there was a run on Burgomasters just then, my subject was naturally to be of the Burgomaster sort.
If you liked the movie, read the book.
Like every other woman, she had had an affair of the heart. Her father, who was a mason, was killed by falling``from a scaffolding. Then her mother died and her sisters went their different ways; a farmer took her in, and``while she was quite small, let her keep cows in the fields. She was clad in miserable rags, beaten for the``slightest offence and finally dismissed for a theft of thirty sous which she did not commit.
He said to himself that he was madly``in love. Never yet had he been worsted in an amour by any man. The blood surged to his head at the``mere thought of being conquered in the only battle of life worth fighting--the battle for a woman, and``by a man of more than twice his age, a man who ought long ago to have been married and have had``children as old as the Signorina Vere. --by Robert Hichens
Mr. Blake was standing in the centre of the room when I entered, carelessly following with his eyes the motion of Mr. Gryce's finger as that gentleman pointed with unwearying assiduity to the various little details that had struck us.
By Jove! I cried, "if he really wants someone to share the rooms and the expense, I am the very man for him. I``should prefer having a partner to being alone." Young Stamford looked rather strangely at me over his wine-glass. "You don't know Sherlock Holmes yet," he``said; "perhaps you would not care for him as a constant companion."
"Something over a fortnight had passed since the night when I lost half-a-sovereign and found twelve hundred``and fifty pounds in looking for it, and instead of that horrid hole, for which, after all, Eldorado was hardly a``misnomer, a very different scene stretched away before us clad in the silver robe of the moonlight.
david moynihan
dmoynihan@blackmask.com
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No
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Best of Times, Worst of Times...
If I must tell more tales of Raffles, I can but back to our earliest days together, and fill in the blanks left by discretion in existing annals. In so doing I may indeed fill some small part of an infinitely greater blank, across which you may conceive me to have stretched my canvas for the first frank portrait of my friend.
I confess that with all my curiosity to meet an Altrurian, I was in no hospitable mood towards the traveller when he``finally presented himself, pursuant to the letter of advice sent me by the friend who introduced him. It would be``easy enough to take care of him in the hotel; I had merely to engage a room for him, and have the clerk tell him``his money was not good if he tried to pay for anything.
A Vindication of the Rights of Women
By Mary Wollstonecraft, mother of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.
17th Century Portuguese Jesuit sent to convert Abyssinia from the "wrong" kind of Christianity. -- Father Jeronimo Lobo
On a march evening, at eight o'clock, Backhouse, the medium - a fast - rising star in the psychic world - was ushered into the study at Prolands, the Hampstead residence of Montague Faull. The room was illuminated only by the light of a blazing fire. -- by David Lindsay
The history of the North had virtually become, by April, 1861, the history of Lincoln himself, and during the``remaining four years of the President's life it is difficult to separate his personality from the trend of national``history. Any attempt to understand the achievements and the omissions of the Northern people without``undertaking an intelligent estimate of their leader would be only to duplicate the story of "Hamlet" with Hamlet``left out.--by Nathaniel W. Stephenson
In a secluded cove, in which the sea-maids once had played, no doubt, Marjory and Coleman sat in silence. He was below her, and if he looked at her he had to turn his glance obliquely upward. She was staring at the sea with woman's mystic gaze, a gaze which men at once... by Stephen Crane
The exciting influence of the previous day, heightened at last by Dinah's unexpected presence, had not been counteracted by any bodily weariness, for he had not done his ordinary amount of hard work; and so when he went to bed; it was not till he had tired himself with hours of tossing wakefulness that drowsiness came,
The bell had hardly rung, sending the labourers into the fields, when Sheldon had a visitor. He had had the couch taken out on the veranda, and he was lying on it when the canoes paddled in and hauled out on the beach. Forty men, armed with spears, bows and arrows, and war-clubs, gathered outside the gate of the compound, but only one entered.
When the ancients departed, great numbers of their cattle perished. It was not so much the want of food as the inability to endure exposure that caused their death; a few winters are related to have so reduced them that they died by hundreds, many mangled by dogs. The hardiest that remained became perfectly wild, and the wood cattle are now more difficult to approach than deer. -- by Richard Jeffries
AS WE drove along, my spirits revived again, and I turned, with pleasure, to the contemplation of the new``life upon which I was entering; but, though it was not far past the middle of September, the heavy clouds,``and strong north-easterly wind combined to render the day extremely cold and dreary, and the journey``seemed a very long one, for, as Smith observed, the roads were "very heavy;"--by Anne Bronte
Late one brilliant April afternoon Professor Lucius Wilson stood at the head of Chestnut Street, looking about``him with the pleased air of a man of taste who does not very often get to Boston. He had lived there as a``student, but for twenty years and more, since he had been Professor of Philosophy in a Western university, he``had seldom come East except to take a steamer for some foreign port.
Ali Pacha, The Countess of Saint Geran, Murat
A career of successful crime had established Ali's rule over a population equal to that of the two kingdoms of Sweden and``Norway. But his ambition was not yet satisfied. The occupation of Parga did not crown his desires, and the delight which it``caused him was much tempered by the escape of the Parganiotes, who found in exile a safe refuge from his persecution.
The device of the absentee partner has the defect that it cannot be employed for longer than ten or fifteen minutes at a time, and it may not be repeated more than twice in one evening: a single repetition, indeed, is weak, and may prove a betrayal. Alice knew that her present performance could be effective during only this interval between dances
The Lad himself.
For a moment I literally staggered beneath the terror of the shock. Then I roused myself from my despair. I``bade the native run and alarm the people at the kraals, telling them to come armed, and bring me guns and``ammunition. He went like the wind, and I turned to follow the spoor. For a few yards it was plain``enough--Stella had been dragged along.
At last the excitement had died out in Sambir. The inhabitants got used to the sight of comings and goings``between Almayer's house and the vessel, now moored to the opposite bank, and speculation as to the``feverish activity displayed by Almayer's boatmen in repairing old canoes ceased to interfere with the due``discharge of domestic duties by the women of the Settlement.
She turned the next leaf, and saw a big picture of a clown, dressed in green and red and yellow, and having a very white face with three-cornered spots of red on each cheek and over the eyes. While she looked at this the book trembled in her hands, the leaf crackled and creaked and suddenly the clown jumped out of it and stood upon the floor beside her, becoming instantly as big as any ordinary clown.
MY hungry eyes through greedy couetize,/still to behold the obiect of their paine:/with no contentment can themselues suffize,/but hauing pine and hauing not complaine.-- by Spenser
. Then as she was doing that which was enjoined by her father, the thief, hearing for what purpose this was done and having a desire to get the better of the king in resource, did thus:--from the body of one lately dead he cut off the arm at the shoulder and went with it under his mantle: and having gone in to the daughter of the king, and being asked that which the others also were asked, he related that he had done the most unholy deed when he cut off the head of his brother--by Herodotus
An account of some strange disturbances in Aungier Street
It is not worth telling, this story of mine--at least, not worth writing. Told, indeed, as I have sometimes been called upon to tell it, to a circle of intelligent and eager faces, lighted up by a good after-dinner fire on a winter's evening, with a cold wind rising and wailing outside, and all snug and cosy within, it has gone off--though I say it, who should not--indifferent well.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
David Hume's work, these guys spent a lot of time wondering about the nature of knowing.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
John Locke's text. One of the must-reads for the period.
Also known as the Gondreville Mystery. By Honore de Balzac.
An Inquiry Into The Nature And Causes Of The Wealth Of Nations
THE annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniences of life which it annually consumes, and which consist always either in the immediate produce of that labour, or in what is purchased with that produce from other nations. -- By Adam Smith
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and Other Stories
A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below.``The man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It``was attached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack feel to the level of his knees. Some loose``boards laid upon the ties supporting the rails of the railway supplied a footing for him and his executioners
POLLY soon found that she was in a new world, a world where the manners and customs were so different``from the simple ways at home, that she felt like a stranger in a strange land, and often wished that she had``not come. In the first place, she had nothing to do but lounge and gossip, read novels, parade the streets, and``dress;
It will be inferred from what has been said that the theory which transformed the Roman jurisprudence``had no claim to philosophical precision. It involved, in fact, one of those "mixed modes of thought" which``are now acknowledged to have characterised all but the highest minds during the infancy of``speculation, and which are far from undiscoverable even in the mental efforts of our own day. -- by Henry Sumner Maine
Many years ago, there was an Emperor, who was so excessively fond of new clothes, that he spent all his money in dress. He did not trouble himself in the least about his soldiers; nor did he care to go either to the theatre or the chase, except for the opportunities then afforded him for displaying his new clothes. He had a different suit for each hour of the day -- by Hans Christian Andersen
BY THE late summer the news of what had happened on Animal Farm had spread across half the county. Every day Snowball and Napoleon sent out flights of pigeons whose instructions were to mingle with the animals on neighbouring farms, tell them the story of the Rebellion, and teach them the tune of Beasts of England.
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
A Wedding at the Stone House, among other events in this sequel.
Instead of sending him and Marilla a boy, Mrs Spencer had sent them a girl.
Charlie Sloane, Gilbert Blythe and Anne Shirley left Avonlea the following Monday morning. Anne had hoped for``a fine day. Diana was to drive her to the station and they wanted this, their last drive together for some time, to``be a pleasant one. But when Anne went to bed Sunday night the east wind was moaning around Green``Gables with an ominous prophecy which was fulfilled in the morning. -- Lucy Maud Montgomery
She recalled the first morning she had wakened in that little porch room, when the sunshine had crept in on``her through the blossom-drift of the old Snow Queen. That had not been a happy wakening, for it brought with``it the bitter disappointment of the preceding night. But since then the little room had been endeared and``consecrated by years of happy childhood dreams and maiden visions. --by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Soon shall we know, better than seer can tell./Learning may fixed decree anent thy bride,/Thou mean'st not, son, to rave against thy sire?/Know'st not whate'er we do is done in love?
Most worthy sir, you therein throw away`` The absolute soldiership you have by land;`` Distract your army, which doth most consist`` Of war-mark'd footmen; leave unexecuted`` Your own renowned knowledge;
Excuse me for noticing it," added Allan, as the man, in sheer nervous helplessness, let his hat fall, instead of putting it back on his head; "but you seem a little out of sorts; a glass of good wine will do you no harm before you and my friend come to business. Whereabouts did you meet with Mr. Bashwood, Midwinter, when you lost your way?"
an enigmatical personage, about whom little was known, except that he was a``polished man of the world. People said that he resembled Byron--at least that his head was Byronic; but he``was a bearded, tranquil Byron, who might live on a thousand years without growing old.
Ouing in trueth, and fayne in verse my loue to show,/That she, deare Shee, might take som pleasure of my paine,/``Pleasure might cause her reade, reading might make her know, -- by Sir Philip Sidney
I WAS BORN IN CONNECTICUT ABOUT THIRTY YEARS ago. My name is David Innes. My father was a wealthy mine owner. When I was nineteen he died. All his property was to be mine when I had attained my majority--provided that I had devoted the two years intervening in close application to the great business I was to inherit.
Emerging from the "pastry-cook's," Soames' first impulse was to vent his nerves by saying to his daughter:``'Dropping your hand-kerchief!' to which her reply might well be: 'I picked that up from you!' His second impulse``therefore was to let sleeping dogs lie. But she would surely question him. -- volume III in the Forsyte series.
It was suggested to Lucy before she had been long in Kingsbury Crescent that she should take some exercise. For the first week she had hardly been out of the house; but this was attributed to her sorrow. Then she had accompanied her aunt for a few days during the half-hour's marketing which took place every morning, but in this there had been no sympathy. Lucy would not interest herself in the shoulder of mutton which must be of just such a weight as to last conveniently for two days
Yes, I was driven to thoughts of murder. It shows how the first false step leads down and down, to crime and``even to death. Oh never, never, gentle reader, take that first False Step. Who knows to what it may lead! -- By Mary Roberts Rinehart, who has at least 10 other novels on this site.
THE towers of Zenith aspired above the morning mist; austere towers of steel and cement and limestone, sturdy as cliffs and delicate as silver rods. They were neither citadels nor churches, but frankly and beautifully office-buildings.
The stepping-off point for Trollope begins here.
Being an Account of the Strange Wooing pursued by the Sieur Marcel de Saint-Pol; Marquis of Bardelys, and of the things that in the course of it befell him in Languedoc, in the year of the Rebellion.
There was at that time a certain monk, learned in heavenly things, graced in word and deed, a model follower``of every monastic rule. Whence he sprang, and what his race, I cannot say, but he dwelt in a waste howling``wilderness in the land of Senaar, and had been perfected through the grace of the priesthood. Barlaam was``this elder's name. --by St. John Damascene
As soon as the business of the day was over, the locksmith sallied forth, alone, to visit the wounded gentleman and ascertain the progress of his recovery. The house where he had left him was in a by-street in Southwark, not far from London Bridge; and thither he hied with all speed, bent upon returning with as little delay as might be, and getting to bed betimes
Sequel to "The Count's Millions
Why? would my Booth have broake, if they had fal'ne out in it? Sir? or would their heate have fir'd it? in, you Rogue, and wipe the pigges, and mend the fire, that they fall not, or I will both baste and roast you, till your eyes drop out, like them. (Leaue the bottle behinde you, and be curst a while.)
At the period just preceding the advent of Bartleby, I had two persons as copyists in my employment, and a promising lad as an``office-boy. First, Turkey; second, Nippers; third, Ginger Nut. These may seem names, the like of which are not usually found in the``Directory. In truth they were nicknames, mutually conferred upon each other by my three clerks, and were deemed expressive of``their respective persons or characters.
Short fiction by much-more-than-local-color-writer Kate Chopin. Includes Ma'ame Pélagie, a character who shows up again later...
Wide variation of short-stories here, including seven featuring Clovis.
The first morning, after my night's sleep with Lop-Ear, I learned the advantage of the narrow-mouthed caves. It was just daylight when old Saber-Tooth, the tiger, walked into the open space. Two of the Folk were already up. They made a rush for it. Whether they were panic-stricken, or whether he was too close on their heels for them to attempt to scramble up the bluff to the crevices, I do not know
Behind a Mask: Or, A Woman's Power
More from Louisa May Alcott. Hey, she might need a category.
Thank thou thy God, he said to Ben-Hur, after a look at the galleys, "thank thou``thy God, as I do my many gods. A pirate would sink, not save, yon ship. By the act``and the helmet on the mast I know a Roman. The victory is mine. Fortune hath not``deserted me. We are saved. --by Lew Wallace
In this dilemma it occurred to me that the only thing I could do was to turn my shooting to practical account, and become a hunter of big game. Therefore I propose to kill elephants until an elephant kills me. At least," he added in a changed voice, "I did so propose until half an hour ago."
Benito Cereno and Billy Budd, Sailor
Famous Melville Stories, one, a decrepit ship's captain who lost this crew; the other, considered by some to be Melville's finest sailing novel.
The Black Forest had changed autumn's gay crimson and yellow to the somber hue of winter and``now looked indescribably dreary. An ice gorge had formed in the bend of the river at the head of the island and``from bank to bank logs, driftwood, broken ice and giant floes were packed and jammed so tightly as to resist``the action of the mighty current.
They who have known the doldrums--how the sails of the listless ship droop, and the hope of escape dies day``by day--may understand something of the life Gyp began living now. On a ship, even doldrums come to an``end. But a young woman of twenty-three, who has made a mistake in her marriage, and has only herself to``blame, looks forward to no end
MRS. ATKINS—Can't! It do make me mad, Kate Mayo, to see folks that God gave all the use of their limbs to potterin' round and wastin' time doin' every thing the wrong way—and me powerless to help and at their mercy, you might say. And it ain't that I haven't pointed the right way to 'em. I've talked to Robert thousands of times and told him how things ought to be done. You know that, Kate Mayo.--by Eugene O'Neill
Philosophy by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Hey, there's some poetry in this one.
While I was young I lived upon my mother's milk, as I could not eat grass. In the daytime I ran by her side, and at night I lay down close by her. When it was hot we used to stand by the pond in the shade of the trees, and when it was cold we had a nice warm shed near the grove. -- by Anna Sewell
The Black One was angry, and despatched us to catch you and make``an end of you. That is all. Come on now, quietly, and let us finish the matter. As the Doom Pool is``near, your deaths will be easy."
I said it with a stronger heart, for when he praised me thus and when I heard his voice thrill with his belief that what he said was true, I aspired to be more worthy of it. It was not too late for that. Although I closed this unforeseen page in my life to-night, I could be worthier of it all through my life. And it was a comfort to me, and an impulse to me, and I felt a dignity rise up within me that was derived from him when I thought so.
Among the many fatalities attending the bloom of young desire, that of blindly taking to the confectionery line has not, perhaps, been sufficiently considered.
Bulfinch's Mythology: Legends of Charlemagne, or Romance of the Middle Ages
Kinda history, kinda not. You know...
Bulfinch's Mythology: The Age of Chivalry, or Legends of King Arthur
A personal favorite.
In no blaze of glory did Burning Daylight descend upon San Francisco. Not only had he been forgotten, but the Klondike along with him. The world was interested in other things, and the Alaskan adventure, like the Spanish War, was an old story. Many things had happened since then. Exciting things were happening every day, and the sensation-space of newspapers was limited.
Spilled milk draws few tears from an Anchurian administration. Many are its lacteal sources; and the clocks'``hands point forever to milking time. Even the rich cream skimmed from the treasury by the bewitched``Miraflores did not cause the newly installed patriots to waste time in unprofitable regrets.
Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tidewater dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego. Because men, groping in the Arctic darkness, had found a yellow metal, and because steamship and transportation companies were booming the find, thousands of men were rushing into the Northland.
There came to``them out of the fog--seemingly from a great distance--the sound of a laugh, a low, deliberate, soulless``laugh which had no more of joy than that of a hyena night-prowling in the desert; a laugh that rose by slow``gradation, louder and louder, clearer, more distinct and terrible, until it seemed barely outside the narrow``circle of their vision; a laugh so unnatural, so unhuman, so devilish, that it filled those hardy man-hunters``with a sense of dread unspeakable!
'How is it possible that the lovely``Candide and the sage Pangloss should be at Lisbon, the one to receive a hundred lashes, and the``other to be hanged by order of My Lord Inquisitor, of whom I am so great a favorite? Pangloss deceived``me most cruelly, in saying that everything is for the best.' -- By Voltaire
... What! Burle, Colonel Burle's son, condemned for theft! That cannot be! I would sooner burn down the town. Now, thunder and lightning, don't worry; it is far more annoying for me than for you."
It was a sad picture; this last``scion of a noble race, formerly rich and powerful, left wandering like an uneasy ghost in the castle of his``ancestors, with but one faithful old servant remaining to him of the numerous retinue of the olden times; one``poor old dog, half starved, and gray with age, where used to be a pack of thirty hounds
Nothing remained to assure us that the adventure had not been an illusion of a moment but the young lady, who just at that moment opened her eyes.
a large estate and manor, about a mile and a half outside of the village of Korunton. This place is named Gannington Manor, and has been empty a great number of years; as you will find is almost always the case with Houses reputed to be haunted, as it is usually termed.
TOWARD the beginning of the eighteenth century there stood on a rock in the sea, near a fishing village on the coast of Brittany, a ruined tower with a very bad reputation. No mortal was known to have inhabited it within the memory of living man.
In this woeful plight, moneyless, wifeless, horseless, corporalless, with a gag in his mouth and a rope round``his body, are we compelled to leave the gallant Galgenstein, until his friends and the progress of this history``shall deliver him from his durance. Mr. Brock's adventures on the Captain's horse must likewise be``pretermitted
When Orestilla by her bearing well/These my retirements, and stolne times for thought/Shall give their effects leaue to call her Queene/Of all the world, in place of humbled Rome.
The observer might have fancied it a robbers' den, but he would have been wrong; for the inhabitants were fairly honest. The Hotel de Perou was one of those refuges, growing scarcer and more scarce every day, where unhappy men and women, who had been worsted in the battle of life, could find a shelter in return for the change remaining from the last five-franc piece.
The old piano plays an air,/Sedate and slow and gay;/She bends upon the yellow keys,/Her head inclines this way.
And the best of it was that the danger was all over already. There was no danger any more. The supposed nephew's appearance``had a purpose. He had come, full, full to trembling--with the bigness of his news. There must have been rumours already as to``the shaky position of the de Barral's concerns; but only amongst those in the very inmost know. No rumour or echo of``rumour had reached the profane in the West-End
So wise, so proud, so little vain, so strong in health and wealth and honor, one would have said nothing less than an earthquake could shake this gentleman and his house. Yet both were shaken, though rooted by centuries to the soil; and by no vulgar earthquake.
Child Christopher and Goldilind the Fair
Tells the tale that in the country which lay south of Oakenrealm, and was called Meadham, there was in these days a king whose wife was dead, but had left him a fair daughter, who was born some four years after King Christopher. A good man was this King Roland, mild, bounteous, and no regarder of persons in his justice; and well-beloved he was of his folk: yet could not their love keep him alive
Whatever else may have been false in this man's nature, one thing rang true, namely, his love or his infatuation for the girl Mameena. Throughout his life she was his guiding star--about as evil a star as could have arisen upon any man's horizon; the fatal star that was to light him down to doom. Let me thank Providence, as I do, that I was so fortunate as to escape its baneful influences, although I admit that they attracted me not a little.
When Paphos fell by Time -- accursed Time! `` The Queen who conquers all must yield to thee -- `` The Pleasures fled, but sought as warm a clime; `` And Venus, constant to her native sea, `` To nought else constant, hither deign'd to flee,
it is said that no fewer than``thirty thousand adherents were executed before the trouble was finally suppressed; from which``statement it is easy to gather that under whatever form the White Lily Society may have been``originally initiated, its activities were now of a much more serious character, and were, in fact, plainly``directed against the power and authority of the Manchus.--by Herbert A. Giles
Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
Sometimes the pretenders lived abroad in exile, like the Visconti, who practiced the fisherman's craft on the Lake of Garda, viewed the situation with patient indifference. When asked by a messenger of his rival when and how he thought of returning to Milan, he gave the reply, 'By the same means as those by which I was expelled, but not till his crimes have outweighed my own.' -- by Jacob Burckhardt
Thus it came to pass that on the next day I arrayed myself in a long and flowing robe, after the fashion of a``magician or astrologer. I placed a cap on my head, about which were broidered images of the stars, and in my``belt a scribe's palette and a roll of papyrus written over with magic spells and signs. In my hand I held a wand``of ebony, tipped with ivory, such as is used by priests and masters of magic.
He who wrote of Erec and Enide, and translated into French the commands of Ovid and the Art of``Love, and wrote the Shoulder Bite, and about King Mark and the fair Iseut, and about the``metamorphosis of the Lapwing, the Swallow, and the Nightingale, will tell another story now about a youth``who lived in Greece and was a member of King Arthur's line.
Or, the Colored Heroine (seen three names for this book.) Inspired, perhaps, by Jeffersonian rumors in the 1800s.
Now that every one is asleep--the beautiful Colomba, the colonel, and his daughter--I will seize the opportunity to acquaint my reader with certain details of which he must not be ignorant, if he desires to follow the further course of this veracious history. -- by Prosper Merimee, author of Carmen
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
Guilt and misery shrink, by a natural instinct, from public notice: they court privacy and solitude: and even in their choice of a grave will sometimes sequester themselves from the general population of the churchyard, as if declining to claim fellowship with the great family of man -- by Thomas de Quincey
Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's philosophical notions -- ok, it ain't poetry.
Sequel to Clouston's The Lunatic At Large
Mistrustfully and with an``affectation of being alarmed and almost affronted, he scanned Raskolnikov's low and narrow "cabin." With the``same amazement he stared at Raskolnikov, who lay undressed, dishevelled, unwashed, on his miserable``dirty sofa, looking fixedly at him.
CRITO: I should not have liked myself, Socrates, to be in such great trouble and unrest as you are--indeed I should not: I have been watching with amazement your peaceful slumbers; and for that reason I did not awake you, because I wished to minimize the pain.
Miss Susannah often sat on the rock, with her feet resting on this tree:``in time, she made her seat on the tree itself, with her feet hanging over the abyss; and at length she``accustomed herself to lie along upon its trunk, with her side on the mossy boll of the fork, and an arm``round one of the branches. From this position a portion of the sky and the woods was reflected in the``pool, which, from its bank, was but a mass of darkness.
Is that thy Boy Hedon?/G/2.2 Aye, what thinkst thou of him?/H/2.2 Shart, I would gelde him; I warrant he has the Philosophers stone.
'Tis enormous!/Old Flathead, empty-headed meddler, know/That I am proud possessing such appendice./'Tis well known, a big nose is indicative/Of a soul affable, and kind, and courteous,--by Edmond Rostand
What I should say is, simply, that when certain persons``spoke of him they affirmed that the reason of his spending so much time at Geneva was that he was extremely``devoted to a lady who lived there--a foreign lady--a person older than himself. Very few Americans--indeed, I``think none--had ever seen this lady, about whom there were some singular stories.
I told Dr. Haverford that we would like to give him a car, Natalie, he began directly. It was typical of him, the "we."
Sixteen minutes past eleven, he says. "AT EXACTLY TWENTY-NINE MINUTES TO TWELVE MR. MURRAY WILL BE DEAD. I got the harmless one. I can tell by the taste." By Don Marquis, author of Cruise of the Jasper B.
All Authors agree not concerning the definition of the Naturall Law, who notwithstanding doe very often make``use of this terme in their Writings. The Method therefore, wherein we begin from definitions, and exclusion of``all equivocation, is only proper to them who leave no place for contrary Disputes; for the rest, if any man say,``that somwhat is done against the Law of Nature--by Thomas Hobbes
You mean when Ready asked him if we were out of our course? I must say I thought it was a silly question to put. It was the same the other evening about the cargo. If the skipper says we're in ballast why not believe him? Why repeat steerage gossip, about mysterious cargoes, at the cuddy table? Captains are always touchy about that sort of thing. I wasn't surprised at his letting out.
Meanwhile, Chichikov, seated in his britchka and bowling along the turnpike, was feeling greatly pleased with himself. From the preceding chapter the reader will have gathered the principal subject of his bent and inclinations: wherefore it is no matter for wonder that his body and his soul had ended by becoming wholly immersed therein. --by Nikolai Gogol
And I am not in the habit of running useless risks, most noble cavaliers. You are, it is true, two against one;``but, he added, throwing back his cloak and grasping the hilts of a pair of pistols tucked in his belt, "these will``make us equal. You are mistaken as to my intentions. I had no thought of playing the spy; it was chance alone``that led me here
Your Yaqui was near dead, but guess we'll pull him through, said Belding. "Dick, the other day that Indian``came here by rail and foot and Lord only knows how else, all the way from New Orleans! He spoke English``better than most Indians, and I know a little Yaqui. I got some of his story and guessed the rest.
IT is of man that I have to speak; and the question I am investigating shows me that it is to men that I must address myself: for questions of this sort are not asked by those who are afraid to honour truth. I shall then confidently uphold the cause of humanity before the wise men who invite me to do so, and shall not be dissatisfied if I acquit myself in a manner worthy of my subject and of my judges. --by Jean Jacques Rousseau
I am a Cheap Jack, and my own father's name was Willum Marigold. It was in his lifetime supposed by some that his name was William, but my own father always consistently said, No, it was Willum. On which point I content myself with looking at the argument this way: If a man is not allowed to know his own name in a free country, how much is he allowed to know in a land of slavery?
Dombey sat in the corner of the darkened room in the great arm-chair by the bedside, and Son lay tucked up warm in a little basket bedstead, carefully disposed on a low settee immediately in front of the fire and close to it, as if his constitution were analogous to that of a muffin, and it was essential to toast him brown while he was very new.
Hey, you know all those guys, trying to play it cool, moving on, but as though you've got a little bad in the past? Without this poem, you're nothing. (My definition of a Byronic hero)
In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of``those gentlemen that keep a lance in the lance-rack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for coursing.
We stood up, openly looking at him as though we were astounded at his audacity: for, in``starting, he had knocked down the double-cross, golden, which leaned against the pedestal of the``ivory faun near him, nor did he attempt to replace it. Indeed, his. eyes began to glare like those of``one who unadvisedly had looked upon a cluster of hobgoblins. His knees also began to bend like those``of one pressed downward by an incubus, gently, irresistible-- by Frederick William Rolfe
He had not gone far when he found himself on a wide moor. He sat down on a big stone, and began to turn things over in his mind. This is how his thoughts went: ````"I can never be the man I was! The thoucht o' my heart 's ta'en frae me! I canna think aboot things as I used. There's naething sae bonny as afore. By George MacDonald
That Pyne had planned this trick, with Rita Irvin's consent, he did not doubt, and his passive dislike of the man became active hatred of the woman he dared not think. He had for long looked upon Sir Lucien in the light of a rival, and the irregularity of his own infatuation for another's wife in no degree lessened his resentment.
When Dorothy recovered her senses they were still falling, but not so fast. The top of the buggy caught the air like a parachute or an umbrella filled with wind, and held them back so that they floated downward with a gentle motion that was not so very disagreeable to bear. The worst thing was their terror of reaching the bottom of this great crack in the earth, and the natural fear that sudden death was about to overtake them at any moment.
I drove at once to Hillingham and arrived early. Keeping my cab at the gate, I went up the avenue alone. I knocked gently and rang as quietly as possible, for I feared to disturb Lucy or her mother, and hoped to only bring a servant to the door. After a while, finding no response, I knocked and rang again, still no answer.
Little Jannita sat alone beside a milk-bush. Before her and behind her stretched the plain, covered with red sand``and thorny karoo bushes; and here and there a milk-bush, looking like a bundle of pale green rods tied together.``Not a tree was to be seen anywhere, except on the banks of the river, and that was far away, and the sun beat on``her head. Round her fed the Angora goats she was herding
Then again he came to her. And she moaned, and bent her head low, and turned to the gate. But as she went``out she looked back at the sunlight on the faces of the flowers, and wept in anguish. Then she went out, and it``shut behind her for ever; but still in her hand she held of the buds she had gathered, and the scent was very``sweet in the lonely desert.
Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance. On Saturday evenings when my aunt went marketing I had to go to carry some of the parcels. We walked through the flaring streets, jostled by drunken men and bargaining women, amid the curses of labourers, the shrill litanies of shop-boys who stood on guard by the barrels of pigs' cheeks -- from Araby
On the 24th of the same month, being in the latitude of 42 degrees 25 minutes south, and in the longitude of``163 degrees 50 minutes, I discovered land, which lay east-south-east at the distance of ten miles, which I``called Van Diemen's Land. The compass pointed right towards this land. The weather being bad, I steered``south and by east along the coast
Harald took the sword, drew it, or was half drawing``it, admiringly from the scabbard, when the English excellency broke into a scornful laugh, "Ha, ha;``thou art now the feudatory of my English king; thou hast accepted the sword from him, and art``now his man!" (acceptance of a sword in that manner being the symbol of investiture in those``days.) Harald looked a trifle flurried, it is probable; but held in his wrath, and did no damage to the``tricksy Englishman.--by Thomas Carlyle
Rose was sitting in her pretty room, where she would gladly have spent all her time if it had been allowed; but``she looked up with a smile, for she had ceased to fear her uncle's remedies, and was always ready to try a``new one. The last had been a set of light gardening tools, with which she had helped him put the flower-beds``in order, learning all sorts of new and pleasant things about the plants as she worked
Eight Years' Wanderings in Ceylon
A population of some millions wholly dependent upon the supply of rice for their existence would be thrown into sudden starvation by the withdrawal of the water. Thus have the nations died out like a fire for lack of fuel. This cause will account for the decay of the great cities of Ceylon. The population gone, the wind and the rain would howl through the deserted dwellings, the white ants would devour the supporting beams
Pimpernel in the New World
Elissa, or The Doom of Zimbabwe
At length, as the two men sat thus silently, for the place and its gloom oppressed them, a sound broke upon the quiet of the night, that beginning with a low wail such as might come from the lips of a mourner, ended in a chant or song. The voice, which seemed close at hand, was low, rich and passionate. At times it sank almost to a sob
"Nobody can tell. Elsie is not like anybody else. The girls who have seen most of her think she hates men, all but``'Dudley,' as she calls her father. Some of them doubt whether she loves him. They doubt whether she can love``anything human, except perhaps the old black woman who has taken care of her since she was a baby.
david moynihan
dmoynihan@blackmask.com
0
No
No
0
0
Yes"
Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never...``by John Keats
my narrow and desultory reading had inspired the wish to see the faces of three or four writers, -- Coleridge, Wordsworth, Landor, De Quincey, and the latest and strongest contributor to the critical journals, Carlyle; and I suppose if I had sifted the reasons that led me to Europe, when I was ill and was advised to travel, it was mainly the attraction of these persons.
Three children of three houses, Annie Lee,/The prettiest little damsel in the port,/And Philip Ray the miller's only son,/And Enoch Arden, a rough sailor's lad -- by Tennyson``Made orphan by a winter shipwreck
The doing of it, not the manner: that must be priuate. Many things, that seeme foule, in the doing, do please,``done. A lady should, indeede, study her face, when we thinke she sleepes: nor, when the dores are shut, should``men be inquiring; all is sacred within, then.
The damsel advanced and tried to pass him by force, holding the dwarf in slight esteem when``she saw that he was so small. Then the dwarf raised his whip, when he saw her coming toward him``and tried to strike her in the face. She raised her arm to protect herself, but he lifted his hand again``and struck her all unprotected on her bare hand
This is what I gathered. That in that country if a man falls into ill health, or catches any disorder, or fails bodily in any way before he is seventy years old, he is tried before a jury of his countrymen, and if convicted is held up to public scorn and sentenced more or less severely as the case may be. There are subdivisions of illnesses into crimes and misdemeanours
It was Panky, not Hanky, who had given him the Musical Bank money. Panky was the greater humbug of the two, for he would humbug even himself--a thing, by the way, not very hard to do; and yet he was the less successful humbug, for he could humbug no one who was worth humbugging--not for long.
Make place, my father, said Gudruda, "for Eric bleeds." And she loosed the kerchief from her neck and``bound it about his wounded brow, and, taking the rich cloak from her body, threw it on his shoulders,``and no man said her nay.
THE inconstancy and various motions of fortune may reasonably make us expect she would present us with all sorts of faces. Can there be a more express act of justice than this? The Duke of Valentinois having resolved to poison Adrian, Cardinal of Corneto, with whom Pope Alexander VI., his father and himself, were to sup in the Vatican-- by Michel de Montaigne
ETHAN WENT OUT into the passage to hang up his wet garments. He listened for Zeena's step and, not``hearing it, called her name up the stairs. She did not answer, and after a moment's hesitation he went up and``opened her door. The room was almost dark, but in the obscurity he saw her sitting by the window, bolt``upright
Euth. I am amused, Socrates, at your making a distinction between one who is a relation and one who is not a relation; for surely the pollution is the same in either case, if you knowingly associate with the murderer when you ought to clear yourself and him by proceeding against him. The real question is whether the murdered man has been justly slain.
How happy would I estimate my selfe,/Could I (by any meane) retyre my son,/From one vayne course of study he affects?/He is a scholler (if a man may trust/The lib'rall voyce of double-toung'd report)
Let us now imagine that some administrative authority, as far superior in power and intelligence to``men, as men are to their cattle, is set over the colony, charged to deal with its human elements in``such a manner as to assure the victory of the settlement over the antagonistic influences of the``state of nature in which it is set down. He would proceed in the same fashion as that in which the``gardener dealt with his garden.--by T.H. Huxley
And I liked this because I had a rather worrying time on board my own ship. I had been appointed ex-officio by``the British Consul to take charge of her after a man who had died suddenly, leaving for the guidance of his``successor some suspiciously un- receipted bills, a few dry-dock estimates hinting at bribery, and a quantity of``vouchers for three years' extravagant expenditure; all these mixed up to- gether in a dusty old violin-case lined``with ruby velvet.
Not a book for children.
She was the young woman of the night before. Gabriel instantly thought of the hat she had``mentioned as having lost in the wind; possibly she had come to look for it. He hastily scanned the ditch``and after walking about ten yards along it found the hat among the leaves. Gabriel took it in his hand``and returned to his hut. Here he ensconced himself, and peeped through the loophole in the direction of``the rider's approach.
His name was Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov. He owned, about twelve miles from the posting station, a fine property of two hundred serfs or, as he called it--since he had arranged the division of his land with the peasants--a "farm" of nearly five thousand acres. His father, a general in the army, who had served in 1812, a crude, almost illiterate, but good-natured type of Russian, had stuck to a routine job all his life
From the same to the same/``VILLAGE OF M....OE, June 16, 1850./``WELL, my dear fellow, I have been at her house, I have seen her. First of all, I must communicate to thee a remarkable circumstance: believe me or not, as thou wilt, but she has hardly changed at all, either in face or in figure.
Kings have ever been the bugaboo of our American people; but the President of the United States to-day, in the legitimate exercise of his authority, exercises a greater power than any constitutional sovereign on the face of the earth, his power in Europe being exceeded only by that of the czar or the sultan. All the bulwarks of liberty were reared not against the English Parliament but against the English king.
Waking very early, as is my habit, I peeped out of the wagon, and through the morning mist perceived Footsack in converse with a particularly villainous-looking person. I at once concluded this must be Karl, evidently a Bastard compounded of about fifteen parts of various native bloods to one of white, who, to add to his attractions, was deeply scarred with smallpox and possessed a really alarming squint.
His investigation of the case of the man with the shaven skull afforded an instance of this, and even more notable was his first meeting with Major Jack Ragstaff of the Cavalry Club, a meeting which took place after the office had been closed, but which led to the unmasking of perhaps the most cunning murderer in the annals of crime.
Five Comedies -- As You Like It, Pericles
Cymbeline, Measure for Measure, and Troilus and Cressida. In one vol. Also have the Chaucer version of Troilus and Creseyde, will soon have the Chretian de Troyes.
Five Comedies -- The Merry Wives of Windsor,
A Midsummer Night's`` Dream, Love's Labours Lost, All's Well That Ends`` Well, The Comedy of Errors -- in one volume
In the last day of May in the early 'nineties, about six o'clock of the evening, old Jolyon Forsyte sat under the oak``tree below the terrace of his house at Robin Hill. He was waiting for the midges to bite him, before``abandoning the glory of the afternoon. His thin brown hand, where blue veins stood out, held the end of a cigar``in its tapering, long-nailed fingers
Five Tragedies -- Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Coriolanus,
Timon of Athens, and Titus Andronicus. Complete in one vol.
DOWN among the grass and fragrant clover lay little Eva by the brook-side, watching the bright waves, as they``went singing by under the drooping flowers that grew on its banks. As she was wondering where the waters``went, she heard a faint, low sound, as of far-off music. She thought it was the wind, but not a leaf was stirring,``and soon through the rippling water came a strange little boat
There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is``cowardice.``--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.````Names are not always what they seem. The common Welsh name Bzjxxllwep is``pronounced Jackson.``--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.``(More to this book, but the calender entries tripped me out)
It will be necessary that I should say a word or two of some of the people named in the few preceding pages,``and also of the localities in which they lived. Of Lady Lufton herself enough, perhaps, has been written to``introduce her to my readers. The Framley property belonged to her son; but as Lufton Park--an ancient``ramshackle place in another county--had heretofore been the family residence of the Lufton family
Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus
It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out
The marriage of Sylvanus Stone, Professor of the Natural Sciences, to Anne, daughter of Mr. Justice Carfax, of``the well-known county family--the Carfaxes of Spring Deans, Hants--was recorded in the sixties. The baptisms``of Martin, Cecilia, and Bianca, son and daughters of Sylvanus and Anne Stone, were to be discovered``registered in Kensington in the three consecutive years following
From "Ghost Stories of an Antiquary"
At last, some time past midnight, he was``disposed to turn in, and he put out his lamp after lighting his bedroom candle. The picture lay face upwards on``the table where the last man who looked at it had put it, and it caught his eye as he turned the lamp down.``What he saw made him very nearly drop the candle on the floor -- by M.R. James
SHE walks in beauty like the night /Of cloudless climes and starry skies, /And all that's best of dark and bright /Meet in her aspect and her eyes; --by Lord Byron
Includes the very controversial tale "The Birthmark."
On the 5th of October, at eight p.m., a dense crowd pressed toward the saloons of the Gun Club at``No. 21 Union Square. All the members of the association resident in Baltimore attended the invitation``of their president. As regards the corresponding members, notices were delivered by hundreds``throughout the streets of the city, and, large as was the great hall, it was quite inadequate to``accommodate the crowd of savants.
From the Memoirs of a Minister of France
Same period as Gent. of France.
I do believe, said he, soberly, "or, at least, I could believe, if I chose, that there is a devil in this pile of blotted papers. You have read them, and know what I mean,--that conception in which I endeavored to embody the character of a fiend, -- "The Devil in Manuscript"
But under whatever titular blunders we receive this book it is most cordially welcome. We have seen no prose composition by any American which can compare with some of these articles in the higher merits, or indeed in the lower -- from review by Edgar Alan Poe
Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals
We shall therefore have to investigate a priori the possibility of a categorical imperative, as we have not in this``case the advantage of its reality being given in experience, so that [the elucidation of] its possibility should be``requisite only for its explanation, not for its establishment. In the meantime it may be discerned beforehand``that the categorical imperative alone has the purport of a practical law
A Man were better twenty times be a bandog & barke,/Then here among such a sort, be parish priest/Where he shal neuer be at rest, one pissing while a day/But he must trudge about the towne, this way, and that way,/Here to a drab, there to a theefe, his shoes to teare and rent
Garrison's Finish, A Romance of the Race-Course
Then he awoke too late, as they all awake; awoke to find that his vigor had been sapped by early suppers and late breakfasts; his finances depleted by slow horses and fast women; his nerve frayed to ribbons by gambling. And then had come that awful morning when he first commenced to cough. Would he, could he, ever forget it? --by W. B. M. Ferguson
Engstrand. And it was when your mother was in a nasty temper. I had to find some way of getting my knife into her, my girl. She was always so precious gentile. (Mimicking her.) "Let go, Jacob! Let me be! Please to remember that I was three years with the Alvings at Rosenvold, and they were people who went to Court! (Laughs.) --by Henrik Ibsen
He started down a path and Ozma and Dorothy followed him without protest, as they wanted to see the most important person in this queer country. The houses they passed seemed pleasant enough and each had a little yard in which were flowers and vegetables. Walls of rock separated the dwellings, and all the paths were paved with smooth slabs of rock. This seemed their only building material and they utilized it cleverly for every purpose.
Goblin Market and Selected Poems
Morning and evening/``Maids heard the goblins cry:/``"Come buy our orchard fruits,/``Come buy, come buy: -- by Christina Rossetti
Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
WHEN, by the good hand of my God, I had for five or six years together, without any interruption, freely preached the blessed gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; and had also, through His blessed grace, some encouragement by His blessing thereupon; the devil, that old enemy of man's salvation, took his opportunity to inflame the hearts of his vassals against me, insomuch that at the last, I was laid out for by the warrant of a justice, and was taken and committed to prison.
There may have been other discoverers who have done more for science``than ever Ptolemy accomplished, but there never has been any other discoverer whose authority on the``subject of the movements of the heavenly bodies has held sway over the minds of men for so long a period as``the fourteen centuries during which his opinions reigned supreme. The doctrines he laid down in his famous``book, "The Almagest," prevailed throughout those ages.
Takes a benefactor to help you escape the decay... and visit nicer clothiers.
Does he intend opening his case, and consulting me "professionally," as they say? I hope so. I have already conceived a theory about him. It is supported by Lady Mary's answers to my parting questions. I should like much to ascertain from his own lips.
At all costs we had to keep Rasta safe, but I was very determined that he should not be handed over to the lady. I was going to be no party to cold-blooded murder, which I judged to be her expedient. It was a pretty kettle of fish, but in the meantime I must have food, for I had eaten nothing for nine hours.
One summer's morning a little tailor was sitting on his table by the window; he was in good spirits, and sewed with all his might. Then came a peasant woman down the street crying: 'Good jams, cheap! Good jams, cheap!' This rang pleasantly in the tailor's ears; he stretched his delicate head out of the window, and called:-- by the Brothers Grimm
Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest
STEPHEN F. AUSTIN wanted to exclude lawyers, along with roving frontiersmen, from his colonies in Texas, and hoped thus to promote a utopian society. The lawyers got in, however. Their wit, the anecdotes of which they were both subject and author, and the political stories they made traditional from the stump, have not been adequately set down.--by J. Frank Dobie
Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World
Their heads and breasts were covered with a thick hair, some frizzled, and others lank; they had beards like goats, and a long ridge of hair down their backs, and the fore parts of their legs and feet; but the rest of their bodies was bare, so that I might see their skins, which were of a brown buff colour. They had no tails, nor any hair at all on their buttocks,
Hagakure (The Way of the Samurai). Selections
Although it stands to reason that a samurai should be mindful of the Way of the Samurai, it would seem that we are all negligent. Consequently, if someone were to ask, "What is the true meaning of the Way of the Samurai?" the person who would be able to answer promptly is rare. This is because it has not been established in one's mind beforehand. From this, one's unmindfulness of the Way can be known.
Susan and Michael were to be married in April. He had already gone to take possession of his new farm,``three or four miles away from Yew Nook--but that is neighbouring, according to the acceptation of the word in``that thinly-populated district,--when William Dixon fell ill. He came home one evening, complaining of``head-ache and pains in his limbs,
Thou pray'st not well.`` I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat;`` For, though I am not splenitive and rash,`` Yet have I something in me dangerous,
THE subsiding sea was now a liquid Paradise: its great pellucid braes and hillocks shone with the``sparkle and the hues of all the jewels in an emperor's crown. Imagine--after three days of inky sea,``and pitchy sky, and Death's deep jaws snapping and barely missing--ten thousand great slopes of``emerald, aquamarine, amethyst and topaz, liquid, alive, and dancing jocundly beneath a gorgeous``sun:--by Charles Reade
Woes of Victorian life for the underclass.
Two years later, Pierluigi Orsini was stabbed by one of his grooms at his castle of Stimigliano, near Orvieto; and``suspicion fell upon his widow, more especially as, immediately after the event, she caused the murderer to be``cut down by two servants in her own chamber; but not before he had declared that she had induced him to``assassinate his master by a promise of her love.
Bellamy, King's Spy, and Dorward, journalist, known to fame in every English-speaking country, stood before the``double window of their spacious sitting-room, looking down upon the thoroughfare beneath. Both men were``laboring under a bitter sense of failure.
he Haunted Man and The Ghost's Bargain
Ghastly tales by the master.
The Conrad masterpiece. Exterminate the Brutes.
What the Heck, I'll link to it twice.
Were they to leave the country? This was still under consideration. The next fortnight made some difference in``Theodora's wishes respecting Brogden Cottage. Violet becoming less timid, ventured to show that she took``interest in poor people; and Theodora was pleased by finding her able to teach at school, and to remember``the names of the children.--by Charlotte M. Yonge
Hecuba, oh Hecuba (fallout from the Trojan War). Hopefully the playwright got a full share for this one.
Heimskringla; or The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway
Now when Harald came to``Constantinople he presented himself to the empress, and went into``her pay; and immediately, in autumn, went on board the galleys``manned with troops which went out to the Greek sea. Harald had``his own men along with him. Now Harald had been but a short time``in the army before all the Varings flocked to him--by Snorri Sturluson
So shaken as we are, so wan with care,/Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,/And breathe short-winded accents of new broils/To be commenced in strands afar remote.
Between that royal field of Shrewsbury/And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,/Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,/Lies crafty-sick: the posts come tiring on,
Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,/Admit me Chorus to this history;/Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray,/Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.
All here for you
Herbert West: Reanimator and Other Stories
By HP Lovecraft. Text is in public domain.
What I'm trying to show here is that with these women the whole relationship of life counted in a glad, eager``growing-up to join the ranks of workers in the line best loved; a deep, tender reverence for one's own``mother--too deep for them to speak of freely--and beyond that, the whole, free, wide range of sisterhood, the``splendid service of the country, and friendships. -- by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Towards the setting sun the two thus went on their journey:/Close he had wrapped himself round with clouds portending a tempest./Out from the veil, now here and now there, with fiery flashes,/Gleaming over the field shot forth the ominous lightning./"May not these threatening heavens," said Hermann, "be presently sending/Hailstones upon us and violent rains; for fair is the harvest."
In the eastern side of the Dead Sea rose the citadel of Machaerus. It was built upon a conical peak of basalt, and``was surrounded by four deep valleys, one on each side, another in front, and the fourth in the rear. At the base of``the citadel, crowding against one another, a group of houses stood within the circle of a wall, whose outlines``undulated with the unevenness of the soil.
While of tyrants, many have been murderers of their own children, many by their children murdered. Many brothers have been murderers of one another in contest for the crown;many a monarch has been done to death by the wife of his bosom, -- by Xenophon
While of tyrants, many have been murderers of their own children, many by their children murdered. Many brothers have been murderers of one another in contest for the crown;many a monarch has been done to death by the wife of his bosom, -- by Xenophon
By Euripides. Don't mess with Aphrodite.
The friends of Mr. Sherlock Holmes will be glad to learn that he is still alive and well, though somewhat crippled``by occasional attacks of rheumatism. He has, for many years, lived in a small farm upon the downs five miles``from Eastbourne, where his time is divided between philosophy and agriculture.
The following afternoon found him still in that enviable condition as he stood listening to the music on the Pincian Hill. He had it of rumor that the Fashion of Rome usually took a turn there before it went to tea, and he had it from the lady herself that Madame de Vaurigard would be there. Presently she came, reclining in a victoria, the harness of her horses flashing with gold in the sunshine.
FORTHWITH I repaired to my own country, and brought back thence my mistress, that I might make her my``wife. She, however, most violently disapproved of this, and for two chief reasons: the danger thereof, and the``disgrace which it would bring upon me. She swore that her uncle would never be appeased by such satisfaction as this, as, indeed, afterwards proved only too true. -- Peter Abelard
Of these things the Hellenes who were stationed at Artemision were informed by fire-signals from Skiathos; and being informed``of them and being struck with fear, they removed their place of anchorage from Atermision to Chalkis, intending to guard the Euripos,``but leaving at the same time watchers by day[170] on the heights of Eubœa.
When John first brought out the bills, the surprise of all the family was unexpressible at the prodigious``dimensions of them; they would have measured with the best bale of cloth in John's shop. Fees to judges,``puny judges, clerks, prothonotaries, philisers, chirographers, under-clerks, proclamators, counsel, witnesses,``jurymen, marshals, tipstaffs, criers, porters--by John Arbuthnot
History Of The Britons (Historia Brittonum)
Then it was, that the magnanimous Arthur, with all the kings and``military force of Britain, fought against the Saxons. And though``there were many more noble than himself, yet he was twelve times``chosen their commander, and was as often conqueror. -- by Nennius
History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science
On the basis of this view of the structure of the world great religious systems have been founded, and hence``powerful material interests have been engaged in its support. These have resisted, sometimes by resorting``to bloodshed, attempts that have been made to correct its incontestable errors--a resistance grounded on the``suspicion that the localization of heaven and hell and the supreme value of man in the universe might be``affected. --by John Draper
History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire Vol. 1
Yet Commodus was not, as he has been represented, a tiger born with an insatiate thirst of human blood, and capable, from his infancy, of the most inhuman actions. ^7 Nature had formed him of a weak rather than a wicked disposition. His simplicity and timidity rendered him the slave of his attendants, who gradually corrupted his mind. His cruelty, which at first obeyed the dictates of others, degenerated into habit, and at length became the ruling passion of his soul.
History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire Vol. 2
The sectaries of a persecuted religion, depressed by fear animated with resentment, and perhaps heated by enthusiasm, are seldom in a proper temper of mind calmly to investigate, or candidly to appreciate, the motives of their enemies, which often escape the impartial and discerning view even of those who are placed at a secure distance from the flames of persecution. A reason has been assigned for the conduct of the emperors towards the primitive Christians
History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire Vol. 3
If the subjects of Rome could be ignorant of their obligations to the great Theodosius, they were too soon convinced, how painfully the spirit and abilities of their deceased emperor had supported the frail and mouldering edifice of the republic. He died in the month of January; and before the end of the winter of the same year, the Gothic nation was in arms.
History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire Vol. 4
After the fall of the Roman empire in the West, an interval of fifty years, till the memorable reign of Justinian, is faintly marked by the obscure names and imperfect annals of Zeno, Anastasius, and Justin, who successively ascended to the throne of Constantinople. During the same period, Italy revived and flourished under the government of a Gothic king, who might have deserved a statue among the best and bravest of the ancient Romans.
History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire Vol. 5
When the Arabs first issued from the desert, they must have been surprised at the ease and rapidity of their own success. But when they advanced in the career of victory to the banks of the Indus and the summit of the Pyrenees; when they had repeatedly tried the edge of their cimeters and the energy of their faith, they might be equally astonished that any nation could resist their invincible arms; that any boundary should confine the dominion of the successor of the prophet.
History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire Vol. 6
They chose four ambassadors, Matthew of Montmorency, our historian the marshal of Champagne, and two Venetians, to congratulate the emperor. The gates were thrown open on their approach, the streets on both sides were lined with the battle axes of the Danish and English guard: the presence-chamber glittered with gold and jewels, the false substitute of virtue and power: by the side of the blind Isaac his wife was seated, the sister of the king of Hungary:
History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
Edmund G. Ross' tale of that other impeachment.
History Of The Peloponnesian War
Um, yeah, about that Syracuse thing... -- by Thucydides.
Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up
In front of Cowan's a crowd of nine happy-go-lucky, daredevil riders were sliding from their saddles.``They threw their reins over the heads of their mounts and filed in to the bar. Laughter issued from``the open door and the clink of glasses could be heard. They stood in picturesque groups, strong,``self-reliant, humorous, virile. --by Clarence Edward Mulford
"Wash, dress, feed, warm and nurse them for the next three months, I dare say. Eighty beds are ready,``and we were getting impatient for the men to come. Now you will begin to see hospital life in earnest, for``you won't probably find time to sit down all day, and may think yourself fortunate if you get to bed by``midnight. Come to me in the ball-room when you are ready; the worst cases are always carried there,``and I shall need your help.
david moynihan
dmoynihan@blackmask.com
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No
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Yes"
Most of us see some romances in life. In my capacity as Chief Manager of a Life Assurance Office, I think I have``within the last thirty years seen more romances than the generality of men, however unpromising the opportunity``may, at first sight, seem.
"Accordingly, after passing a comfortless night by the remains of my waggon, we started next morning on our long journey towards civilization. Now if I were to set to work to tell you all the troubles and incidents of that dreadful journey I should keep you listening here till midnight; so I will, with your permission, pass on to the particular adventure of which the pair of buffalo horns opposite are the melancholy memento.
david moynihan
dmoynihan@blackmask.com
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Just at the self-same beat of Time's wide wings/Hyperion slid into the rustled air/And Saturn gain'd with Thea that sad place/Where Cybele and the bruised Titans mourn'd. -- by John Keats
As an aid to the vigilance of the sentinel, the door had been left ajar. Through the narrow opening, a creaking of the broad wooden stairs of the old house became audible. In another moment there was silence. An interval passed, and the creaking was heard again. This time, the sound was distant and diminishing. On a sudden it stopped. The midnight silence was disturbed no more.
Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow
You've been in love, of course! If not you've got it to come. Love is like the measles; we all have to go through it. Also like the measles, we take it only once. One never need be afraid of catching it a second time. The man who has had it can go into the most dangerous places and play the most foolhardy tricks with perfect safety. -- by Jerome K. Jerome
Fictionalized accounts of historic figures, all of them searching for a new aesthetic. By Walter Pater.
In Search of the Castaways or, The Children of Captain Grant
ALL that could be discovered, however, on these pieces of paper was a few words here and there, the``remainder of the lines being almost completely obliterated by the action of the water. Lord Glenarvan``examined them attentively for a few minutes, turning them over on all sides, holding them up to the``light, and trying to decipher the least scrap of writing, while the others looked on with anxious eyes.
An early blockbuster mystery. By Miriam Michaelson.
It had occurred to her early that in her position--that of a young person spending, in framed and wired confinement, the life of a guinea-pig or a magpie--she should know a great many persons without their recognising the acquaintance.
Indian Summer of a Forsyte and In Chancery
The little spirits of the past which throng an old man's days had never pushed their faces up to his so seldom``as in the seventy hours elapsing before Sunday came. The spirit of the future, with the charm of the unknown,``put up her lips instead. Old Jolyon was not restless now, and paid no visits to the log, because she was``coming to lunch. -- Volume II in the Forsyte Saga
For a day Sweetwater acknowledged himself to be mentally crushed, disillusioned and defeated. Then his``spirits regained their poise. It would take a heavy weight indeed to keep them down permanently. His opinion was not changed in regard to his neighbour's secret guilt.
Be a hit at parties.
Introduction to the Metaphysics of Morals
The active faculty of the human mind, as the faculty of desire in its widest sense, is the power which man has,``through his mental representations, of becoming the cause of objects corresponding to these``representations. The capacity of a being to act in conformity with his own representations is what constitutes``the life of such a being.
Fionn got his first training among women. There is no``wonder in that, for it is the pup's mother teaches it to fight, and women know that fighting is a``necessary art although men pretend there are others that are better. These were the women``druids, Bovmall and Lia Luachra. --by James Stephens
From Richard Steele, the founder of the Tatler, later the Spectator. Bickerstaff was first used by Jonathan Swift to poke fun.
``The Lady Rowena,'' he said, ``possesses not the language in which to reply to your courtesy, or to sustain``her part in your festival. I also, and the noble Athelstane of Coningsburgh, speak only the language, and``practise only the manners, of our fathers. We therefore decline with thanks your Highness's courteous``invitation to the banquet.
Jack and Jill never cared to say much about the night which followed the first coasting party of the season, for it``was the saddest and the hardest their short lives had ever known. Jack suffered most in body; for the setting of``the broken leg was such a painful job, that it wrung several sharp cries from him, and made Frank, who``helped, quite weak and white with sympathy, when it was over.
Family, charity, love, religion, and, oh yeah, a madwoman in the attic.
Rochester, St. John, Family -- and a madwoman in the attic. By Charlotte Bronte
A Biography of the Maid D'Orleans.
Not until Mister Haggin abruptly picked him up under one arm and stepped into the sternsheets of the waiting whaleboat, did Jerry dream that anything untoward was to happen to him. Mister Haggin was Jerry's beloved master, and had been his beloved master for the six months of Jerry's life. Jerry did not know Mister Haggin as "master," for "master" had no place in Jerry's vocabulary, Jerry being a smooth-coated, golden-sorrel Irish terrier.
God sends his angel to Tortosa down,/Godfrey unites the Christian Peers and Knights;/And all the Lords and Princes of renown/Choose him their Duke, to rule the wares and fights. -- by Torquato Tasso
The nails on these fingers, curved like tigers' claws and``vultures' talons, came closer and closer to his face and appeared to seek to tear his eyes out. By a supreme``effort he managed to brush aside these hands that were winged like bats, but the hands were followed by``heads of bulls, buffaloes, and stags, the whitened skulls filled with a life that was death, and which goring him``with horns or anuers--By Theophile Gautier
Joan of Naples, the Man in the Iron Mask, Martin Guerre
Who was the Man in the Mask? Was he rapt away into this silent seclusion from the luxury of a court, from the intrigues of``diplomacy, from the scaffold of a traitor, from the clash of battle? What did he leave behind? Love, glory, or a throne? What did``he regret when hope had fled? Did he pour forth imprecations and curses on his tortures and blaspheme against high Heaven, or``did he with a sigh possess his soul in patience?
It all came to me one election day. It was on a warm California afternoon, and I had ridden down into the Valley of the Moon from the ranch to the little village to vote Yes and No to a host of proposed amendments to the Constitution of the State of California. Because of the warmth of the day I had had several drinks before casting my ballot, and divers drinks after casting it.
The Great Elixir had accomplished its purpose. The wonderful Essence of Vitality, prized for centuries and closely guarded, had lent its marvelous powers of energy, strength, and life to a gingerbread man! And all through the stupidity of a baker's wife who was color-blind and could not distinguish a golden flask from a silver one!
An attack on marriage? Or a description...
TEEKA, STRETCHED AT luxurious ease in the shade of the tropical forest, presented, unquestionably, a most alluring picture of young, feminine loveliness. Or at least so thought Tarzan of the Apes, who squatted upon a low-swinging branch in a near-by tree and looked down upon her.
IN Continental periodicals not more than a dozen articles in all would seem to have given accounts or partial``translations of the Jurgen legends. No thorough investigation of this epos can be said to have appeared in print,``anywhere, prior to the publication, in 1913, of the monumental Synopses of Aryan Mythology by Angelo de Ruiz.
And David, after another moment's wistful eyeing of the caressing fingers, turned about and wandered out``onto the side porch. A minute later, having seated himself on the porch steps, he had taken from his pocket``two small pieces of folded paper. And then, through tear-dimmed eyes, he read once more his father's letter.
Short stories in the Kai Lung ouevre.
Karl Ludwig Sand, Urbain Grandier and Nisida
Urbain Granadier was not satisfied with the arrogant demonstration by which he signalised his return, which``even his friends had felt to be ill advised; instead of allowing the hate he had aroused to die away or at least to``fall asleep by letting the past be past, he continued with more zeal than ever his proceedings against``Duthibaut, and succeeded in obtaining a decree from the Parliament of La Tournelle
Philip had put the book down on the table, and Doctor South took it up. It was a volume of an edition which``had belonged to the Vicar of Blackstable. It was a thin book bound in faded morocco, with a copperplate``engraving as a frontispiece; the pages were musty with age and stained with mould. Philip, without meaning``to, started forward a little as Doctor South took the volume in his hands, and a slight smile came into his``eyes.
The day after these events occurred, a horseman, dressed like a Kurd and whistling like a lark, entered the camp of Gen. Lord Lucasoff. He said he had brought an important dispatch addressed to the general, so he was taken to the general's tent. He sent the letter in by the band of an officer while he remained without to care for his horse. After a few moments he was summoned to present himself to the general. -- by Raffi
Being Memoirs Of The Adventures Of David Balfour In The Year 1751, How He Was Kidnapped And Cast Away; His Sufferings In A Desert Isle; His Journey In The Wild Highlands; His Acquaintance With Alan Breck Stewart And Other Notorious Highland Jacobites; With All That He Suffered At The Hands Of His Uncle, Ebenezer Balfour Of Shaws, Falsely So Called
He sat, in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam-Zammah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher - the Wonder House, as the natives call the Lahore Museum. Who hold Zam-Zammah, that fire-breathing dragon, hold the Punjab, a for the great green-bronze piece is always first of the conqueror's loot.
King John, Richard II, Richard III, Henry VIII
Rounding out our Shakespearian history collection. In one text.
http://http://www.blackmask.com/zipbook/hamlet.zip">King Lear
Poor Tom; that eats the swimming frog, the toad,`` the tadpole, the wall-newt and the water; that in`` the fury of his heart, when the foul fiend rages,`` eats cow-dung for sallets; swallows the old rat and`` the ditch-dog;
See, my lords, she said, holding the light before her, "those who stored the treasure here fled in haste, and bethought them to guard against any who should find the secret of the door, but had not the time," and she pointed to large square blocks of stone,
Knights of the Art: Stories of the Italian Painters
Then, indeed, began happy days for Filippo. No more threadbare coats, but a warm little brown serge robe, tied round the waist with a rope whose ends grew daily shorter as the way round his waist grew longer. No more lupin skins and whiffs of fried polenta, but food enough and to spare; such food as he had not dreamt of before, and always as much as he could eat. -- by Amy Steedman
Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things
Japanese tales, translated by Lafcadio Hearn.
CHAPTER IV. THE HUSH THAT SUCCEEDS THE TEMPEST. -- by M.E. Braddon
Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among``the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no``smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We've got to live, no matter how``many skies have fallen. -- by DH Lawrence
A tale comprised entirely of letters.
John Keats and Vampires.
Lancelot or, The Knight of the Cart
From the``moment he caught sight of her, he did not turn or take his eyes and face from her, defending himself``with backhand blows. And Meleagant meanwhile attacked him as fiercely as he could, delighted to``think that the other cannot withstand him now; and they of the country are well pleased too, while the``foreigners are so distressed that they can no longer support themselves
The scenes of action lie in the British Islands; - pray be not displeased, gentle reader, if perchance thou hast imagined that I was about to conduct thee to distant lands, and didst promise thyself much instruction and entertainment from what I might tell thee of them -- George Borrow
Ketill Flatnose was the name of a man. He was the son of Bjorn the Ungartered. Ketill was a mighty and high-born chieftain (hersir) in Norway. He abode in Raumsdale, within the folkland of the Raumsdale people, which lies between Southmere and Northmere. Ketill Flatnose had for wife Yngvild, daughter of Ketill Wether-- also known as The Saga of the Men of Salmon-River Dale
Part 1 of Thomas Mallory's classic. Or, for them of you that's scholarly, some dude in jail translates the Vulgate Cycle.
Part Two of Mallory's epic. Hey, the way some of the stories are out of order isn't my fault.
I believe this is the fourth edition (like that guy who keeps remaking film versions of Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians, Walt Whitman had just the one book all his life that he kept redoing. Still, it was enough to earn the man a rest area on the New Jersey Turnpike, so don't say poetry doesn't pay.)
Lectures on the Early History of Institutions
The great peculiarity of the ancient laws of Ireland, so far as they are accessible to us, is discussed,``with much instructive illustration, in the General Preface to the Third Volume of the official translations.``They are not a legislative structure, but the creation of a class of professional lawyers, the Brehons,``whose occupation became hereditary, and who on that ground have been designated, though not with``strict accuracy, a caste.--by Henry Sumner Maine
Since geniuses, like demons, recognize the presence of a superior God by certain signs,``Thenardier comprehended that he had to deal with a very strong person. It was like an intuition; he``comprehended it with his clear and sagacious promptitude.
It is possible, Sagan says, to damage the brain in precisely such a way that the victim will``lose the ability to understand the passive or to devise prepositional phrases or something like that. No cases``are cited, unfortunately--it would be fun to chat with some victim--but the whole idea is attractive, because if it``were true it would explain many things.
Nasty and brutish perhaps, but definitely, definitely not short. -- by Thomas Hobbes
Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck Vol. 1
A man so famous, Tom Sawyer knew about him.
Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck Vol. 2
Ten years in a Prussian dungeon. Wow.
Life and Adventures of Calamity Jane
When fired upon Capt. Egan was shot. I was riding in advance and on hearing the firing turned in my saddle and saw the Captain reeling in his saddle as though about to fall. I turned my horse and galloped back with all haste to his side and got there in time to catch him as he was falling. I lifted him onto my horse in front of me and succeeded in getting him safely to the Fort. --by Herself
Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit
old Martin Chuzzlewit remained shut up in his own chamber, and saw no person but his young companion, saving the hostess of the Blue Dragon, who was, at certain times, admitted to his presence. So surely as she came into the room, however, Martin feigned to fall asleep. It was only when he and the young lady were alone, that he would utter a word
Wolfe, while Deborah watched him as a spaniel its master, bent over the furnace with his iron pole, unconscious``of her scrutiny, only stopping to receive orders. Physically, Nature had promised the man but little. He had already``lost the strength and instinct vigor of a man, his muscles were thin, his nerves weak, his face ( a meek, woman's``face) haggard, yellow with consumption. -- by Rebecca Harding Davis
Life of Charlotte Bronte Vol. 1
This is perhaps a fitting time to give some personal description of Miss Bronte. In 1831, she was a quiet,``thoughtful girl, of nearly fifteen years of age, very small in figure--"stunted" was the word she applied to``herself,--but as her limbs and head were in just proportion to the slight, fragile body, no word in ever so slight``a degree suggestive of deformity could properly be applied to her; with soft, thick, brown hair, and peculiar``eyes-- by Elizabeth Gaskell
Life of Charlotte Bronte Vol. 2
During this summer of 1846, while her literary hopes were waning, an anxiety of another kind was increasing.``Her father's eyesight had become seriously impaired by the progress of the cataract which was forming. He was``nearly blind. He could grope his way about, and recognise the figures of those he knew well, when they were``placed against a strong light; -- by Elizabeth Gaskell
About this time Barnum, with a Mr. Samuel Sherwood, of Bridgeport, started for Pittsburg, where they proposed``to open a lottery office. On reaching New York, however, and talking over the scheme with friends, the venture``was abandoned and the two men took, instead, a pleasure trip to Philadelphia. They stayed a week, at the end``of which time they returned to New York, with exactly twenty-seven cents between them. --by Joel Benton
Held to be George Macdonald's Masterpiece.
The child put all these things between the bars into the soft, Smooth, well-shaped hand, with evident dread--more than once drawing back her own and looking at the man with her fair brow roughened into an expression half of fright and half of anger.
If them's his lordship's orders, mem, another voice answered, they'll have to be kep', I suppose. But, if you'll``excuse the liberty, mem, as it's between ourselves, servant or no servant, all I have to say is, it's a cruel``thing,--parting that poor, pretty, young widdered cre'tur' from her own flesh and blood, and him such a little``beauty and a nobleman born.
Little Men: Life at Plumfield with Jo's Boys
So Demi was transplanted to Plumfield, and took so kindly to the life there, that Meg and John and Grandpa``felt satisfied that they had done well. Mixing with other boys brought out the practical side of him, roused his``spirit, and brushed away the pretty cobwebs he was so fond of spinning in that little brain of his. To be sure,``he rather shocked his mother when he came home,
Not in the obscurity of midnight, but in the searching light of day, did the supernatural influence assert itself. Neither revealed by a vision, nor announced by a voice, it reached mortal knowledge through the sense which is least easily self-deceived: the sense that feels.
One is named Olite, and one Udent and one Ertinent, and they have no respect for anyone or anything. If strangers pass through the valley, the Imps jeer at them and make horrid faces and call names, and often they push travelers out of the path or throw stones at them. Whenever Imp Olite or Imp Udent or Imp Ertinent comes here to bother us, I and my family run into the house and lock all the doors and windows, and we dare not venture out again until the Imps have gone away.
Louisa May Alcott's classic.
Lives, Sayings and Heroic Deeds of Gargantua and His Son Pantagruel
Chapter 2.XXXI. How Pantagruel entered into the city of the Amaurots, and how Panurge`` married King Anarchus to an old lantern-carrying hag, and made him a crier of green sauce. -- By Rabelais
She was nearly distracted by that time. She was a brave woman, physically and mentally of hard fiber, but the``very name signed to the paper set her nerves to twitching. It was the Committee of Ten which had murdered``Prince Hubert and his young wife; the Committee of Ten which had exploded a bomb in the very Palace itself,``and killed old Breidau, of the King's Council
"Hastily I lit another match, and perceived that the eyes belonged to an old woman, wrapped up in a greasy leather garment. Taking her by the arm, I dragged her out, for she could not, or would not, come by herself, and the stench was overpowering me. Such a sight as she was--a bag of bones, covered over with black, shrivelled parchment. The only white thing about her was her wool, and she seemed to be pretty well dead except for her eyes and her voice.
david moynihan
dmoynihan@blackmask.com
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Lord Arthur Saville's Crime and Other Stories
'Well, he is not a bit like a cheiromantist. I mean he is not mysterious, or esoteric, or romantic-looking. He``is a little, stout man, with a funny, bald head, and great gold-rimmed spectacles; something between a``family doctor and a country attorney. I'm really very sorry, but it is not my fault. People are so annoying. All my``pianists look exactly like poets, and all my poets look exactly like pianists
He was an inch, perhaps two, under six feet, powerfully built, and he advanced straight at you with a slight stoop of the shoulders, head forward, and a fixed from-under stare which made you think of a charging bull. His voice was deep, loud, and his manner displayed a kind of dogged self-assertion which had nothing aggressive in it.
From right to left of the huge interior, across the platforms, swelling every instant, surged an``enormous swaying, roaring crowd. The flight of steps, twenty yards broad, used only in cases of``emergency, resembled a gigantic black cataract nearly two hundred feet in height. Each car as it``drew up discharged more and more men and women, who ran like ants towards the assembly of``their fellows. The noise was indescribable--by Robert Hugh Benson
Subienkow looked on, and shuddered. He was not afraid to die. He had carried his life too long in his hands, on that weary trail from Warsaw to Nulato, to shudder at mere dying. But he objected to the torture. It offended his soul. And this offence, in turn, was not due to the mere pain he must endure, but to the sorry spectacle the pain would make of him. (collection includes To Build a Fire).
Love, Lights, A Story Without an End, ``Mari d'Elle, A Living Chattel, ``The Doctor, Too Early!, The Cossack, ``Aborigines, An Inquiry, Martyrs, ``The Lion and the Sun, A Daughter of Albion, Choristers, Nerves, A Work of Art, A Joke, A Country Cottage, A Blunder, Fat and Thin, The Death of a Government Clerk, A Pink Stocking, At a Summer Villa
KEESH lived long ago on the rim of the polar sea, was head man of his village through many and prosperous years, and died full of honors with his name on the lips of men. So long ago did he live that only the old men remember his name, his name and the tale, which they got from the old men before them, and which the old men to come will tell to their children and their children's children down to the end of time.
Listen, listen, oh Wedding Guest, the Mariner doesn't have any commentary in place either. (Includes poems by Coleridge and Wordsworth).
What if all the women refused to... sure that wouldn't make men angrier?
Gratuitous recounting of how Shadwell responded to Dryden's opus: Johnnie D. got beat up by some toughs.
Fillet of a fenny snake,`` In the cauldron boil and bake;`` Eye of newt and toe of frog,`` Wool of bat and tongue of dog,`` Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,`` Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,
Gustave Flaubert's tale of adultery and destruction.
Maddened by Mystery and Other Stories
Sir, said the young man in intense excitement, "a mystery has been committed!"
This one or Sister Carrie, by Dreiser? Well, if brevity is the soul of wit (Just kidding. I like Dreiser too...)
The baron was inflexible in his resolution not to let Matilda leave the castle. The letter, which announced to``her the approaching fate of young Gamwell, filled her with grief, and increased the irksomeness of a privation``which already preyed sufficiently on her spirits, and began to undermine her health. She had no longer the``consolation of the society of her old friend Father Michael
The town is, in our tale, called Gopher Prairie,' Minnesota. But its Main Street is the continuation of Main Streets everywhere. The story would be the same in Ohio or Montana, in Kansas or Kentucky or Illinois, and not very differently would it be told Up York State or in the Carolina Hills...
Maiwa's Revenge, or The War of the Little Hand
About four o'clock, however, Gobo woke me up, and told me that the head man``of one of Wambe's kraals had arrived to see me. I ordered him to be brought up, and presently he came, a``little, wizened, talkative old man, with a waistcloth round his middle, and a greasy, frayed kaross made of the``skins of rock rabbits over his shoulders.
In three months from the memorable day when his solicitor had informed him that he was a free man, Mr. Vanborough possessed the wife he desired, to grace the head of his table and to push his fortunes in the world--the Legislature of Great Britain being the humble servant of his treachery, and the respectable accomplice of his crime.
All next day at Beacon House there was a crazy sense that it was everybody's birthday. It is the fashion to talk of institutions as cold and cramping things. The truth is that when people are in exceptionally high spirits, really wild with freedom and invention, they always must, and they always do, create institutions
About thirty years ago Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet's lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income.
All these Mahometan figures remain motionless. Only their eyes move, staring fixedly but indifferently at the POLOS, who are standing at center. Marco is carrying in each hand bags which curiously resemble modern sample cases. He sets these down and gazes around with a bewildered awe.--by Eugene O'Neill
Well, with break of day she wakes and sits up in bed and is standing in the middle of the room. So nimble was``she in the mornings (one of our troubles with her) that these three actions must be considered as one; she is``on the floor before you have time to count them. She has strict orders not to rise until her fire is lit, and having``broken them there is a demure elation on her face. --tribute to author's mom.
Another Haggard Fave.
Marquise de Brinvilliers, Vaninka, Marquise de Ganges
Gregory sighed heavily, threw a last look up at the window, and seeing that everything remained the same there, he mustered up``resolution enough to lie down on the fatal plank. At the same time two other serfs, chosen by Ivan for assistants, took him by``the arms and attached his wrists to two stakes, one at either side of him, so that it appeared as though he were stretched on a``cross. Then they clamped his neck into an iron collar
He awoke next morning from rosy scenes of dream to a steamy atmosphere that smelled of soapsuds and dirty clothes, and that was vibrant with the jar and jangle of tormented life. As he came out of his room he heard the slosh of water, a sharp exclamation, and a resounding smack as his sister visited her irritation upon one of her numerous progeny. The squall of the child went through him like a knife.
Sure, it was the basis for a Julia Roberts movie. But that's hardly Gaskell's fault. Masterpiece of Manchester.
A week after the events we have related, as nine o'clock in the evening had just sounded from the castle bell,``and the queen and Mary Seyton were sitting at a table where they were working at their tapestry, a stone``thrown from the courtyard passed through the window bars, broke a pane of glass, and fell into the room. The``queen's first idea was to believe it accidental or an insult;
Some of the faithful being disturbed in their meditations, came out of the church and``chastised the little Huguenots, whose parents considered themselves in consequence to have been insulted in``the persons of their children. A great commotion ensued, crowds began to form, and cries of "To the church! to``the church!" were heard. Captain Bouillargues happened to be in the neighbourhood, and being very methodical``set about organising the insurrection
I am not a churlish old man. Friendless I can never be, for all mankind are my kindred, and I am on ill terms with no one member of my great family. But for many years I have led a lonely, solitary life; - what wound I sought to heal, what sorrow to forget, originally, matters not now; it is sufficient that retirement has become a habit with me, and that I am unwilling to break the spell which for so long a time has shed its quiet influence upon my home and heart.
You live not very far from Roche-Mauprat, and must have often passed by the ruins. Thus there is no need for me to describe them...
Where that cliched Death-Valley-handcuffed-to-a-dead-man thing comes from. By Frank Norris.
By Euripides. Breaking up is hard to do.
By Marcus Aurelius. Take it like a man.
Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist
Unfinished work, considered his best.
Memoirs of Popular Delusions, Vol. One
Vol. 1 of Charles Macky's dissection of tulip bulbs and other crazes.
Memoirs of Popular Delusions, Vol. Two
Continuation of Mackay's classic.
"But the scholars are a queer and blind people, Brian Oge. I've heard tell there's a doctor in Spain can weigh``the earth. But he can't plow a furrow that is needful, for planting corn. The scholars can tell how many are the``feathers in a bird's wing, but it takes me to inform the doctors why the call comes to them, and they fly over``oceans without compass or sextant or sight of land. --by Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
david moynihan
dmoynihan@blackmask.com
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A wild romp. -- by Ovid
How it is up there.
Michael Strogoff was a man who feared neither frost nor snow. He would have preferred traveling during``the severe winter season, in order that he might perform the whole distance by sleighs. At that period of``the year the difficulties which all other means of locomotion present are greatly diminished, the wide``steppes being leveled by snow
Michael possessed no trace of hysteria, though he was more temperamentally excitable and explosive than his blood-brother Jerry, while his father and mother were a sedate old couple indeed compared with him. Far more than mature Jerry, was mature Michael playful and rowdyish. His ebullient spirits were always on tap to spill over on the slightest provocation, and, as he was afterwards to demonstrate, he could weary a puppy with play.
Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. Her hand and wrist were so finely formed that she could wear sleeves not less bare of style than those in which the Blessed Virgin appeared to Italian painters
Billy turned and cast searching eyes about the``room--Billy always kept shawls everywhere for Aunt Hannah's shoulders and feet. Bertram had been known to``say, indeed, that a room, according to Aunt Hannah, was not fully furnished unless it contained from one to``four shawls, assorted as to size and warmth.
Now for the Law of Clandestine Marriage! said Lady Winwood. "Mr. Linzie, we will take it sitting." She led the way to one of the benches in the garden, and placed Launce between Natalie and herself. "Well, Chief Conspirator, have you got the License? No? Does it cost too much? Can I lend you the money?"
Not what some people seem to think based on the title.
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago -- never mind how long precisely -- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.
Oh, no, no, no! The Frenchman laughed. "'Tis not that. Am I not already one of these 'men of fashion'? I lack only the reputation of birth. Monsieur is goin' supply that. Ha, ha! I shall be noble from to-night. 'Victor,' the artis', is condemn' to death; his throat shall be cut with his own razor.
Cuitlahua was crowned Emperor of the Aztecs in succession to his brother Montezuma, while I lay sick with the wound given me by the sword of de Garcia, and also with that which I had received on the altar of sacrifice. This hurt had found no time to heal,
Life! Blood! Strength! echoed everyone in the great hall, falling to their knees and bending their foreheads to``the ground. Even the Prince and the aged Bakenkhonsu prostrated themselves thus as though before the``presence of a god. And, indeed, Pharaoh Meneptah, passing through the patch of sunlight at the head of the``hall, wearing the double crown upon his head
WADE ATSHELER is dead--dead by his own hand. To say that this was entirely unexpected by the small coterie which knew him, would be to say an untruth; and yet never once had we, his intimates, ever canvassed the idea.
They swore that it could not be true, for would this high lady, the anointed Pharaoh of``Egypt, take her father's murderer, and her own uncle to husband? Would she not rather die in her prison tower``on which night by night they had seen her stand and sing? In their hearts they thought that she should die, for``thus they had summed her up
I spent one-third of my journey looking out of the window of a first-class carriage, the next in a local motor-car``following the course of a trout stream in a shallow valley, and the last tramping over a ridge of downland through``great beech-woods to my quarters for the night. In the first part I was in an infamous temper; in the second I was``worried and mystified; but the cool twilight of the third stage calmed and heartened me
Ah! It's pleasant to drop into my own easy-chair my dear though a little palpitating what with trotting up-stairs and what with trotting down, and why kitchen stairs should all be corner stairs is for the builders to justify though I do not think they fully understand their trade and never did, else why the sameness and why not more conveniences and fewer draughts and likewise making a practice of laying the plaster on too thick
Whoever would begin to be worried with letting Lodgings that wasn't a lone woman with a living to get is a thing inconceivable to me, my dear; excuse the familiarity, but it comes natural to me in my own little room, when wishing to open my mind to those that I can trust, and I should be truly thankful if they were all mankind, but such is not so, for have but a Furnished bill in the window and your watch on the mantelpiece
Content yourself. God knows I lov'd my niece;/And she is dead, slander'd to death by villains,/That dare as well answer a man indeed/As I dare take a serpent by the tongue./Boys, apes, braggarts, Jacks, milksops!
Mudfog is a pleasant town - a remarkably pleasant town - situated in a charming hollow by the side of a river, from which river, Mudfog derives an agreeable scent of pitch, tar, coals, and rope- yarn, a roving population in oilskin hats, a pretty steady influx of drunken bargemen, and a great many other maritime advantages. There is a good deal of water about Mudfog, and yet it is not exactly the sort of town for a watering-place, either.
Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales
It is well known that the grand seignior amuses himself by going at night, in disguise, through streets of``Constantinople; as the caliph Haroun Alraschid used formerly to do in Bagdad. ``-- Maria Edgeworth
Cuzak sat down behind the stove and watched his womenfolk and the little children with equal amusement. He``thought they were nice, and he thought they were funny, evidently. He had been off dancing with the girls and``forgetting that he was an old fellow, and now his family rather surprised him; he seemed to think it a joke that all``these children should belong to him.
HAVING murdered my mother under circumstances of singular atrocity, I was arrested and put upon my trial, which lasted seven years. In charging the jury, the judge of the Court of Acquittal remarked that it was one of the most ghastly crimes that he had ever been called upon to explain away.
He suggested waiting a little before any reply was sent to Paris; and he engaged meanwhile to consult a London solicitor who had great experience in cases of theft, and whose advice might enable them to dispense entirely with the services of the French police.
FEW mediaeval heroes are so widely known as William Tell. His exploits have been celebrated by one of the greatest poets and one of the most popular musicians of modern times. They are doubtless familiar to many who have never heard of Stauffacher or Winkelried, who are quite ignorant of the prowess of Roland, and to whom Arthur and Lancelot, nay, even Charlemagne, are but empty names. -- by John Fiske
Ever since this morning people have been dreeing me with Nana. I've met more than twenty people, and it's Nana here and Nana there! What do I know? Am I acquainted with all the light ladies in Paris? Nana is an invention of Bordenave's! It must be a fine one!"
Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
Well hey, it was a little rougher in New England than they get credit for.
Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass
My master's family consisted of two sons, Andrew and Richard; one daughter, Lucretia, and her``hus- band, Captain Thomas Auld. They lived in one house, upon the home plantation of Colonel``Edward Lloyd. My master was Colonel Lloyd's clerk and superintendent. He was what might be called``the overseer of the overseers. I spent two years of child- hood on this plantation in my old``master's family.
Nature; Adresses, and Lectures
Under the general name of Commodity, I rank all those advantages which our senses owe to nature.``This, of course, is a benefit which is temporary and mediate, not ultimate, like its service to the``soul. Yet although low, it is perfect in its kind, and is the only use of nature which all men``apprehend. The misery of man appears like childish petulance, when we explore the steady and``prodigal provision that has been made for his support and delight
And as to living up at the very top, why, there were distinct advantages--as so many people of moderate income are nowadays``hastening to discover. The noise from the street was diminished at this height; no possible tramplers could establish``themselves above your head; the air was bound to be purer than that of inferior strata; finally, one had the flat roof whereon to``sit or expatiate in sunny weather.--by George Gissing
News From Nowhere, or, An Epoch of Rest
Well, then, property quarrels being no longer possible, what remains in these matters that a court of law could deal with? Fancy a court for enforcing a contract of passion or sentiment! If such a thing were needed as a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the enforcement of contract, such a folly would do that for us.
Snow Hill! What kind of place can the quiet townspeople who see the words emblazoned, in all the legibility of gilt letters and dark shading, on the north-country coaches, take Snow Hill to be? All people have some undefined and shadowy notion of a place whose name is frequently before their eyes, or often in their ears.
The Good, and how to get there.
London, in the first days of spring, has buds that open and flowers that suddenly shake their petals--white,``purple, or crimson--in competition with the display in the garden beds, although these city flowers are merely so``many doors flung wide in Bond Street and the neighborhood, inviting you to look at a picture, or hear a symphony,``or merely crowd and crush yourself among all sorts of vocal, excitable, brightly colored human beings.
But when Marionetta hinted that she was to leave the Abbey immediately, Scythrop snatched``from its repository his ancestor's skull, filled it with Madeira, and presenting himself before Mr Glowry,``threatened to drink off the contents if Mr Glowry did not immediately promise that Marionetta should not``be taken from the Abbey without her own consent.
In a court-yard in the City of London, which was No Thoroughfare either for vehicles or foot-passengers; a``court-yard diverging from a steep, a slippery, and a winding street connecting Tower Street with the Middlesex``shore of the Thames; stood the place of business of Wilding & Co., Wine Merchants. -- With Wilkie Collins
THIS little work was finished in the year 1803, and intended for immediate publication. It was disposed of to a bookseller, it was even advertised, and why the business proceeded no farther, the author has never been able to learn. That any bookseller should think it worth-while to purchase what he did not think it worth-while to publish seems extraordinary.
IN THE time of Spanish rule, and for many years afterwards, the town of Sulaco--the luxuriant beauty of the orange gardens bears witness to its antiquity--had never been commercially anything more important than a coasting port with a fairly large local trade in ox-hides and indigo.
I am a sick man. ... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased. However, I know``nothing at all about my disease, and do not know for certain what ails me. I don't consult a doctor for it, and``never have, though I have a respect for medicine and doctors.
Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan
Toward the middle of the afternoon we reached a part of the coast locally famous or infamous, for the two were one; a stretch of some miles where the mountains made no apology for falling abruptly into the sea. Sheer for several hundred feet, the shore is here unscalable. Nor did it use to be possible to go round by land, for the cliffs are merely the ends of mountain-chains, themselves utterly wild and tractless.--by Percival Lowell
Mr. Furneaux and I have the inquiry in hand, Mr. Theydon, the detective was saying. "We called at your flat, and Bates told us of the sounds you both heard about 11:30 last night. I'm afraid we have rather upset you by coming here, but Bates was unable to say what time you would return home -- by Louis Tracy
Child of an old blind sire, Antigone,/What region, say, whose city have we reached?/Who will provide today with scanted dole/This wanderer? 'Tis little that he craves,``-- By Sophicles
Though I don't care for most criticism, I've been looking for a copy of Freud's review of this one and Hamlet -- play by Sophicles, of course.
HE SAW her then every day. He began going to lunch at the shop, but Mildred stopped him: she said it``made the girls talk; so he had to content himself with tea; but he always waited about to walk with her to``the station; and once or twice a week they dined together. He gave her little presents, a gold bangle,``gloves, handkerchiefs, and the like. He was spending more than he could afford, but he could not help it:
Off on a Comet or Hector Servadac
Composed of mud and loose stones, and covered with a thatch of turf and straw, known to the natives``by the name of "driss," the gourbi, though a grade better than the tents of the nomad Arabs, was yet``far inferior to any habitation built of brick or stone. It adjoined an old stone hostelry, previously``occupied by a detachment of engineers
A classic by one of William Faulkner's favorite authors.
Detective fiction by author Valetine Williams.
Still rapt in reverie he passed up the stairs and into the chamber where his grandson slept. There lay the old man, his eyelids as tightly closed as if there had been money underneath them. The ghost of old Applejoy stood by his bedside. -- By Frank R. Stockton
Fagin and co.
On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History
A large topic; indeed, an illimitable one; wide as Universal History itself. For, as I take it, Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here. -- Thomas Carlyle
THE time, it is to be hoped, is gone by when any defence would be necessary of the "liberty of the press" as one of the securities against corrupt or tyrannical government. No argument, we may suppose, can now be needed, against permitting a legislature or an executive, not identified in interest with the people, to prescribe opinions to them, and determine what doctrines or what arguments they shall be allowed to hear. --by John Stuart Mill
On the Art of War-- Machiavelli
If I would want, therefore, to arrange (an army for) an engagement in imitation of the Romans, just as they had``two Legions, I would take two Battalions, and these having been deployed, the disposition of an entire Army``would be known: for by adding more people, nothing else is accomplished than to enlarge the organization.
From over the lofty Koolau Mountains, vagrant wisps of the trade wind drifted, faintly swaying the great, unwhipped banana leaves, rustling the palms, and fluttering and setting up a whispering among the lace-leaved algaroba trees. Only intermittently did the atmosphere so breathe--for breathing it was, the suspiring of the languid, Hawaiian afternoon.
...everything is in sympathy. According to Asclepiades, however, nothing is naturally in sympathy with anything else, all substance being divided and broken up into inharmonious elements and absurd "molecules." Necessarily, then, besides making countless other statements in opposition to plain fact, he was ignorant of Nature's faculties, both that attracting what is appropriate, and that expelling what is foreign. --by Galen
But yet creation's neither crammed nor blocked/About by body: there's in things a void-/Which to have known will serve thee many a turn,/Nor will not leave thee wandering in doubt,/Forever searching in the sum of all --by Lucretius
the poor remnants of our nation (to``whom flocked from divers places round about our miserable countrymen as fast as bees to their hives, for fear of an ensuing``storm), being strengthened by God, calling upon him with all their hearts, as the poet says,--"With their unnumbered vows``they burden heaven," that they might not be brought to utter destruction, took arms under the conduct of Ambrosius``Aurelianus--by Gildas
On the Use and Abuse of History for Life
A recent translation, entered into the public domain, by a guy in Northern British Columbia.
After Leonard left him, Claude cleared away the remains of his supper and watered the gourd vine before he``went to milk. It was not really a gourd vine at all, but a summer-squash, of the crook-necked, warty,``orange-coloured variety, and it was now full of ripe squashes, hanging by strong stems among the rough green``leaves and prickly tendrils.
As Chaucer "borrowed" from Boccacio, Sir Edmund Spenser borrowed from this one.
And turning to the men that had bound him, he said, "My friends, am I to die, or to be whipped?" And they``cried, "Whipped! no, you shall not escape so well." And then he replied, smiling, "A blessing on thee"; and``assured them they need not tie him, for he would stand fixed like a rock, and endure death so as should``encourage them to die; "But, if you whip me," said he, "be sure you tie me fast."
Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches
Short stories by one-time celebrated author Maurice Baring
Even now, now, very now, an old black ram`` Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise;`` Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,`` Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you:
When, on the morning after this dinner, which was to form an era in her life, Mme. Favoral woke up, her husband was already up, pencil in hand, and busy figuring.
This tale that I am about to tell is of a little boy who lived and suffered in those dark middle ages; of how he saw both the good``and the bad of men, and of how, by gentleness and love and not by strife and hatred, he came at last to stand above other men``and to be looked up to by all. And should you follow the story to the end, I hope you may find it a pleasure, as I have done, to``ramble through those dark ancient castles--by Howard Pyle
He stands out in the correspondence of the Souvenir and Art Novelty Company as "Our Mr. Wrenn," who would be``writing you directly and explaining everything most satisfactorily. At thirty-four Mr. Wrenn was the sales-entry clerk of``the Souvenir Company.
Mr and Mrs Veneering were bran-new people in a bran-new house in a bran-new quarter of London. Everything about the Veneerings was spick and span new. All their furniture was new, all their friends were new, all their servants were new, their plate was new, their carriage was new, their harness was new, their horses were new, their pictures were new, they themselves were new, they were as newly married as was lawfully compatible with their having a bran-new baby
This is the tale of Bradley after he left Fort Dinosaur upon the west coast of the great lake that is in the center of the island.
The girl seemed neither older nor larger than Dorothy herself, and at once the prisoner in the tower guessed that the lovely driver of the chariot must be that Ozma of Oz of whom she had so lately heard from Tiktok.
In the words of the late, great Sam Kinnison, "God kicked his ass." Text by John Milton, of course.
Lord!'' he said, when you sell a man a book you don't sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue -- Christopher Morley's first book.
Pathological Lying, Accusation, And Swindling -- A Study In Forensic Psycho
Not a mystery novel as such, but a great character study.
Fate intended me for a singularly fortunate man. Properly, I ought to have been born in June, which``being, as is well known, the luckiest month in all the year for such events, should, by thoughtful``parents, be more generally selected. How it was I came to be born in May, which is, on the other``hand, of all the twelve the most unlucky, as I have proved, I leave to those more conversant with``the subject to explain.
For my part, may Ingrid of Hegstad go marry/whoever she pleases. It's all one to me./[Looks down at his clothes.]/My breeches are torn./ am ragged and grim.-If only I had something new to put on now.--by Henrik Ibsen
Our trip through the earth's crust was but a repetition of my two former journeys between the inner and the``outer worlds. This time, however, I imagine that we must have maintained a more nearly perpendicular``course, for we accomplished the journey in a few min- utes' less time than upon the occasion of my first``journey through the five-hundred-mile crust. Just a trifle less than seventy-two hours after our departure into the``sands of the Sahara, we broke through the surface of Pellucidar.
Satire in which penguins become human via evolution
The cotillon loomed dismally before Penrod now; but it was his duty to secure a partner and he set about it with a dreary heart. The delay occasioned by his fruitless attempt on Marjorie and the altercation with his enemy at her gate had allowed other ladies ample time to prepare for callers--and to receive them.
PENROD SCHOFIELD, having been "kept-in" for the unjust period of twenty minutes after school, emerged to a deserted street. That is, the street was deserted so far as Penrod was concerned. Here and there people were to be seen upon the sidewalks, but they were adults, and they and the shade trees had about the same quality of significance in Penrod's consciousness.
61. Order.--I might well have taken this discourse in an order like this: to show the vanity of all conditions of``men, to show the vanity of ordinary lives, and then the vanity of philosophic lives, sceptics, stoics; but the order``would not have been kept. I know a little what it is, and how few people understand it. No human science can``keep it. Saint Thomas did not keep it. Mathematics keep it, but they are useless on account of their depth. -- by Blaise Pascal
Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents
All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One``day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to``her mother.
Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
Perhaps she has forgotten, just as she``sometimes forgets your name and calls you Mildred, which is your mother's name. Still, she could hardly``forget such an important thing as the goat. Therefore there was no goat when your grandmother was a little``girl. This shows that, in telling the story of Peter Pan, to begin with the goat (as most people do) is as silly as``to put on your jacket before your vest.
Peter Ruff and the Double Four
The whole epitome of modern life was, he argued, to be found among the``columns of the daily press. The police news, perhaps, was his favourite study, but he did not neglect the``advertisements. It followed, therefore, as a matter of course, that the appeal of "M" in the personal``column of the Daily Mail was read by him on the morning of its appearance - read not once only nor twice``- it was a paragraph which had its own peculiar interest for him.
I should so like to hear about his death. What did he say in his last hours? We were informed that he died by taking poison, but no one knew anything more; for no Phliasian ever goes to Athens now, and it is a long time since any stranger from Athens has found his way hither; so that we had no clear account.
PHAEDRUS: I admit that there is reason in what you say, and I too will be reasonable, and will allow you to start with the premiss that the lover is more disordered in his wits than the non-lover; if in what remains you make a longer and better speech than Lysias, and use other arguments...
Lucan's take on some guy name of Caesar crossing the Rubicon to duke it out with a volcano -- maybe I have that wrong, but you'll need to read the book to find out.
Come back, Jimmie, the Petts need you.
I am no more bound to explain why the English family travelling by this carriage, inside and out, should be starting for Italy on a Sunday morning, of all good days in the week, than I am to assign a reason for all the little men in France being soldiers, and all the big men postilions; which is the invariable rule. But, they had some sort of reason for what they did, I have no doubt
Cesseth!' seide the Kyng, I suffre yow no lenger./Ye shul saughtne, forsothe, and serve me bothe./Kis hire,' quod the Kyng, "Conscience, I hote!'/"Nay, by Crist!' quod Conscience," congeye me rather!/But Reson rede me therto, rather wol I deye.--by William Langland
EVERYBODY is talkin' these days about Tammany men growin' rich on graft, but nobody thinks of drawin' the``distinction between honest graft and dishonest graft. There's all the difference in the world between the two.``Yes, many of our men have grown rich in politics. I have myself.
Poems by Emily Dickinson, First Series
These three works are by no means a complete set of Dickinson poetry (they're still pulling more out from her cards and letters.) But hey, it's public domain, so what can you do?
Poems by Emily Dickinson, Second Series
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Poems of Emily Dickinson, Series Three
Third installment of a major collection of her work. Ever notice how she and Plath were both into bees?
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,/Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,/``And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
How to say the serious things, and how they make us feel.
Politics and the English Language
A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. (also includes "Shooting An Elephant)
Nancy, she said a few minutes later, at the kitchen door, "I found a fly up-stairs in Miss Pollyanna's room. The``window must have been raised at some time. I have ordered screens, but until they come I shall expect you to``see that the windows remain closed. My niece will arrive to-morrow at four o'clock. I desire you to meet her at``the station. Timothy will take the open buggy and drive you over.
He found several persons running from the farther side of Pardon's Piece towards a boy who was standing at the back of a cattle-shed, in a remote part of the enclosure, screaming with terror. At the boy's feet lay, face downwards, the dead body of a man, with his head horribly beaten in. His watch was under him, hanging out of his pocket by the chain. It had stopped--evidently in consequence of the concussion of its owner's fall on it--at half-past eight.
I mind as if it were yesterday my first sight of the man. Little I knew at the time how big the moment was with destiny,``or how often that face seen in the fitful moonlight would haunt my sleep and disturb my waking hours. But I mind yet``the cold grue of terror I got from it, a terror which was surely more than the due of a few truant lads breaking the``Sabbath with their play.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a large fortune must be in want of a wife.
Item: In the same year he was appointed lord in Wallachia. Immediately he had Prince Lasla killed, who was lord of this country. Soon after this he had villages in Transylvania, also a town by the name of Beckendorf in Wurtzland, burned. Both women and men, young and old perished. Some he brought home with him to Wallachia and impaled them all there.
It was past eight at night before his toil was rewarded and he issued at last out of the forest on the firm white high-road. It lay downhill before him, with a sweeping eastward trend, faintly bright between the thickets; and Otto paused and gazed upon it. So it ran, league after league, still joining others, to the farthest ends of Europe,
The seminal work in American Psychology.
Psychopathology of Everyday Life
Got some of the good stuff here for you to read about.
Charles Reade on the unions.
LIZA [as she goes out] Well, what I say is right. I wont go near the king, not if I'm going to have my head cut off. If I'd known what I was letting myself in for, I wouldnt have come here. I always been a good girl; and I never offered to say a word to him; and I dont owe him nothing; and I dont care; and I wont be put upon; and I have my feelings the same as anyone else— by George Bernard Shaw
Listen, I said. "Our only chance is to stop where we are, for if we move we shall certainly be buried alive.``Look; there is something solid to lie on," and I pointed to a ridge of rock, a kind of core of congealed sand,``from which the surface had been swept by gales. "Down with you, quick," I went on,
The fairies assembled one moonlit night in a pretty clearing of the ancient forest of Burzee. The clearing was in the form of a circle, and all around stood giant oak and fir trees, while in the center the grass grew green and soft as velvet. If any mortal had ever penetrated so far into the great forest and could have looked upon the fairy circle by daylight, he might perhaps have seen a tiny path worn in the grass by the feet of the dancing elves.
Quo Vadis, A Narrative of the Time of Nero
The period was uncertain and terrible. Messengers of this kind were more frequently heralds of death. So when the centurion struck the hammer at Aulus's door, and when the guard of the atrium announced that there were soldiers in the anteroom, terror rose through the whole house. The family surrounded the old general at once, for no one doubted that danger hung over him above all.--by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Raffles--Further Adventures Of The Amateur Cracksman
I am still uncertain which surprised me more, the telegram calling my attention to the advertisement, or the advertisement itself. The telegram is before me as I write. It would appear to have been handed in at Vere Street at eight o'clock in the morning of May 11, 1897, and received before half-past at Holloway B.O.
Shirley is in bed and Jem and Walter and the twins are down in their beloved Rainbow Valley, said Anne. "They just came home this afternoon, you know, and they could hardly wait until supper was over before rushing down to the valley. They love it above every spot on earth. Even the maple grove doesn't rival it in their affections." -- by Lucy Maud Montgomery
He had not forgiven her four years later when he entered high school in her company, for somehow Ramsey managed to shovel his way through examinations and stayed with the class. By this time he had a long accumulation of reasons for hating her: Dora's persistent and increasing competency was not short of flamboyant, and teachers naturally got the habit of flinging their quickest pupil in the face of their slowest and "dumbest."
A mere gew-gaw, he said. "But it is proof of your identity. It belonged to King Milan--his name is``even now engraved at the foot of it. It will carry you unharmed through the ranks of these``madmen; they will trust you, believe in you--you, Captain Galatz. Remember they have never seen``their hero, and they are reserving a throne for him. And this, m'sieu, is your passport."--by Newman Flower
First of the Reginald sketches and tales.
Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches
Continuing adventures of one of Saki's (H.H. Munro's) favorite characters.
The problem of the universe has never offered the slightest difficulty to Chinese``philosophers. Before the beginning of all things, there was Nothing. In the lapse of ages Nothing coalesced into Unity, the``Great Monad. After more ages, the Great Monad separated into Duality, the Male and Female Principles in nature; and then,``by a process of biogenesis, the visible universe was produced. --by Herbert A. Giles
AMONG eminent persons, those who are most dear to men are not of the class which the economist``calls producers: they have nothing in their hands; they have not cultivated corn, nor made bread;``they have not led out a colony, nor invented a loom. A higher class, in the estimation and love of``this city-building market-going race of mankind, are the poets
THERE was once a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of things. He had a sister, who was a child too, and his constant companion. These two used to wonder all day long. They wondered at the beauty of the flowers; they wondered at the height and blueness of the sky; they wondered at the depth of the bright water
Getrude Atherton's tale of the Russian explorer and hero.
How it should be argued.
I didn't get at much that night. It was all so sudden. The only thing I could have sworn to from the first was that he had purposely left me in the lurch that day. I pieced out the rest in the next few days, which I'll just finish with as shortly as I can. Bartels came aboard next morning, and though it was blowing hard still we managed to shift the Dulcibella to a place where she dried safely at the mid-day low water, and we could get at her rudder. --by Erskine Childers
In the middle of the stream waded a long string of packed burros driven by three superbly mounted men. Had``Venters met these dark-clothed, dark-visaged, heavily armed men anywhere in Utah, let alone in this robbers'``retreat, he would have recognized them as rustlers. The discerning eye of a rider saw the signs of a long,``arduous trip.
Rienzi, the Last of the Roman Tribunes
Years had passed away, and the death of the Roman boy, amidst more noble and less excusable slaughter, was soon forgotten, - forgotten almost by the parents of the slain, in the growing fame and fortunes of their eldest son, - forgotten and forgiven never by that son himself. -- by Bulwer-Lytton (Snoopy's inspiration)
King Rinkitink was so much pleased with the Island of Pingaree that he continued his stay day after day and week after week, eating good dinners, talking with King Kitticut and sleeping. Once in a while he would read from his scroll. "For," said he, "whenever I return home, my subjects will be anxious to know if I have learned 'How to be Good,' and I must not disappoint them.
But I had not any time for classical quotation, for there was obviously a fray about to ensue, at which, feeling``myself indiginant at the inhospitable insolence with which I was treated, I was totally indifferent, unless on``the Bailie's account, whose person and qualities were ill qualified for such an adventure. I started up,``however, on seeing the others rise
Rolf Boldrewood's Story of Life and Adventure in the Bush and in the Goldfields of Australia -- who'd've thought we still title 'em that way?
J. Walker McSpadden's tale of the Guy in Green and his Merry Men. I've chalked it in with Arthur because of, well, you know, Ivanhoe and Bulfinch's and stuff.
For a time everything went smoothly, and Rose was a happy girl. The world seemed a beautiful and friendly``place, and fulfillment of her brightest dreams appeared to be a possibility. Of course this could not last, and``disappointment was inevitable, because young eyes look for a Paradise and weep when they find a workaday``world which seems full of care and trouble till one learns to gladden and glorify it with high thoughts and holy``living.
What had happened? What effect had this frightful shock produced? Had the ingenuity of the``constructors of the projectile obtained any happy result? Had the shock been deadened, thanks to the``springs, the four plugs, the water-cushions, and the partition-breaks?--Follows From the Earth to the Moon
Doyle on medicine as a career -- OK, not a mystery.
Rupert Of Hentzau: From The Memoirs Of Fritz Von Tarlenheim
Sequel to Prisoner of Zenda.
In the dining-room of her father's house in that old London Square between East and West, Gratian Laird, in``the outdoor garb of a nurse, was writing a telegram: "Reverend Edward Pierson, Kestrel, Tintern,``Monmouthshire. George terribly ill. Please come if you can. Gratian." Giving it to a maid, she took off her long``coat and sat down for a moment.
They had no beard, no hair, no eyebrows. In their hands, which sparkled with rings, they``carried enormous lyres, and with shrill voice they sang a hymn to the divinity of Carthage. They were the``eunuch priests of the temple of Tanith, who were often summoned by Salammbo to her house.
Little Sara Crewe never went in or out of the house without reading that door-plate and reflecting upon it. By the``time she was twelve, she had decided that all her trouble arose because, in the first place, she was not "Select,"``and in the second she was not a "Young Lady."
OK, so maybe this book sold a little too well in Germany back around 1935 or so. What's your point?
At one point, Scott Fitzgerald wanted to name Gatsby Trimalchio in America, based on the character Trimalchio in this work. By Petronius
Scaramouche--A Romance of the French Revolution
I desire no immunity, flashed back the young seminarist, stung by this fresh goad. After all, he was nobly born, and the traditions of his class were strong upon him - stronger far than the seminarist schooling in humility. He owed it to himself, to his honour, to be killed rather than avoid the consequences of the thing he had done.
`Not these are safe, where nothing is.'' Yourselfe,/While thus you stand but by me, are not safe./Was Silius safe? or the good Sosia safe?/Or was my Neice, deare Claudia Pulchra safe?
Selected Poems of Robert Browning
The most frightening thing you'll ever go through is a 9 a.m. lit class covering Browning where the Prof does a phallus thing on slug horns. Almost wrecked the Dark Tower for me. Almost.
Selected Poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Includes Kubla Khan and Christabel.
They shook hands, but Sam said he couldn't tell 'em about the ring; and several times Ginger was on the point of calling 'im the names he 'ad called 'im in the arternoon, on'y Peter trod on 'is foot and stopped him. -- by WW Jacobs
By a former marriage, Mr. Henry Dashwood had one son: by his present lady, three daughters. The son, a steady respectable young man, was amply provided for by the fortune of his mother, which had been large, and half of which devolved on him on his coming of age. By his own marriage, likewise, which happened soon afterwards, he added to his wealth.
Thus a shrill voice, to his ears hideously different from that other, interrupted and dispersed his visions. Little Jane, his ten-year- old sister, stood upon the front porch, the door open behind her, and in her hand she held a large slab of bread-and-butter covered with apple sauce and powdered sugar. Evidence that she had sampled this compound was upon her cheeks, and to her brother she was a repulsive sight.
Some consider this the best of his "small party goes off into jungle and finds" novels. A guilty pleasure.
Group of stories and morals, each representing a flower of a garden.
It was sinister, mysterious, dark. Its immediate effect on my imagination was apprehension - almost terror. Murder or suicide, here among the shadows a soul, an indestructible thing, had been recently violently wrenched from its body. The body lay in the room overhead. But what of the spirit?
But while opinion concerning him had remained nearly stationary, and his daily habits had presented scarcely``any visible change, Marner's inward life had been a history and a metamorphosis, as that of every fervid nature``must be when it has fled, or been condemned, to solitude.
Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters
SIXTEEN boats were in the procession which entered on the terrible hours of rowing, drifting and suspense.``Women wept for lost husbands and sons, sailors sobbed for the ship which had been their pride. Men``choked back tears and sought to comfort the widowed. Perhaps, they said, other boats might have put off in``another direction. They strove, though none too sure themselves, to convince the women of the certainty that a``rescue ship would appear.--Edited by Logan Marshall
An illness followed this sudden attack; and during the course of it the stout old knight, in the midst of his``delirious ravings, did not cease to affirm confidently that he must and should recover. He laughed proudly``when his fever-fits came on, and rebuked them for daring to attack him so needlessly.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
In translation from the West Midland dialect (sorry, prose was best I could find.)
In those simple times there was a great wonder and mystery in life. Man walked in fear and solemnity, with``Heaven very close above his head, and Hell below his very feet. God's visible hand was everywhere, in the``rainbow and the comet, in the thunder and the wind. The Devil too raged openly upon the earth; he skulked``behind the hedge-rows in the gloaming
By Dreiser, Mencken's favorite author.
On the bottom shelf behind the counter was a pound of fresh butter that the dairyman had left ten minutes``before. With a bread knife Miss Martha made a deep slash in each of the stale loaves, inserted a generous``quantity of butter, and pressed the loaves tight again.
We commenced our last chapter with the beadle of our parish, because we are deeply sensible of the importance and dignity of his office. We will begin the present, with the clergyman. Our curate is a young gentleman of such prepossessing appearance, and fascinating manners, that within one month after his first appearance in the parish, half the young-lady inhabitants were melancholy with religion, and the other half, desponding with love.
Everything with the formal couple resolves itself into a matter of form. They don't call upon you on your account, but their own; not to see how you are, but to show how they are: it is not a ceremony to do honour to you, but to themselves, - not due to your position, but to theirs. If one of a friend's children die, the formal couple are as sure and punctual in sending to the house as the undertaker; if a friend's family be increased, the monthly nurse is not more attentive than they.
There is an amiable kind of young gentleman going about in society, upon whom, after much experience of him, and considerable turning over of the subject in our mind, we feel it our duty to affix the above appellation. Young ladies mildly call him a 'sarcastic' young gentleman, or a 'severe' young gentleman. We, who know better, beg to acquaint them with the fact, that he is merely a censorious young gentleman
The fresh night air enfolded Litvinov's flushed face caressingly, the fragrant breeze breathed on his parched lips. "What is it," he thought as he went along the dark avenue, "that I have been present at? Why were they met together? What were they shouting, scolding, and making such a pother about? What was it all for?" Litvinov shrugged his shoulders, and turning into Weber's, he picked up a newspaper and asked for an ice.
In the beginning he was Christopher Bellew. By the time he was at college he had become Chris Bellew. Later, in the Bohemian crowd of San Francisco, he was called Kit Bellew. And in the end he was known by no other name than Smoke Bellew. And this history of the evolution of his name is the history of his evolution.
Some Learned Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls
They were of a different nationality from``those with the expedition, and their language seemed but a musical, meaningless jargon. They were a timid,``gentle race, but ignorant, and heathenish worshipers of unknown gods. The expedition detailed a great``detachment of missionaries to teach them the true religion, and in a week's time a precious work had been``wrought among those darkened creatures
In case confusion should arise in the public mind (which it is open to confusion on many subjects) respecting what is meant or implied by the term Waiter, the present humble lines would wish to offer an explanation. It may not be generally known that the person as goes out to wait is NOT a Waiter. It may not be generally known that the hand as is called in extra, at the Freemasons' Tavern, or the London, or the Albion, or otherwise, is NOT a Waiter.
Also known as "Something Fresh."
Copyright laws suck. There's this one DH Lawrence book I wish I could add... though the above is pretty good, too.
I met him first in a hurricane; and though we had gone through the hurricane on the same schooner, it was not until the schooner had gone to pieces under us that I first laid eyes on him. Without doubt I had seen him with the rest of the kanaka crew on board, but I had not consciously been aware of his existence, for the Petite Jeanne was rather overcrowded.
CAPTAIN HEWETT, - I am very proud and happy to have been selected as the instrument of conveying to you the heartfelt thanks of my fellow-passengers on board the ship entrusted to your charge, and of entreating your acceptance of this trifling present. The ingenious artists who work in silver do not always, I find, keep their promises, even in Boston.
Now, I was asking myself, how far will a gentleman go? Not surely so far as to help hush a murder up? So that - when I heard you tell how you knew nothing of the matter, and were only awakened by the corporal, and all the rest of it - I translated your statements into something else. -- Robert Louis Stevenson
Life in Dauphiny.
He is always cheerful and always good. We never knew a bad Irishman on the stage. Sometimes a stage Irishman seems to be a bad man--such as the "agent" or the "informer"--but in these cases it invariably turns out in the end that this man was all along a Scotchman, and thus what had been a mystery becomes clear and explicable. -- by Jerome K. Jerome
Like a wounded thing stricken unto death, Betty sat alone, hardly aware that her aunt had gone. Her``great eyes, distended and dark with pain, gazed out into the fading twilight. She was forcing her mind``back over the events which just preceded her father's death. --by E. Mandevill Rogers
The '60s manual by Abbie Hoffman. Hey, might have helped in Seattle
Giambattista Basile's take... works great if you don't have enough time to digest the Decameron.
At last came the year of the great drought, the year of eighteen-sixty-two. From end to end of the land the earth``cried for water. Man and beast turned their eyes to the pitiless sky, that like the roof of some brazen oven``arched overhead. On the farm, day after day, month after month, the water in the dams fell lower and lower;``the sheep died in the fields; the cattle, scarcely able to crawl, tottered as they moved from spot to spot in``search of food.
Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909
But back of this is the even more important requirement``that there be elected to the Legislature American citizens, with the``responsibility of their citizenship upon them, rather than partisans,``burdened, until their good purposes are made negative, by the``responsibility of their partisanship.--by Franklin Hichborn
Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde
By Robert Louis Stevenson (also author of The Bottle Imp).
SINCE her reinstatement in Miss Hatchard's favour Charity had not dared to curtail by a moment her hours of``attendance at the library. She even made a point of arriving before the time, and showed a laudable``indignation when the youngest Targatt girl, who had been engaged to help in the cleaning and rearranging of``the books, came trailing in late and neglected her task to peer through the window at the Sollas boy.
There are few things from which I derive greater pleasure, than walking through some of the principal streets of London on a fine Sunday, in summer, and watching the cheerful faces of the lively groups with which they are thronged. There is something, to my eyes at least, exceedingly pleasing in the general desire evinced by the humbler classes of society, to appear neat and clean on this their only holiday.
You are mocking, Socrates, said Agathon, and ere long you and I will have to determine who bears off the palm of wisdom--of this Dionysus shall be the judge; but at present you are better occupied with supper.
. But to none else but the Priests is it allowed to exercise correction, or to inflict bonds or stripes. Nor when the Priests do this, is the same considered as a punishment, or arising from the orders of the general, but from the immediate command of the Deity, Him whom they believe to accompany them in war. They therefore carry with them when going to fight, certain images and figures taken out of their holy groves.
'That they were down on me,' said John. 'I'm accused of murder, by what I can make out; and I've really had a dreadful day of it, Alan, and I can't sleep on the roadside on a night like this - at least, not with a portmanteau,' he pleaded.
Down his spine he felt the man's injured stare. Mr. Granice had always been so mild-spoken to his people --``no doubt the odd change in his manner had already been noticed and discussed below stairs. And very likely``they suspected the cause. He stood drumming on the writing-table till he heard the servant go out; then he``threw himself into a chair--by Edith Wharton
The idea that the extraordinary narrative which has been called the Joyce-Armstrong Fragment is an elaborate``practical joke evolved by some unknown person, cursed by a perverted and sinister sense of humour, has now``been abandoned by all who have examined the matter.
Of the fish patrolmen under whom we served at various times, Charley Le Grant and I were agreed, I think, that Neil Partington was the best. He was neither dishonest nor cowardly; and while he demanded strict obedience when we were under his orders, at the same time our relations were those of easy comradeship, and he permitted us a freedom to which we were ordinarily unaccustomed
It was very cold without, but it was not over-warm within. The only article which might be designated furniture was the stove, and for this the men were frank in displaying their preference. Upon half of the floor pine boughs had been cast; above this were spread the sleeping-furs, beneath lay the winter's snowfall. The remainder of the floor was moccasin-packed snow
These tales concern the doing of things recognized as impossible to do; impossible to believe; and, as the``weary reader may well cry aloud, impossible to read about. Did the narrator merely say that they happened,``without saying how they happened, they could easily be classified with the cow who jumped over the moon or``the more introspective individual who jumped down his own throat.
Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities
The war might now have ended, but an evil and foolish thought came to Pandarus, a prince of Ida, who fought``for the Trojans. He chose to shoot an arrow at Menelaus, contrary to the sworn vows of peace, and the arrow``pierced the breastplate of Menelaus through the place where the clasped plates meet, and drew his blood.``Then Agamemnon, who loved his brother dearly, began to lament, saying that if he died, the army would all``go home and Trojans would dance on the grave of Menelaus.
who maintained that his name was Henry Price. However, for some reason or other, the natives down the river had given him the name of Makola, and it stuck to him through all his wanderings about the country. He spoke English and French with a warbling accent, wrote a beautiful hand, understood bookkeeping, and cherished in his innermost heart the worship of evil spirits.
Tam O' Shanter and other Poems
Of the Scottish Tam O' Shanters. By Robert Burns
All three horsemen rode in silence. Old Taras's thoughts were far away: before him passed his youth, his years--the swift-flying years, over which the Cossack always weeps, wishing that his life might be all youth. He wondered whom of his former comrades he should meet at the Setch. He reckoned up how many had already died, how many were still alive.-- by Nikolai Gogol
Moliere's The Hypocrite seduces the girl, cons the father, disinherits the son -- all in one day!
Moved by these vague yet all-powerful urgings the ape-man lay awake one night in the little thorn boma that``protected, in a way, his party from the depredations of the great carnivora of the jungle. A single warrior stood``sleepy guard beside the fire that yellow eyes out of the darkness beyond the camp made imperative. The``moans and the coughing of the big cats mingled with the myriad noises of the lesser denizens of the jungle
First book in the Tarzan series (have a few more, and can add many should people want them.)
And consequent to this thought there enveloped him a blind frenzy of hatred for these creatures who dared``thwart his purpose and menace the welfare of his wife. With a savage growl he threw himself upon the warrior``before him twisting the heavy club from the creature's hand as if he had been a little child, and with his left fist``backed by the weight and sinew of his giant frame, he crashed a shattering blow to the center of the Waz-don's``face--
Kudu, the sun, was well up in the heavens when Tarzan awoke. The ape-man stretched his giant limbs, ran``his fingers through his thick hair, and swung lightly down to earth. Immediately he took up the trail he had``come in search of, following it by scent down into a deep ravine. Cautiously he went now, for his nose told him``that the quarry was close at hand, and presently from an overhanging bough he looked down upon Horta, the``boar, and many of his kinsmen.
Athos
A young member of the band turned her head at the exclamation. She was a fine and handsome girl--not handsomer than some others, possibly--but her mobile peony mouth and large innocent eyes added eloquence to colour and shape. She wore a red ribbon in her hair, and was the only one of the white company who could boast of such a pronounced adornment.
Paphnutius, hermit from desert tries to convert libertine beauty
The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories
Augustus Twain seems to have made something of a stir about the year 1160. He was as full of fun as he could be, and used to take his old saber and sharpen it up, and get in a convenient place on a dark night, and stick it through people as they went by, to see them jump. He was a born humorist. But he got to going too far with it; and the first time he was found stripping one of these parties, the authorities removed one end of him, and put it up on a nice high place on Temple Bar
He told me some queer things that explained a lot that had puzzled me - things that happened in the Balkan War, how one state suddenly came out on top, why alliances were made and broken, why certain men disappeared, and where the sinews of war came from.
Title refers to Irish landlords in England, circa 1800. By Maria Edgeworth.
The Adventure of the Black Lady. A Novel
For,``finding me one Day all alone in my Chamber, and lying on my Bed, in as mournful and wretched a``Condition, to my then foolish Apprehension, as now I am; He urg'd his Passion with such Violence and``accursed Success for me, with reiterated Promises of Marriage, whenever I pleas'd to challeng 'em,``which he bound with the most sacred Oaths and most dreadful Excrations; that partly with my``Aversion to the other, and partly wih my Inclinations to pity him, I ruin'd my self
The Adventure of the German Student
When lights were brought, and Wolfgang had a better opportunity of contemplating the stranger, he was more than ever intoxicated by her beauty. Her face was pale, but of a dazzling fairness, set off by a profusion of raven hair that hung clustering about it. Her eyes were large and brilliant, with a singular expression approaching almost to wildness.-- by Washington Irving
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
He stepped across to the sidewalk and proceeded slowly along. A month had gone by and he had not``heard a word from--HER. The break on West Broadway, the murder of Metzer in Moriarty's gambling hell,``the theft of Markel's diamond necklace had followed each other in quick succession--and then this``month of utter silence, with no sign of her, as though indeed she had never existed.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
To Sherlock Holmes she is always THE woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In``his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for``Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced``mind.
Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, but not from an individual -- he is a combination of the characteristics of three boys whom I knew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of architecture.
Hopping and flying, thus they led him on/To the slow lake, whose baleful stench to shun/They wing'd their flight aloft; then, stooping low,/Perch'd on the double tree that bears the golden bough. -- by Virgil
I heard this story sitting on the rear platform of an accommodation freight that crawled along through the brown, sun-dried wilderness between Grover Station and Cheyenne. The narrator was "Terrapin" Rodgers who had been a classmate of mine at Princeton, and who was then cashier in the B---- railroad office at Cheyenne.
With the disappearance of Schwartz, the Ella was short-handed: I believe Captain Richardson made an attempt``to secure me to take the place of Burns, now moved up into Schwartz's position. But the attempt met with a surly``refusal from Turner.
The Age of Fable, or, Stories of Gods and Heroes
Well, not ancient Greek, but it gives you the stories.
He bent and laid his lips on her hands, which were cold and lifeless. She drew them away, and he``turned to the door, found his coat and hat under the faint gas-light of the hall, and plunged out into the``winter night bursting with the belated eloquence of the inarticulate.
The Age of Invention, A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest
For the beginnings of the enslavement of steam, that mighty giant whose work has changed the world we live in, we must return to the times of Benjamin Franklin. James Watt, the accredited father of the modern steam engine, was a contemporary of Franklin, and his engine was twenty-one years old when Franklin died. The discovery that steam could be harnessed and made to work is not, of course, credited to James Watt. The precise origin of that discovery is unknown. --by Holland Thompson
In the days of Sherlock Holmes it was in the Times that it flourished, and many a criminal was tracked to earth after he had inserted some alluring mysterious message in it. Later the Telegraph gave it room; but, with the advent of halfpenny journalism, the simple souls moved en masse to the Mail -- by Earl Der Biggers
The Agrarian Crusade, A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics
The period from 1870 to 1873 has been characterized as one of rampant prosperity, and such it was for the commercial, the manufacturing, and especially the speculative interests of the country. For the farmers, however, it was a period of bitter depression. The years immediately following the close of the Civil War had seen a tremendous expansion of production, particularly of the staple crops. --by Solon J. Buck
If thou beest more, thou art an Vnderstander, and then I trust thee. If thou art one that tak'st vp, and but a Pretender, beware at what hands thou receiu'st thy commoditie; for thou wert neuer more fair in the way to be cos'ned (then in this Age) in Poetry, especially in Playes
HE had a mortal dislike, poor Stransom, to lean anniversaries, and loved them still less when they made a pretence of a figure. Celebrations and suppressions were equally painful to him, and but one of the former found a place in his life. He had kept each year in his own fashion the date of Mary Antrim's death.
or three years``on that most sensational of the New York dailies he had been the star man, the chief muckraker, the chief``sleuth. His interest was in crime. Not in crimes committed in passion or inspired by drink, but in such offences``against law and society as are perpetrated with nice intelligence.
Do you prefer the alternative? asked my companion, with a sneer. "No, hang it, that's unfair!" he cried apologetically in the same breath. "I quite understand. It's a beastly ordeal. But it would never do for you to stay outside. I tell you what, you shall have a peg before we start--just one.
The end of December, 1914, found Sara Lee quite contented. If it was resignation rather than content, no one but Sara Lee knew the difference. Knitting, too; but not for soldiers. She was, to be candid, knitting an afghan against an interesting event which involved a friend of hers.
Strether called, his second morning in Paris, on the bankers of the Rue Scribe to whom his letter of credit was addressed, and he made this visit attended by Waymarsh, in whose company he had crossed from London two days before. They had hastened to the Rue Scribe on the morrow of their arrival, but Strether had not then found the letters the hope of which prompted this errand.
Mind and Matter. Consciousness. By Bertrand Russell.
The first inhabitants were the Britons, who came from Armenia, and first peopled Britain southward. Then happened it, that the Picts came south from``Scythia, with long ships, not many; and, landing first in the northern part of Ireland, they told the Scots that``they must dwell there. But they would not give them leave; for the Scots told them that they could not all dwell``there together
Covers from 14-66 or so.
The account of Sir Arthur's unhappy adventure had led Oldbuck somewhat aside from his purpose of``catechising Lovel concerning the cause of his residence at Fairport. He was now, however, resolved to open``the subject. ``Miss Wardour was formerly known to you, she tells me, Mr. Lovel?''
I am more afraid of them than of Anytus and his associates, who are dangerous, too, in their own way. But``far more dangerous are these, who began when you were children, and took possession of your minds with``their falsehoods, telling of one Socrates, a wise man, who speculated about the heaven above, and searched``into the earth beneath, and made the worse appear the better cause. These are the accusers whom I dread
Aladdin, Ali Babba, and a storyline that goes on and on. Richard Burton's translation.
Beginning with thee, O Phoebus, I will recount the famous deeds of men of old, who, at the behest of``King Pelias, down through the mouth of Pontus and between the Cyanean rocks, sped well-benched Argo in``quest of the golden fleece.
Thus the highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy's plans; the next best is to prevent the junction of the enemy's forces; the next in order is to attack the enemy's army in the field; and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities.
Thus the highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy's plans; the next best is to prevent the junction of the enemy's forces; the next in order is to attack the enemy's army in the field; and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities.
had taken Mrs. Prest into my confidence; in truth without her I should have made but little advance, for the``fruitful idea in the whole business dropped from her friendly lips. It was she who invented the short cut, who``severed the Gordian knot.
The Autobiography Of A Quack And The Case OfGeorge Dedlow
Two Atlantic Monthly pieces by Rest Cure prescriber Dr. S. Weir Mitchell.
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
When I searched``the registers at Ecton, I found an account of their births, marriages and burials from the year``1555 only, there being no registers kept in that parish at any time preceding. By that register I``perceived that I was the youngest son of the youngest son for five generations back.
The Autobiography of Charles Darwin
When I left the school I was for my age neither high nor low in it; and I believe that I was considered by all my masters and by my father as a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect. To my deep mortification my father once said to me, "You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat- catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family."
She looked into the distance, and the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank again. Edna heard her``father's voice and her sister Margaret's. She heard the barking of an old dog that was chained to the sycamore``tree. The spurs of the cavalry officer clanged as he walked across the porch. There was the hum of bees, and the``musky odor of pinks filled the air. --by Kate Chopin
By Euripides. The first of the Fun Bobby's
And blood and wine were on his hands/ When they found him with the dead,/The poor dead woman whom he loved,/And murdered in her bed.
You've got to get him, boys - get him or bust! said a tired police chief, pounding a heavy fist on a table. The detectives he bellowed the words at looked at the floor. They had done their best and failed. Failure meant "resignation" for the police chief, return to the hated work of pounding the pavements for them -- Written with Avery Hopwood
If there were no such thing as display in the world, my private opinion is, and I hope you agree with me, that we might get on a great deal better than we do, and might be infinitely more agreeable company than we are. It was charming to see how these girls danced. They had no spectators but the apple-pickers on the ladders. They were very glad to please them, but they danced to please themselves
The great rooms caused so much poetry and history to``press upon him that he needed some straying apart to feel in a proper relation with them, though this impulse``was not, as happened, like the gloating of some of his companions, to be compared to the movements of a``dog sniffing a cupboard. It had an issue promptly enough in a direction that was not to have been calculated.
The next few days were occupied by Tarzan in completing his weapons and exploring the jungle. He strung his bow with tendons from the buck upon which he had dined his first evening upon the new shore, and though he would have preferred the gut of Sheeta for the purpose, he was content to wait until opportunity permitted him to kill one of the great cats.
Without quite knowing how he came to be there Oleron found himself striding over the loose board he``had temporarily placed on the step broken by Miss Bengough. He was hatless, and descending the stairs. -- By Oliver Onions.
What a howwid thmell of whithkey! lisped Cornet Fitch, of the Dragoons, to Miss Lucy, confidentially. "And thethe are what they call Whigth, are they? He! he!"
Oh, of course, the gendarmes are never at a loss for suspicions in such cases. But proofs are required. About that time, you see, there were two brothers living in the village who had an old bear, with his ears all torn, two big dogs, and a donkey, that they took about with them to the fairs, and made the dogs bait the bear. -- Play by Leopold Lewis
When you think about it, normally after mom comes out, the fighting ends...
Free of commentary
Birds fighting for their own city in this satire by the author of Lysistrata.
The Bishop, The Letter, Easter Eve, A Nightmare, The Murder, Uprooted, The Steppe
That they were friends of the man he had just overthrown and whose huge bulk lay motionless in the darkness at his feet, seemed plain, and it also seemed plain to him that the moment was not an opportune one for offering explanations. By E.R. Punshon
The Black Cat and Other Stories
The Assignation, A Tale of the Ragged Mountains, The Balloon, The Journal, Berenice, The Black Cat, A Descent into the Maelstrom, The Domain of Arnheim, Landor's Cottage, Eleonora, Hop-Frog, ``The Fall of the House of Usher, The Imp of the Perverse, The Island of the Fay, King Pest
The Black Death and The Dancing Mania
Ring Around the Rosey -- by Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker. Work was cited in an episode of the X-files. Can't get better than that.
In one of the most remote districts of the south of Scotland, where an ideal line, drawn along the tops of lofty``and bleak mountains, separates that land from her sister kingdom, a young man, called Halbert, or Hobbie``Elliot, a substantial farmer, who boasted his descent from old Martin Elliot of the Preakin-tower, noted in``Border story and song, was on his return from deer- stalking.
I tell you, Rosa, that I shall demolish this prison, stone for stone! and the unfortunate man, whose strength was``increased tenfold by his rage, began to shake the door with a great noise, little heeding that the thunder of his``voice was re-echoing through the spiral staircase.
However, the best informed, at least those who pretended to be so, agreed in saying that the steamer was going to take part in the terrible war which was then ravaging the United States of America, but more than this they did not know, and whether the Dolphin was a privateer, a transport ship, or an addition to the Federal marine was what no one could tell.
And in a copse close by to where the body of the murdered man was found had been discovered a thick bludgeon of a stick, broken it would seem by some violent act, into two halves. On the top half was rudely cut with a pen-knife M. ASSHE . . . What was puzzling, however, was the apparent motive of robbery about the crime; -- By Edward Frederic Benson
After the ceremonies of the christening were over, all the company returned to the King's palace, where was``prepared a great feast for the fairies. There was placed before every one of them a magnificent cover with a``case of massive gold, wherein were a spoon, knife, and fork, all of pure gold set with diamonds and rubies.``But as they were all sitting down at table they saw come into the hall a very old fairy, whom they had not``invited
The Boats of the "Glen Carrig"
In a little, we crept both of us so close to the door as the chests would allow, and there we crouched, listening; but could not tell what manner of thing it might be which produced so strange a noise. For it was neither shuffling, nor treading of any kind, nor yet was it the whirr of a bat's wings, the which had first occurred to me, knowing how vampires are said to inhabit the nights in dismal places.
They bring the body, and we pay the price, he used to say, dwelling on the alliteration--"quid pro quo." And again, and somewhat profanely, "Ask no questions," he would tell his assistants, "for conscience sake."
Tea began as a medicine and grew into a beverage. In China, in the eighth century, it entered the realm of``poetry as one of the polite amusements. The fifteenth century saw Japan ennoble it into a religion of aestheticism --Teaism. By Kakuzo Okakura
Cheer up, oh John of Gaunt. Your son shall be king.
Caesar's ambition was only fed by victories: scarcely was he master of Faenza before, excited by the``Mariscotti, old enemies of the Bentivoglio family, he cast his eyes upon Bologna; but Gian di Bentivoglio,``whose ancestors had possessed this town from time immemorial, had not only made all preparations``necessary for a long resistance, but he had also put himself under the protection of France
She felt that her friend's strange, uneasy eyes searched very far; a little more and they would go to the very bottom. Well, they might go if they would; she didn't, after all, care so much about her secret as that.
Napoleon had this bottle, and by it he grew to be the king of the world; but he sold it a the last, and fell. Captain Cook had this bottle, and by it he found his way to so many islands; but he, too sold it, and was slain upon Hawaii. For, once it is sold, the power goes and the protection; and unless a man remain content with what he has, ill will befall him
And now rushed the unfortunate wildly through the streets of Venice. He railed at fortune; he laughed and cursed by turns; yet sometimes he suddenly stood still, seemed as pondering on some great and wondrous enterprise, and then again rushed onwards, as if hastening to its execution. -- By MG Lewis
The Tribune had carried a photograph of the cabin where Clark had according to the Donaldson woman spent the winter following the murder, and there were the usual reports that he had been seen recently in spots as diverse as Seattle and New Orleans. But when the following Sunday brought nothing further he surmised that the pack, having lost the scent, had been called off.
Another month had gone by, and though Godwin was still somewhat weak and suffered from a headache at times, the brethren had recovered from their wounds. On the last day of November, about two o'clock in the afternoon, a great procession might have been seen wending its way from the old Hall at Steeple. In it rode many knights fully armed, before whom were borne their banners.
The Brick Moon and Other Stories
I cannot well tell you how much dismay this sight of a footprint in the ground gave me, nor how many sleepless``nights it cost me. All the time I was trying to make my mother think that there was no ground for anxiety, and yet all``the time I was showing her that I was very anxious. The more I pretended that I was not troubled, the more``absent-minded, and so the more troubled, I appeared to her -- by Edward Everett Hale
The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky and the Open Boat
Pity the poor oiler. But hey, does Open Boat mark the birth of new journalism?
The Bride of Corinth and Other Poems
Oh, thou broom accurs'd?/Be thou still I pray,/As thou wert at first!/``By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The British Barbarians: A Hill-Top Novel
The member of Her Britannic Majesty's Civil Service would have given anything just that minute to``say to him frankly, "Well, if you're not an Englishman, and you're not an American, and you're not a``Colonist, and you are an Alien, and yet you talk English like a native, and have always talked it, why,``what in the name of goodness do you want us to take you for?" But he restrained himself with``difficulty. --by Grant Allen
Alyosha, Ivan, Dmitri. Throw in an inquisition, and you've got it all.
American Civil War record
Historical fiction (time of James I) by an early blockbuster author.
Carley, clutching her support, with abated breath and prickling skin, gazed in fascinated suspense over the rim``of the gorge. Sometimes the wheels on that side of the vehicle passed within a few inches of the edge. The``brakes squeaked, the wheels slid; and she could hear the scrape of the iron-shod hoofs of the horses as they``held back stiff legged, obedient to the wary call of the driver.
Scarcely more than half a century has passed since the Dominion of Canada, in its present form, came into``existence. But thrice that period has elapsed since the fateful day when Montcalm and Wolfe laid down their``lives in battle on the Plains of Abraham, and the lands which now comprise the Dominion finally passed from``French hands and came under British rule.
And we watched the lady/as the Miller Told His Tale/while her face at first just ghostly/turned a whiter shade of pale (almost beat up a Procul Harum cover band for not knowing that.)
She had but time to slam her door, when he dashed himself frantically against it, where-upon she fancies she heard the angry remonstrance of another voice. Here, however, her evidence is vague; hours later when she woke to consciousness, she rushed to her mistress' room, and found it empty." -- by M.P. Shiel
I'm worried, Mr. Sergeant. I think a woman from my house has been murdered, but I don't know.
The Case of the Lamp That Went Out
A naturally retiring, modest disposition, and two external causes are the reasons for Muller's humbleness of manner, which is his chief characteristic.
The Case of The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow
Joseph Muller, Secret Service detective of the Imperial Austrian police, is one of the great experts in his profession.
The Case Of The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study
In personality he differs greatly from other famous detectives.
The Case of The Registered Letter
Muller is a small, slight, plain-looking man, of indefinite age, and of much humbleness of mien.
The Case of the Ward Lane Tabernacle
She glanced quickly in Hewitt's face and went on: "I am not accustomed to needless ceremony, Mr. Hewitt. My name is``Mallett--Mrs. Mallett--and here is my card. I have come to consult you on a matter of great annoyance and some danger to``myself. The fact is I am being watched and followed by a number of persons." `` -- By Arthur Morrison
The Case of the White Footprints
And then, as if in commentary on this last statement, the housemaid burst into the room and, with hardly dissembled agitation, exclaimed: "If you please, sir, the page from Beddingfield's Boarding-house says that a lady has been found dead in her bed and would you go round there immediately."
The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
It was pleasant to Dr. Watson to find himself once more in the untidy room of the first floor in Baker Street``which had been the starting-point of so many remarkable adventures. He looked round him at the scientific``charts upon the wall, the acid-charred bench of chemicals, the violin-case leaning in the corner, the``coal-scuttle, which contained of old the pipes and tobacco.
Considered the first Gothic story. By Horace Walpole.
A Mazarin mystery, by Emile Gaboriau, author of "The Phantom of the Opera." Other works by Gaboriau are in the mystery section.
TARA of Helium rose from the pile of silks and soft furs upon which she had been reclining, stretched her lithe body languidly, and crossed toward the center of the room, where, above a large table, a bronze disc depended from the low ceiling. Her carriage was that of health and physical perfection--the effortless harmony of faultless coordination.
Anon, it comes up stealthily, and creeps along the walls, seeming to read, in whispers, the Inscriptions sacred to the Dead. At some of these, it breaks out shrilly, as with laughter; and at others, moans and cries as if it were lamenting. It has a ghostly sound too, lingering within the altar; where it seems to chaunt, in its wild way, of Wrong and Murder done, and false Gods worshipped, in defiance of the Tables of the Law, which look so fair and smooth, but are so flawed and broken.
The Chorus Girl and Other Stories
The Chorus Girl, Verotchka, My Life, At a Country House, A Father, On the Road, ``Rothschild's Fiddle, Ivan Matveyitch, ``Zinotchka, Bad Weather, A Gentleman, Friend``A Trivial Incident
THE honey-tinted autumn sunshine was falling thickly over the crimson and amber maples around old Abel``Blair's door. There was only one outer door in old Abel's house, and it almost always stood wide open. A little``black dog, with one ear missing and a lame forepaw, almost always slept on the worn red sandstone slab``which served old Abel for a doorstep; and on the still more worn sill above it a large gray cat almost always``slept. -- Lucy Maud Montgomery
My favorite: The Unrest Cure (maybe you need to do the Charlotte Perkins Gilman thing.)
IN the mean season while this treaty was, there fell in England great mischief and rebellion of``moving of the common people, by which deed England was at a point to have been lost without``recovery. There was never realm nor country in so great adventure as it was in that time, and all``because of the ease and riches that the common people were of, which moved them to this``rebellion
In those days arose Rodrigo of Bivar, who was a youth strong in arms and of good customs; and the people``rejoiced in him, for he bestirred himself to protect the land from the Moors. Now it behoves that ye should know``whence he came, and from what men he was descended, because we have to proceed with his history.
If you're going to be murdered, I retorted, "it won't make any difference whether they are shut or open. But you may stay in the dressing-room, if you will lie on the couch: when you sleep in a chair you snore."
Sir Charles, thanks to Heaven, you may be leud, you have a plentiful Estate, may whore, drink, game, and play``the Devil: your Uncle, Sir Anthony Meriwill, intends to give you all his Estate too. But for such Sparks as this,``and my Fop in Fashion here, why, with what Face, Conscience, or Religion, can they be leud and vitious, keep``their Wenches, Coaches, rich Liveries, and so forth, who live upon Charity, and the Sins of the Nation?-- by Aprah Behn
The Chinese people reverence above all things literature and learning; they hate war, bearing in mind the``saying of Mencius, "There is no such thing as a righteous war; we can only assert that some wars are``better than others;" and they love trade and the finesse of the market-place. China can boast many great``soldiers, in modern as well as in ancient days--by Herbert A. Giles
The Clairvoyants and Other Stories
H'm, considered Kennedy, turning the crisis over in his mind. "We've had alleged stolen and forged letters before, but alleged stolen and forged photographs are new. I'm not surprised that you are alarmed, Bennett--nor that you want to fight, Travis."
The House of Socrates: The Thoughtery, a small and dingy place. More satire by the author Lysistrata.
And in the chaos and complexity of those perpendicular streets anything may dwell or happen, and it is in one of them, I believe, that the inquirer may find the offices of the Club of Queer Trades. It may be thought at the first glance that the name would attract and startle the passer-by, but nothing attracts or startles in these dim immense hives.
The Clue of the Twisted Candle
The duties of T. X. were multifarious. People said of him - and like most public gossip, this was probably untrue - that he was the head of the "illegal" department of Scotland Yard. If by chance you lost the keys of your safe, T. X. could supply you (so popular rumour ran) with a burglar who would open that safe in half an hour. -- By Edgar Wallace
2. If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser.
Mr. Dark and Stormy Himself, Burler-Lytton, predicts the future.
There are men, who, by their sympathetic attractions, carry nations with them, and lead the activity of the human race. And if there be such a tie, that, wherever the mind of man goes, nature will accompany him, perhaps there are men whose magnetisms are of that force to draw material and elemental powers, and, where they appear, immense instrumentalities organize around them. Life is a search after power;
Hold on, he said smiling. "I think she wrote that confession. Yes. As a matter of fact, I'm quite sure she did. And she has established a system of espionage on you by means of the telephone. If you had discovered the confession, she knew that there would be a change in your voice, in your manner.
The Confessions of St. Augustine
But woe is thee, thou torrent of human custom! Who shall stand against thee? how``long shalt thou not be dried up? how long roll the sons of Eve into that huge and``hideous ocean, which even they scarcely overpass who climb the cross? Did not I read``in thee of Jove the thunderer and the adulterer? both, doubtless, he could not be; but``so the feigned thunder might countenance and pander to real adultery.
Only such unfortunates as have so far failed to visit Canaan do not know that the "National House" is on the Main Street side of the Courthouse Square, and has the advantage of being within two minutes' walk of the railroad station, which is in plain sight of the windows--an inestimable benefit to the conversation of the aged men who occupied these windows on this white morning,
The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories
The Cook's Wedding, Sleepy, Children, ``The Runaway, Grisha, Oysters, Home ``A Classical Student, Vanka, An Incident, A Day in the Country, ``Boys, Shrove Tuesday, The Old House ``In Passion Week, Whitebrow, Kashtanka ``A Chameleon, The Dependents, Who Was To Blame?, The Bird Market, An Adventure, ``The Fish, Art, The Swedish Match
No, no, continued Danglars; "if we resolve on such a step, it would be much better to take, as I now do, this pen, dip it into this ink, and write with the left hand (that the writing may not be recognized) the denunciation we propose." And Danglars, uniting practice with theory, wrote with his left hand, and in a writing reversed from his usual style, and totally unlike it, the following lines, which he handed to Fernand, and which Fernand read in an undertone:
At the foot of the breakfast-table sat Mrs. Pendyce behind a silver urn which emitted a gentle steam. Her hands``worked without ceasing amongst cups, and while they worked her lips worked too in spasmodic utterances``that never had any reference to herself. Pushed a little to her left and entirely neglected, lay a piece of dry toast``on a small white plate.
This was the final blow; and for more than a minute Pascal stood motionless in front of the gate, stupefied with mingled rage and sorrow. His condition was not unlike that of a man who, after falling to the bottom of a precipice, is dragging himself up, all mangled and bleeding, swearing that he will yet save himself, when suddenly a heavy stone which he had loosened in his descent, falls forward and crushes him.
THE kettle began it! Don't tell me what Mrs. Peerybingle said. I know better. Mrs. Peerybingle may leave it on record to the end of time that she couldn't say which of them began it; but, I say the kettle did. I ought to know, I hope!
The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard I WROTE to my housekeeper, as I promised, that I was safe and sound. But I took good care not to tell her that I had caught cold from going to sleep in the library at night with the window open; for the good woman would have been as unsparing in her remonstrances to me as parliaments to kings. His work did not seem hard, for he had only two horses and a cow to see after, and though he had been``hired for a year, the year consisted of but three days, so that it was not long before he received his wages. In``payment the old man gave him a nut, and offered to keep him for another year; but Peter was home-sick; and,``besides, he would rather have been paid ever so small a piece of money than a nut; for, thought he, nuts``grow on every tree, and I can gather as many as I like. Were judgements of taste (like cognitive judgements) in possession of a definite objective principle, then one``who in his judgement followed such a principle would claim unconditioned necessity for it. Again, were they``devoid of any principle, as are those of the mere taste of sense, then no thought of any necessity on their part``would enter one's head.
The Critique of Practical Reason To be an object of practical knowledge, as such, signifies, therefore,``only the relation of the will to the action by which the object or its opposite would be realized;``and to decide whether something is an object of pure practical reason or not is only to discern the``possibility or impossibility of willing the action by which, if we had the required power (about``which experience must decide), a certain object would be realized. n the transcendental aesthetic we proved that everything intuited in space and time, all objects of a possible``experience, are nothing but phenomena, that is, mere representations; and that these, as presented to us- as``extended bodies, or as series of changes- have no self-subsistent existence apart from human thought. This``doctrine I call Transcendental Idealism.
The Crocodile: An Extraordinary Incident On entering the Arcade he was at once full``of admiration for the splendours of the building and, when we reached the shop in``which the monster lately arrived in Petersburg was being exhibited, he volunteered``to pay the quarter-rouble for me to the crocodile owner - a thing which had never``happened before. So as MY money was all gone, I was hungry for a ship; and when a long, keen-looking man with a goat-like beard, and mouth stained with dry tobacco-juice, hailed me one afternoon at the street- corner, I answered very promptly, scenting a berth. "Lookin' fer a ship, stranger?" said he. "Yes; do you want a hand?" said I, anxiously. -- by Frank. T. Bullen You shouldn't ask it, Loge," he said. The crisis of the conflict which he was living over passed presently, and he murmured, with contracted brows, and as if talking to himself: "Is Loge a crook? A crook?" No, adventure is not dead, and in spite of the steam engine and of Thomas Cook & Son. When the announcement of the contemplated voyage of the Snark was made, young men of "roving disposition" proved to be legion, and young women as well--to say nothing of the elderly men and women who volunteered for the voyage. And he was very much surprised. It was a decanter-stopper, a little crystal stopper, like those used for the bottles in``a liqueur-stand. And this crystal stopper had nothing particular about it. The most that Lupin observed was that the``knob, with its many facets, was gilded right down to the indent. But, to tell the truth, this detail did not seem to him of``a nature to attract special notice. -- Maurice LeBlanc Notwithstanding my friendly relations with Lupin and the many flattering proofs of his confidence which he has given me, there is one thing which I have never been quite able to fathom, and that is the organization of his gang. -- By Maurice LeBlanc
The Danish History, Books I-IX Now Dan and Angul, with whom the stock of the Danes begins, were begotten of Humble, their father,``and were the governors and not only the founders of our race. (Yet Dudo, the historian of Normandy,``considers that the Danes are sprung and named from the Danai.) -- by Saxo Grammaticus What did he know of women, that should make him understand? At his public school he had seen none to``speak to; at Oxford, only this one. At home in the holidays, not any, save his sister Cicely. The two hobbies of``their guardian, fishing, and the antiquities of his native county, rendered him averse to society The Darling, Ariadne, Polinka, Anyuta, The Two Volodyas, The Trousseau, The Helpmate, Talent, An Artist's Story, ``Three Years Gwen heard me through in silence and then said wearily, in a voice which had now neither intensity nor elasticity, "I understand fully the apparent absurdity of my position, yet I know my father was murdered. The wound which caused his death has escaped your notice, but - " -- by Melvin L. Severy Short fiction by the well-travelled author. Includes a story called .007 (no relation). Death is finished, he said to himself. "It is no more!" It was on a Saturday, at six in the morning, that I died after a three days' illness... At the same time I was aware of my exposure to suspicion as a product of the old lowering system. This made me feel I was doubly bound to have ideas, and had doubtless been at the bottom of my proposing to Mr. Pinhorn that I should lay my lean hands on Neil Paraday. Giovanni Boccacio's epic. Source for the Canterbury Tales, and may have inspired (I think), The Masque of the Red Death, by Edgar Alan Poe. Thus our nation under their protection did indeed live in freedom and peace up to the time when that``mighty prince the King of the English, Edward, the father of the one who reigns today, when our kingdom had no``head and our people harboured no malice or treachery and were then unused to wars or invasions, came in the``guise of a friend and ally to harass them as an enemy. The deeds of cruelty, massacre, violence, pillage, arson,``imprisoning prelates, burning down monasteries In the discussion on Sexual Selection in my 'Descent of Man,' no case interested and perplexed me so much as the brightly-coloured hinder ends and adjoining parts of certain monkeys. As these parts are more brightly coloured in one sex than the other, and as they become more brilliant during the season of love, I concluded that the colours had been gained as a sexual attraction.
The Descent of Man, and Other Stories On the ground of immorality. The Bishop evaded her startled gaze. "Such a thing is inconceivable to you, of``course; but I am only repeating what my publisher tells me. If, for instance, a critic could be induced -- I mean,``if a critic were to be found, who called in question the morality of my heroine in sacrificing her own health and``that of her idiot sisters in order to put up a memorial window to her grandfather, it would probably raise a``general controversy in the newspapers
The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel So in this wise Conaire fared forth; and on each of the four roads whereby men go to Tara there were three``kings awaiting him, and they had raiment for him, since it had been foretold that he would come``stark-naked. Then he was seen from the road on which his fosterers were, and they put royal raiment about``him, and placed him in a chariot, and he bound his pledges. Julian, therefore, saw nothing more of Catherine until she came into``the drawing-room, a few minutes before the announcement of dinner, wearing a wonderful toilette of pale blue``silk, with magnificent pearls around her neck and threaded in her Russian headdress. As is the way with all``women of genius, Catherine's complete change of toilette indicated a parallel change in her demeanour. Aphorisms from olden times.
The Diamond as Big as the Ritz and Other Stories There were twelve men, so it was said, in the village of Fish, twelve somber and``inexplicable souls who sucked a lean milk from the almost literally bare rock upon which a mysterious``populatory force had begotten them. They had become a race apart, these twelve men of Fish, like some``species developed by an early whim of nature, which on second thought had abandoned them to struggle and``extermination.--by Scott Fitzgerald This casual mention of the spiritualist,``Madame Vulpes, set me on a new track. What if this spiritualism should be really a great fact? What if,``through communication with subtiler organisms than my own, I could reach at a single bound the goal,``which perhaps a life of agonizing mental toil would never enable me to attain? -- By Fitz-James O'Brien December 24. - I am a poor man, but I would gladly give ten shillings to find out who sent me the``insulting Christmas card I received this morning. I never insult people; why should they insult me? The``worst part of the transaction is, that I find myself suspecting all my friends. The handwriting on the``envelope is evidently disguised, being written sloping the wrong way. --by George and Weedon Grossmith For instance, the tyrant says, "I am master of all." And what can``you do for me? Can you give me desire which shall have no hindrance? How``can you? Have you the infallible power of avoiding what you would avoid?``Have you the power of moving toward an object without error? And how do``you possess this power?
The Disintegration Machine and Other Stories PROFESSOR CHALLENGER was in the worst possible humour. As I stood at the door of his study, my hand``upon the handle and my foot upon the mat, I heard a monologue which ran like this, the words booming and``reverberating through the house:
The Door in the Wall and Other Stories If you call them dreams. Night after night. Vivid!--so vivid . . . . this-- (he indicated the landscape that``went streaming by the window) "seems unreal in comparison! I can scarcely remember who I am, what``business I am on . . . ." At once all the extraordinary``incidents of the previous day and the wild, incredible night, with all its almost impossible``adventures, presented themselves to his imagination and memory with terrifying vividness. Such``intense, diabolical malice on the part of his enemies, and, above all, the final proof of that malice,``froze Mr. Golyadkin's heart. Mr. Underhill, I am almost crazy, he said. "I don't know but I am quite crazy. If I am, it is the drummer -- the invisible, ghostly, fiendish, infernal drummer -- who has made me so. Who wouldn't be crazy with that unearthly, horrible rubadub-dub?" -- John William DeForest Strange that every so often, despite the horror, he had to take them out and gaze at them. He sat down upon the stool, spread a towel across his knees, and opened the pouch. He drew out a roll of cotton wool, which he unrolled across the towel. Flames! Blue flames, red, yellow, violet, and green - precious stones, many of them with histories that reached back into the dim centuries, histories of murder and loot and envy. -- By Harold MacGrath The Duel, Excellent People, Mire, Neighbours, At Home, Expensive Lessons, ``The Princess, The Chemist's Wife 'Emma, I have scratched out the beginning to my father, for I think I can write more easily to you. This is my last farewell to all, the last you will ever hear or see of an unworthy friend and son. I have failed in life; I am quite broken down and disgraced. I pass under a false name; you will have to tell my father that with all your kindness. It is my own fault. -- with Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson
The Economic Consequence of the Peace The power to become habituated to his surroundings is a marked characteristic of mankind. Very few of us``realise with conviction the intensely unusual, unstable, complicated, unreliable, temporary nature of the``economic organisation by which Western Europe has lived for the last half century. -- By John Maynard Keynes Also known as the Papyrus of Ani Robespierre had quietly waited the while. He was in no hurry: being a night-bird of very pronounced tastes, he``was quite ready to sit here until the small hours of the morning watching Citizen Chauvelin mentally writhing in``the throes of recollections of the past few months. The Emerald City is built all of beautiful marbles in which are set a profusion of emeralds, every one exquisitely cut and of very great size. There are other jewels used in the decorations inside the houses and palaces, such as rubies, diamonds, sapphires, amethysts and turquoises. But in the streets and upon the outside of the buildings only emeralds appear, from which circumstance the place is named the Emerald City of Oz. From the fairies some of the men had learned wonderful secrets, and had become magicians and sorcerers, with powers so great that the entire island was reputed to be one of enchantments. Who these men were the common people did not always know; for while some were kings and rulers, others lived quietly hidden away in forests or mountains, and seldom or never showed themselves. Firdausi's tale -- you thought all the great stories were just in the West? STUDIES serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in dis- course; and for ability, is in the judgment, and disposition of business. For expert men can exe- cute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and mar- shalling of affairs, come best, from those that are learned. NU, THE son of Nu, his mighty muscles rolling beneath his smooth bronzed skin, moved silently through the jungle primeval. His handsome head with its shock of black hair, roughly cropped between sharpened stones, was high held, the delicate nostrils questioning each vagrant breeze for word of Oo, hunter of men. LO I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske,/As time her taught, in lowly Shepheards weeds,/Am now enforst a far vnfitter taske, -- by Edmund Spenser This being a story--and a truer one than it may appear--of a mining country, it is quite to be expected that it will be a hard-luck story. But that depends on the point of view. Hard luck is a mild way of terming it so far as Kink Mitchell and Hootchinoo Bill are concerned; and that they have a decided opinion on the subject is a matter of common knowledge in the Yukon country. Actually, this poem was written by a Roman, Quintus Smyrnaeus, many years later, but it fits with the subject matter, eh? You have been fool enough, sir, says the Doctor, looking very stern, "to let this boy impose on you``as a lord; and knave enough to charge him double the value of the article you sold him. Take back``the boots, sir! I won't pay a penny of your bill; nor can you get a penny. As for you, sir, you``miserable swindler and cheat, I shall not flog you as I did before, but I shall send you home The hands pinning me down did not for an instant relax their grasp; yet they might safely have done so. Situated as I was I felt that my only chance of life was to lie still and convince, if I could, the persons in that room of the truth of my assertion. Nothing could be gained, but everything would be lost by resistance. By Hugh Conway THE mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure, or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents. The most plausible of these, who has appeared in print, has even deigned to admit that the election of the President is pretty well guarded For a detective whose talents, had not been recognized at headquarters, I possessed an ambition which,``fortunately for my standing with the lieutenant of the precinct, had not yet been expressed in words. The Philadelphia into which Frank Algernon Cowperwood was born was a city of two hundred and fifty thousand``and more. It was set with handsome parks, notable buildings, and crowded with historic memories. Many of the``things that we and he knew later were not then in existence--the telegraph, telephone, express company, ocean``steamer, city delivery of mails. -- By Dreiser I REMEMBER the occasion very distinctly when Cavor told me of his idea of the sphere. He had had``intimations of it before, but at the time it seemed to come to him in a rush. We were returning to the``bungalow for tea, and on the way he fell humming. Suddenly he shouted, "That's it! That finishes it! A sort of roller blind!" Why, Laura, said Cora, observing her sister with transient curiosity, "you haven't undressed. What have you been doing? Something's the matter with you. I know what it is," she added, laughing, as she seated herself on the edge of the old black-walnut bed. "You're in love with Wade Trumble!" Thomas Dixon's novel, rather an antebellum south attack on women's suffrage. What the heck, the book was dedicated to author Getrude Atherton. He put the ten in his pocket, when Dippel's eyes closed he stooped and retrieved the twenty with stealth--and skill. When the twenty was hidden, and the small but typical operation in high finance was complete, he shook Dippel. ``I say, old man,'' he said, ``hadn't you better let me keep your money for you? I'm afraid you'll lose it.'' -- by David Graham Phillips
The Fortunes & Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders One of the First. By Daniel Defoe On his bench in Madison Square Soapy moved uneasily. When wild geese honk high of nights, and when``women without sealskin coats grow kind to their husbands, and when Soapy moves uneasily on his bench in``the park, you may know that winter is near at hand. There had been hundreds of clews. They had``been furnished by the detectives of the city and county and of the private agencies, by amateurs, by news-``papers, by members of the underworld with a score to pay off or to gain favor. But no clew had led anywhere. The next day Stanley's car, fraught with Felix and a note from Clara, moved swiftly along the grass-bordered``roads toward Joyfields. Lying back on the cushioned seat, the warm air flying at his face, Felix contemplated``with delight his favorite countryside. Certainly this garden of England was very lovely, its greenness, trees, and``large, pied, lazy cattle; its very emptiness of human beings even was pleasing. That exasperated France, in this same National Assembly of hers, has got something, nay something great,``momentous, indispensable, cannot be doubted; yet still the question were: Specially what? A question hard to``solve, even for calm onlookers at this distance; wholly insoluble to actors in the middle of it. -- By Thomas Carlyle This is the one that Doestoyevsky had to dictate in record time to avoid a return to prison for debt. Worth a look. "You wait, and you'll see. An' don't get scared at the start. The first few rounds'll be something fierce. That's Ponta's strong point. He's a wild man, with an kinds of punches,--a whirlwind,-- and he gets his man in the first rounds. He's put away a whole lot of cleverer and better men than him. It's up to me to live through it, that's all.
david moynihan
dmoynihan@blackmask.com
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Short story collection by O. Henry. Includes "The Hand that Rules The World."
H'sh! he muttered, hoarsely, without looking in my direction. Then, all at once, with a quick little gasp, he sprang across the wheel-box, and stood beside me, trembling. His gaze appeared to follow the movements of something I could not see. -- Part three of Glen Carrig
I have habitually imagined - ``guessed'' might be the more honest word - that Reason is high, very high, a``lofty and distant realm where ``matters of the greatest import'' dwell, and where mighty minds move among``them. And accordingly, I have supposed Unreason, a complete irrationality, as low as Reason is high, the``very pit, the abyss, the frozen floor of hell.
TWO weeks had elapsed since Mr. Farris had been held for the grand jury. He had been at liberty on bail. The girl, against whom there had been no charge, had been held, virtually a prisoner, in a home for erring women that she might be available as a witness when needed.
IT rose for them--their honey-moon--over the waters of a lake so famed as the scene of romantic raptures that they were rather proud of not having been afraid to choose it as the setting of their own. "It required a total lack of humour, or as great a gift for it as ours, to risk the experiment," Susy Lansing opined, as they hung over the inevitable marble balustrade and watched their tutelary orb roll its magic carpet across the waters to their feet.
The God-Idea of the Ancients, or Sex in Religion
Glimpses of antiquity as far back as human ken can reach reveal the fact that in early ages of human``society the physiological question of sex was a theme of the utmost importance, while various proofs are``at hand showing that throughout the past the question of the relative importance of the female and male``elements in procreation has been a fruitful source of religious contention and strife. --by Eliza Burt Gamble
As I stood upon the bluff before my cottage on that clear cold night in the early part of March, 1886, the noble Hudson flowing like the grey and silent spectre of a dead river below me, I felt again the strange, compelling influence of the mighty god of war, my beloved Mars, which for ten long and lonesome years I had implored with outstretched arms to carry me back to my lost love.
I was impressed not so much by her beauty``as by her effect of power and ability. I had absolutely no reason, save Parmalee's babblings, to``suspect this woman of crime, but I could not rid myself of a conviction that she had every``appearance of being capable of it. --by Carolyn Wells
The Golden Dog (Le Chien d'Or)
Historical fiction by Canadian author William Kirby -- OK, I'll put in a Canada category.
You are just as ridiculous, Meschines, as you were thirty or fifty years ago, said the general, tranquilly. "You``declaim for the sake of hearing your own voice. Besides, what you say is un-American. Grace Parsloe, as I was``saying, got a place as shop- girl in one of the great New York stores. I don't say she mightn't have done worse:``what I say is, I doubt whether she could have done better--by Julian Hawthorne
Placing his bag upon the floor, he lingered, looking to left and right, when suddenly a big closed car painted dull yellow drew up beside the pavement. It was driven by a brown-faced chauffeur whose nationality I found difficulty in placing, for he wore large goggles. But before I could determine upon my plan of action, Le Balafré" crossed the pavement and entered the car--and the car glided smoothly away, going East.
There was considerable excitement when it became known to the crowd, as it speedily did, that Harry Bartlett, almost universally accepted as the fiance of Viola Carwell, had been held as having vital knowledge of her father's death. Indeed there were not a few wild rumors which insisted that he had been held on a charge of murder.
The saddest story. By Ford Maddox Ford. Part of everybody's list of greatest English novels for the 1900s.
By Arnold Bennett. Reportedly completed in three week's time...
The illuminating spirit, or evil genius, of modern educationism was Wilhelm Max Wundt, a Hegelian``psychologist who established the world's first laboratory for psychological experimentation at the University of``Leipzig, where he worked and taught from 1875 to 1920. He dreamed of transforming psychology, a notably````soft'' science dealing in vague generalizations and abstract pronouncements, into a ``hard'' science, like physics.
It was otherwise, however, when within three weeks, three more gentlemen, one of them a nobleman, and the two others men of good position and ample means, perished miserably in the almost precisely the same manner. Lord Swanleigh was found one morning in his dressing-room, hanging from a peg affixed to the wall, and Mr. Collier-Stuart and Mr. Herries had chosen to die as Lord Argentine.-- By Arthur Machen
First we went into lodgings,--into three sets in three weeks. We quarrelled with the first landlady, because my aunt vowed that she cut a slice off the leg of mutton which was served for our dinner; from the second lodgings we went because aunt vowed the maid would steal the candles; from the third we went because Aunt Hoggarty came down to breakfast the morning after our arrival with her face shockingly swelled and bitten by
Ah! till now your mind has been so filled with cold mechanics, with calculations, with steel and fire. More and more knowledge, ever more striving to understand all things, to know all, to master all. But meanwhile, the tones of the hymn died within you, and the hunger for that which lies beyond all things grew ever fiercer and fiercer. You thought it was Norway that you needed--and now you are here. But is it enough? --by Johan Bojer
The Professor rose fiercely. "Money! I care nothing for money. I desire to obtain the funeral jewelry and golden masks, the precious images of the gods, so as to place them in the British Museum. And the scrolls of papyrus buried with the mummy of Tahoser may contain an account of Ethiopian civilization, about which we know nothing. Oh, that tomb, - that tomb!"--by Fegus Hume
Olive turned very pale and was silent for a moment. At the end of that moment the story seemed almost old to``her. It was a natural ending of the prison-life which had been round Myrtle since her earliest years. When she``got large and strong enough, she broke out of jail,--that was all.
The moonlight, pouring its unclouded radiance over open space, failed to throw a beauty not their own on those sluggish waters. Broad and muddy, their stealthy current flowed onward to the sea, without a rock to diversify, without a bubble to break, the sullen surface.
"You know her? There is something irresistible about her. What is it? I don't know. Is it those grey``eyes whose glance thrusts like a gimlet and remains in you like the barb of an arrow? It is rather that``sweet smile, indifferent and infinitely charming, that dwells on her face like a mask. Little by little her``slow grace invades one, rises from her like a perfume--by Guy de Maupassant
david moynihan
dmoynihan@blackmask.com
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The Happy Prince and Other Tales
Leaf after leaf of the fine gold the Swallow picked off, till the Happy Prince looked quite dull and grey. Leaf after leaf of the fine gold he brought to the poor, and the children's faces grew rosier, and they laughed and played games in the street. "We have bread now!" they cried.
Continues the adventures of Roger Mifflin -- from Parnassus on wheels.
A Mystery of Modern Venice
Charlotte Yonge's blockbuster tale of man redeemed -- through marriage -- hey, it was 1850-something.
AFTER the departure of Dene and his comrades Naab decided to leave White Sage at nightfall. Martin Cole``and the Bishop's sons tried to persuade him to remain, urging that the trouble sure to come could be more``safely met in the village. Naab, however, was obdurate, unreasonably so,
The Hermit and the Wild Woman, and Other Stories
When the Hermit was a lad, and lived in the town, the crenellations of the walls had been square-topped, and a``Guelf lord had flown his standard from the keep. Then one day a steel-coloured line of men-at-arms rode across``the valley, wound up the hill and battered in the gates. Stones and Greek fire rained from the ramparts, shields``clashed in the streets, blade sprang at blade in passages and stairways
The High History of the Holy Graal
Translation of Perceval le Gallois ou le conte du Graal -- Toni Morrison Fans take note.
The Higher Learning In America
College has always been rough on a guy. By Thorstein Veblen.
But already about he town the darkness was forming;``fast, fast the shadows crept upon it from the forest, and from all sides banks and wreaths of curling``mist were gathering, as if a ghostly leaguer were being built up against the city, and the strange race``who lived in its streets. Suddenly there burst out fro the stillness the clear an piercing music of the``réveillé, calling, recalling, iterated, reiterated, and ending with one long high fierce shrill note --by Arthur Machen
The Historical Nights' Entertainment
Real events, rearranged.
Covers Rome from 69 to 70 AD. Wild things were happening.
The History of Herodotus Vol. 1
1. Against this Amasis then Cambyses the son of Cyrus was making his march, taking with him not only`` other nations of which he was ruler, but also Hellenes, both Ionians and Aiolians: and the cause of the`` expedition was as follows:
Phoenicia, like Greece, was a country where the cities held a position of extreme importance. The nation was``not a centralised one, with a single recognised capital, like Judæa, or Samaria, or Syria, or Assyria, or``Babylonia. It was, like Greece, a congeries of homogeneous tribes, who had never been amalgamated into a``single political entity, and who clung fondly to the idea of separate independence. -- By George Rawlinson
To begin with, it is generally admitted that after the capture of Troy, whilst the rest of the Trojans were massacred, against two of them-Aeneas and Antenor -the Achivi refused to exercise the rights of war, partly owing to old ties of hospitality, and partly because these men had always been in favour of making peace and surrendering Helen.
During the year a fleet of Greek ships under the command of the Lacedaemonian Cleonymus sailed to the shores of Italy and captured the city of Thuriae in the Sallentine country. The consul, Aemilius, was sent to meet this enemy, and in one battle he routed him and drove him to his ships. Thuriae was restored to its former inhabitants, and peace was established in the Sallentine territory.
The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement
Describes the history of his movement.
The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling
Chapter 7. Containing such grave matter, that the reader cannot laugh once through the whole`` chapter, unless peradventure he should laugh at the author
What was the curiousest thing he had seen? Well! He didn't know. He couldn't momently name what was the curiousest thing he had seen- -unless it was a Unicorn, and he see him once at a Fair. But supposing a young gentleman not eight year old was to run away with a fine young woman of seven, might I think that a queer start? Certainly.
IN my travels, as I walked through many regions and countries, it was my chance to happen into that famous continent of Universe. A very large and spacious country it is: it lieth between the two poles, and just amidst the four points of the heavens. It is a place well watered, and richly adorned with hills and valleys, bravely situate, and for the most part, at least where I was, very fruitful, also well peopled, and a very sweet air.
The Horse Stealers and Other Stories
The Horse-Stealers, Ward No. 6, The Petchenyeg, A Dead Body, A Happy Ending, The Looking-Glass, Old Age, Darkness, The Beggar, A Story Without a Title, In Trouble, Frost, A Slander, Minds in Ferment, Gone Astray, An Avenger, The Jeune Premier, A Defenceless Creature, An Enigmatic Nature, A Happy Man, A Troublesome Visitor, An Actor's End
I confess at these words a shudder passed through me. There was a thrill in the doctor's voice which``showed that he was himself deeply moved by that which he told us. Holmes leaned forward in his excitement``and his eyes had the hard, dry glitter which shot from them when he was keenly interested.
An impulse of curiosity made him turn out of his direct line to the door, and stroll past her. He knew that if she did not wish to be seen she would contrive to elude him; and it amused him to think of putting her skill to the test.
In fact, Percival Ford was no more a woman's man than he was a man's man. A glance at him told the reason. He had a good constitution, never was on intimate terms with sickness, nor even mild disorders; but he lacked vitality. His was a negative organism. No blood with a ferment in it could have nourished and shaped that long and narrow face, those thin lips, lean cheeks, and the small, sharp eyes.
MISS HEPZIBAH PYNCHEON sat in the oaken elbow-chair, with her hands over her face, giving way to that heavy down-sinking of the heart which most persons have experienced, when the image of hope itself seems ponderously moulded of lead, on the eve of an enterprise at once doubtful and momentous.
Weyman's first book.
Within under the Hall-Sun, amidst the woven stories of time past, sat the elders and chief warriors on the dais, and amidst of all a big strong man of forty winters, his dark beard a little grizzled, his eyes big and grey. Before him on the board lay the great War-horn of the Wolfings carved out of the tusk of a sea-whale of the North and with many devices on it and the Wolf amidst them all
I AM an old man. I live here in this ancient house, surrounded by huge, unkempt gardens. "The peasantry, who inhabit the wilderness beyond, say that I am mad. That is because I will have nothing to do with them.
And, further, he was still haunted with the feeling that other "beings" occupied certain portions of``the rambling mansion, and more than once recently he had wakened in the night with an idea,``carried over from dreams possibly, that the corridor outside his bedroom was moving and alive``with footsteps. -- by Algernon Blackwood
A sailor is born, not made. And by "sailor" is meant, not the average efficient and hopeless creature who is found to-day in the forecastle of deepwater ships, but the man who will take a fabric compounded of wood and iron and rope and canvas and compel it to obey his will on the surface of the sea. Barring captains and mates of big ships, the small-boat sailor is the real sailor.
But the hospital walls were very thick, and daylight entered only by narrow windows high up above the``floor. The air was so fetid the lepers could scarcely live in the place at all. And Fra Giovanni noted how``one of them, by name Lucido, who showed an exemplary patience, was slowly dying of the evil``atmosphere.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Notre-Dame de Paris)
When this species of cyclops appeared on the threshold of the chapel, motionless, squat, and almost as``broad as he was tall; squared on the base, as a great man says; with his doublet half red, half violet, sown``with silver bells, and, above all, in the perfection of his ugliness, the populace recognized him on the instant,``and shouted with one voice,--
The man who renounces everything about himself is indeed...
And indeed He seems to me/``Scarce other than my king's ideal knight,/`Who reverenced his conscience as his king;
Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another.
Along Pall Mall the taxi in which``she was seated gained considerably, but in the Park and along the Bird Cage Walk both the other taxies,``risking the police regulations, drew almost alongside. Once past Hyde Park Corner, however, her cab``again drew ahead, and when she was deposited in front of Harrod's Stores, her pursuers were out of``sight. She paid the driver quickly, a little over double his fare.
The Importance of Being Earnest
LANE. I believe it IS a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very little experience of it myself up to the``present. I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between``myself and a young person.
Dante's Epic. No real demand for Purgatorio or Paradiso.
The Inn of the Two Witches and The Duel
THIS tale, episode, experience--call it how you will--was related in the fifties of the last century by a man who, by his own confession, was sixty years old at the time. Sixty is not a bad age unless in perspective, when no doubt it is contemplated by the majority of us with mixed feelings.
As Ivan explained to the guests, their host had telephoned that he was detained for ten minutes. He was, in truth, making some last arrangements about executions and such ugly things; and though these duties were rootedly repulsive to him, he always performed them with precision. Ruthless in the pursuit of criminals, he was very mild about their punishment.
WE are getting foreignized rapidly and with facility. We are getting reconciled to halls and bedchambers with``unhomelike stone floors and no carpets -- floors that ring to the tread of one's heels with a sharpness that is``death to sentimental musing. We are getting used to tidy, noiseless waiters, who glide hither and thither, and``hover about your back and your elbows like butterflies, quick to comprehend orders, quick to fill them; thankful``for a gratuity without regard to the amount
What became of the Grand Duke Stanislaus? Elopement? Suicide? Nothing of the kind. He alone was fully alive to Russia's growing peril. He alone knew the truth about Mongolia. Why was Sir Crichton Davey murdered? Because, had the work he was engaged upon ever seen the light it would have shown him to be the only living Englishman who understood the importance of the Tibetan frontiers. I say to you solemnly, Petrie, that these are but a few.
I have mentioned already that he was a widower. He had married in his early youth, and married for money.``From his parents in Moscow, who were completely ruined, he received hardly anything. Vassilyevskoe was``mortgaged over and over again. It was encumbered with enormous debts. At twenty-two the prince, who was``forced at that time to take service in a government department in Moscow, had not a farthing
Thus it was that on the ninth day of February, at the beginning of the thaw, this singular person fell out of``infinity into Iping Village. Next day his luggage arrived through the slush. And very remarkable luggage it``was. There was a couple of trunks indeed, such as a rational man might need, but in addition there were a box of books
I shall try to write simply and to tell here how Ernest Everhard entered my life--how I first met him, how he grew until I became a part of him, and the tremendous changes he wrought in my life. In this way may you look at him through my eyes and learn him as I learned him--in all save the things too secret and sweet for me to tell.
BUT the islanders, seeing that I was really adrift, took pity on me. I drifted very slowly to the eastward,``approaching the island slantingly; and presently I saw, with hysterical relief, the launch come round and``return towards me.
After his journey up from Dover, Shelton was still fathering his luggage at Charing Cross, when the foreign girl``passed him, and, in spite of his desire to say something cheering, he could get nothing out but a``shame-faced smile. Her figure vanished, wavering into the hurly-burly; one of his bags had gone astray, and``so all thought of her soon faded from his mind.
Look here, Mr. Quatermain, you were always a bit of a sportsman, and I'll make you an offer. If I kill more birds``than you do to-day, you shall promise to hold your tongue about my affairs in South Africa; and if you kill more``than I do, you shall still hold your tongue, but I will pay you that £250 and interest for six years.
What had next brought him back, clearly--though after how long?--was Mrs. Muldoon's voice, coming to him from quite near, from so near that he seemed presently to see her as kneeling on the ground before him while he lay looking up at her; himself not wholly on the ground, but half-raised and upheld
To tell you the truth, said he, "I should be only too happy, on behalf of the owners, to let anyone have the home rent free for a term of years if only to accustom the people here to see it inhabited. It has been so long empty that some kind of absurd prejudice has grown up about it, and this can be best put down by its occupation
All that is told here happened some time before Mowgli was turned out of the Seeonee wolfpack. It was in the``days when Baloo was teaching him the Law of the Jungle. The big, serious, old brown bear was delighted to``have so quick a pupil, for the young wolves will only learn as much of the Law of the Jungle as applies to their``own pack and tribe, and run away as soon as they can repeat the Hunting Verse:
Includes Aunt Margaret's Mirror, the Tapestried Chamber, and the Death of the Laird's Jock.
Trembling, I put the diadem from my head and wiped my forehead, but I``thought of Hastur and of my own rightful ambition, and I remembered Mr. Wilde as I had last left``him, his face all torn and bloody from the claws of that devil's creature, and what he said--ah, what``he said! The alarm bell in the safe began to whirr harshly, and I knew my time was up--by Robert W. Chambers
One of these fell westward over``the face of a crag so high that when the sun had set to everything else, and all below``was darkness, his beams still shone full upon this waterfall, so that it looked like a``shower of gold. It was therefore called by the people of the neighborhood the Golden River. -- by John Ruskin
That I venture to doubt, Major Thomson replied. "At any rate, there is enough circumstantial evidence``against you in this book to warrant my taking the keenest interest in your future. As a matter of fact, you``would have been at the Tower, or underneath it, at this very moment, but for the young lady who probably``perjured herself to save you.
The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories
So, nevertheless, I lived, until the age of thirty, without abandoning for a minute my intention of marrying, and building an elevated conjugal life; and with this in view I watched all young girls who might suit me. I was buried in rottenness, and at the same time I looked for virgins, whose purity was worthy of me! Many of them were rejected: they did not seem to me pure enough!
The Lady With A Dog and Other Stories
The Lady with a Dog, A Doctor's Visit, ``An Upheaval, Ionitch, The Head of the Family, The Black Monk, Volodya, An Anonymous Story, The Husband
My recollection is he wrote a sequel to this one -- but I can't seem to find it.
The form of the ridge was a segment of a circle, with the higher points inland to the west. In the centre rose the Castle, on the highest point of all. Between the various rocky excrescences were groups of trees of various sizes and heights, amongst some of which were what, in the early morning light, looked like ruins.
'That's it,' said the chairman. 'Compensation. They didn't give it him, though, and then he got very fond of his country all at once, and went about saying that gas was a death-blow to his native land, and that it was a plot of the radicals to ruin the country and destroy the oil and cotton trade for ever, and that the whales would go and kill themselves privately, out of sheer spite and vexation at not being caught.
THE great Professor Challenger has been -- very improperly and imperfectly -- used in fiction. A daring author``placed him in impossible and romantic situations in order to see how he would react to them. He reacted to``the extent of a libel action, an abortive appeal for suppression, a riot in Sloane Street, two personal assaults,``and the loss of his position as lecturer upon Physiology at the London School of Sub-Tropical Hygiene.
The inadequate boat finally arrived at a precarious landing, the natives, waist-deep in the surf, assisting. I was carried ashore, and while the evening meal was being prepared, I wandered to and fro along the rocky, shattered shore. Bits of surf-harried beach clove the worn granite, or whatever the rocks of Cape Farewell may be composed of
As I remember, you bought a planet called Phoebe... Livestock issues raised by author J. F. Bone.
Around the east, thin mists caught gradually``the rosy hues that heralded the morning; Light was about to resume her reign. Yet, still, dark and massive in``the distance, lay the broken fragments of the destroying cloud, from which red streaks, burning dimlier and``more dim, betrayed the yet rolling fires of the mountain of the 'Scorched Fields'. The white walls and gleaming``columns that had adorned the lovely coasts were no more.--by Bulwer-Lytton
At another time we were haunted for several days by an apparition, to which our people gave the appellation of the Black Spectre. We never saw it except at evening, when his coal black steed, his mourning dress, and plume of black feathers, had a majestic and awe-striking appearance; his face, one said, who had seen it for a moment, was ashy pale; he had lingered far behind the rest of his troop, and suddenly at a turn in the road, saw the Black Spectre coming towards him--by Mary Shelley
he moved silently by the group of travelers, accompanied by the Mohicans, who seemed to comprehend his``intentions with instinctive readiness, when the whole three disappeared in succession, seeming to vanish``against the dark face of a perpendicular rock that rose to the height of a few yards, within as many feet of the``water's edge.
Early next morning we were on our way. I tried to find a soft place on Old Baldy, one of Frank's pack horses. He``was a horse that would not have raised up at the trumpet of doom. Nothing under the sun, Frank said,``bothered Old Baldy but the operation of shoeing. We made the distance to the outpost by noon, and found``Frank's friend a genial and obliging cowboy
I vaguely felt--if I left things as they were--that I could never hope to remove the shadow which now rested on the married life that had begun so brightly. We might live together, so as to save appearances. But to forget what had happened, or to feel satisfied with my position, was beyond the power of my will.
The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices
In the autumn month of September, eighteen hundred and fifty-seven, wherein these presents bear date, two idle apprentices, exhausted by the long, hot summer, and the long, hot work it had brought with it, ran away from their employer. They were bound to a highly meritorious lady (named Literature), of fair credit and repute, though, it must be acknowledged, not quite so highly esteemed in the City as she might be.
AT the request of a person who has claims on me that I must not disown, I consent to look back through a long interval of years and to describe events which took place within the walls of an English prison during the earlier period of my appointment as Governor.
Cleopatra, Thisbe, Dido and more (advanced research for writing up on the Wife of Bath?)
. Paul Overt was a faithless smoker; he would puff a cigarette for reasons with which tobacco had nothing to do. This was particularly the case on the occasion of which I speak; his motive was the vision of a little direct talk with Henry St. George.
The Library Window: A Story of the Seen and Unseen
First it occurred to me, with a little sensation of discovery, how absurd to say it``was not a window, a living window, one to see through! Why, then, had they never seen it, these old folk?``I saw as I looked up suddenly the faint greyness as of visible space within--a room behind, certainly dim,``as it was natural a room should be on the other side of the street...
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus
And thus for a moment they remained, the nymphs filled with surprise and consternation, but the brow of the Master Woodsman gradually clearing as he gazed intently upon the beautiful immortal who had wilfully broken the Law. Then the great Ak, to the wonder of all, laid his hand softly on Necile's flowing locks and kissed her on her fair forehead.
The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald
And in the evening when Cormac made ready to go home he saw Narfi, and bethought``him of those churlish words. "I think, Narfi," said he, "I am more like to knock thee down,``than thou to rule my coming and going." And with that struck him an axe- hammer-blow,``saying:
The Life and Death of Mr. Badman
Attentive. Good Sir, Good morrow to you, I have not as yet lost ought, but yet you give a right ghess of me, for I``am, as you say, concerned in my heart, but 'tis because of the badness of the times. And Sir, you, as all our``Neighbours know, are a very observing man, pray therefore what do you think of them? -- by John Bunyan
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.
My father, as appears from many of his papers, was very subject to this passion, before he married--but from a``little subacid kind of drollish impatience in his nature, whenever it befell him, he would never submit to it like a``christian; but would pish, and huff, and bounce, and kick, and play the Devil, and write the bitterest Philippicks``against the eye that ever man wrote
The Pilgrim, having now floundered through the Slough of Despond, passed through the Wicket Gate, climbed the Hill Difficulty, and got safe by the Lions, entered the Palace Beautiful, and was "had in to the family." In plain words, Bunyan united himself to the little Christian brotherhood at Bedford, of which the former loose- living royalist major, Mr. Gifford, was the pastor, and was formally admitted into their society. -- by Edmund Venables
Coleridge sat on the brow of Highgate Hill, in those years, looking down on London and its``smoke-tumult, like a sage escaped from the inanity of life's battle; attracting towards him the``thoughts of innumerable brave souls still engaged there. His express contributions to poetry,``philosophy, or any specific province of human literature or enlightenment, had been small and sadly``intermittent;-- by Thomas Carlyle
King Alfred was the son of king Ethelwulf,``who was the son of Egbert, who was the son of Elmund, was the son of Eafa, who was the son of Eoppa,``who the son of Ingild. Ingild, and Ina, the famous king of the West-Saxons, were two brothers. Ina went to``Rome, and there ending this life honourably, entered the heavenly kingdom, to reign there for ever with``Christ.
The Life of Stephen A. Douglas
Yet Lincoln was not a despised antagonist. He was the most prominent Republican in Illinois. But``Douglas was the recognized head of a great national party, the giant of the Senate, the most``resourceful American statesman then living. Through years of desperate battling he had``successfully repelled the assaults of Seward, Sumner and Chase. -- by William Gardner
I have lately been subject to attacks of angina pectoris; and in the ordinary course of things, my physician tells me, I may fairly hope that my life will not be protracted many months. Unless, then, I am cursed with an exceptional physical constitution, as I am cursed with an exceptional mental character,
Then his words of gladness at sight of her, his chagrin at not being at the train to welcome her, were not so``memorable of him as the way he clasped her, for he had held her that way the day he left home, and she had``not forgotten. But now he was so much taller and bigger, so dusty and strange and different and forceful, that``she could scarcely think him the same man.
But under the gay exterior he affected he carried a spirit of most vile unrest. The anger which had prompted his impulse to execute, after all, the business on which he was come, and to deliver his father the letter that was to work his ruin, was all spent. He had cooled
"When they got to the house, mother wanted to take father right off into the little room; she had been telling him about it, just as I am going to tell you and she had said that of all the rooms that one was the only one that seemed pleasant to her. She described the furniture and the books and paper and everything, and said it was on the north side, between the front and back room. Well, when they went to look for it, there was no little room there -- by Madelene Yale Wynne
david moynihan
dmoynihan@blackmask.com
0
No
No
0
0
Yes"
Has it ever been your lot, reader, to be persecuted by a pretty woman who thinks, without a tittle of reason, that``you are bowed down under a hopeless partiality for her? It is thus that I have been pursued for several years``now by the unwelcome sympathy of the tender-hearted and virtuous Mary A----. When we pass in the street the``poor deluded soul subdues her buoyancy
Mystery collection, includes works by Charles Dickens.
To take but one point: Mr. Sleuth did not ask to be called unduly early. Bunting and his Ellen had fallen into the way of lying rather late in the morning, and it was a great comfort not to have to turn out to make the lodger a cup of tea at seven, or even half-past seven. Mr. Sleuth seldom required anything before eleven. -- Marie Belloc Lowndes
That night Duane was not troubled by ghosts haunting his waking and sleeping hours. He awoke feeling``bright and eager, and grateful to Euchre for having put something worth while into his mind. During breakfast,``however, he was unusually thoughtful, working over the idea of how much or how little he would confide in the``outlaw. He was aware of Euchre's scrutiny.
More from our friend Forster.
Chapter XXIV. THE SUN CHILDREN'S PERIL!!!!!
It was during the morning of July 6, 2137, that we entered the mouth of the Thames--to the best of my knowledge the first Western keel to cut those historic waters for two hundred and twenty-one years!
By C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne --The arm of the sea at the``head of which the vast city of Atlantis stands, varies greatly in width. In places where the``mountains have over-boiled, and sent their liquid contents down to form hard stone below, the``channel has barely a river's wideness, and then beyond, for the next half-day's sail it will widen out``into a lake, with the sides barely visible.
Outside the locked door the voices of the two men rose in fierce whispers. But Ford regarded them not at all.``With the swiftness of a squirrel caught in a cage, he darted on tiptoe from side to side searching the confines``of his prison. He halted close to Miss Dale and pointed at the windows.
That same morning there was great excitement in the castle of the powerful Sorceress of Oz, Glinda the Good. This castle, situated in the Quadling Country, far south of the Emerald City where Ozma ruled, was a splendid structure of exquisite marbles and silver grilles. Here the Sorceress lived, surrounded by a bevy of the most beautiful maidens of Oz, gathered from all the four countries of that fairyland as well as from the magnificent Emerald City itself
The Lost Road and Other Stories
By Richard Harding Davis. Includes THE MEN OF ZANZIBAR.
if you are anxious for the return of the violin and willing to pay a sum of money, small compared with the value of the violin, I think we can make a deal. You can put a personal in the New York Sun saying I am willing to give a sum of money for the return of the violin. No questions asked. Mrs. J. Bott. When I see your personal in the Sun I will let you know how the exchange can be made. CAVE DWELLER. -- by Arthur Train
Hey, there's supposed to be a TV show in Australia based on this Professor Challenger book.
One of J.Storer Clouston's comic novels.
A Welsh cycle of Arthurian tales. If you read, as a kid, the Lloyd Alexander series "Chronicles of Prydain," some names might seem familiar.
After a time the men tired of the sport of king-baiting, for Barney showed neither rancor nor outraged majesty at``their keenest thrusts, instead, often joining in the laugh with them at his own expense. They thought it odd that``the king should hold his dignity in so low esteem, but that he was king they never doubted, attributing his``denials to a disposition to deceive them, and rob them of the "king's ransom" they had already commenced to``consider as their own.
The Magic Egg and Other Stories
Let us read the story again, she said, "and see what is the matter with it." When we had finished its perusal, Hypatia remarked: "It is quite as good as many of the stories you have had printed, and I think it very interesting, although, of course, it is not equal to `His Wife's Deceased Sister.'"
On the east edge of the Land of Oz, in the Munchkin Country, is a big, tall hill called Mount Munch. One one side, the bottom of this hill just touches the Deadly Sandy Desert that separates the Fairyland of Oz from all the rest of the world, but on the other side, the hill touches the beautiful, fertile Country of the Munchkins.
A good many years ago the Magical Monarch of Mo became annoyed by the Purple Dragon, which came down from the mountains and ate up a patch of his best chocolate caramels just as they were getting ripe. So the King went out to the sword tree and picked a long, sharp sword and tied it to his belt and went away to the mountains to fight the Purple Dragon.
And the city of London shall have all it ancient liberties and free customs, as well by land as by water;``furthermore, we decree and grant that all other cities, boroughs, towns, and ports shall have all their liberties``and free customs.
1918 Pulitizer-Prize winner by Booth Tarkington
HAVING thus, in a word, revealed his ambition for a career above courts, marts, and polling booths, George breathed more deeply than usual, and, turning his face from the lovely companion whom he had just made his confidant, gazed out at the dancers with an expression in which there was both sternness and a contempt for the squalid lives of the unyachted Midlanders before him.
I had made up my mind that when my vacation came I would spend it seeking adventures. I have always wished``for adventures, but, though I am old enough--I was twenty-five last October--and have always gone half-way to``meet them, adventures avoid me. Kinney says it is my fault. He holds that if you want adventures you must go``after them.
Don't lie to me, sir, Wingrave said sharply. "I have been wondering what the --- you meant by hanging``around after me, giving the deck steward five shillings to put your chair next mine, and pretending to``read, while all the time you were trying to overhear any scraps of conversation between my secretary and``myself. I thought you were simply guilty of impertinent curiosity. This, however, rather alters the look of``affairs."
The man in it was on his back, the early morning sun striking full on his upturned face. But the light did not disturb him. A small stain of red dyed the front of his night clothes and trailed across the sheet; his half-open eyes were fixed, without seeing, on the shining wood above.
d'Artagnan.
A cut-glass chandelier filled with lighted candles hung like a giant stalactite above its centre, radiating over``large gilt-framed mirrors, slabs of marble on the tops of side-tables, and heavy gold chairs with crewel worked``seats. Everything betokened that love of beauty so deeply implanted in each family which has had its own way``to make into Society, out of the more vulgar heart of Nature.--Forsyte #1
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg
It was many years ago. Hadleyburg was the most honest and upright town in all the region round about. It had kept that reputation unsmirched during three generations, and was prouder of it than of any other of its possessions. It was so proud of it, and so anxious to insure its perpetuation, that it began to teach the principles of honest dealing to its babies in the cradle
With an income so uncertain that the only thing that could be said of it with certainty was that it`` was too small to support even himself, Carter should not have thought of matrimony. Nor, must`` it be said to his credit, did he think of it until the girl came along that he wanted to marry.
This tale begins among a tangle of tales round a name that is at once recent and legendary. The name is that of Michael O'Neill, popularly called Prince Michael, partly because he claimed descent from ancient Fenian princes, and partly because he was credited with a plan to make himself prince president of Ireland, as the last Napoleon did of France.
Excuse me if I enjoy myself rather obviously! he said to Gregory, smiling. "I don't often have the luck to have a dream like this. It is new to me for a nightmare to lead to a lobster. It is commonly the other way."
The Man Who Would Be King And Other Stories
Also includes "The Phanton Rickshaw."
Their daily business was to occupy themselves with literature. At the present moment they were engaged in drinking whisky,--an occupation both agreeable and useful,--and in chatting about books, the theater, women and many other things. -- By Otto Larssen
So he began by sprinkling some of the magic Powder of Life from the pepper- box upon the body of the saw-horse. Then he lifted his left hand, with the little finger pointing upward, and said: "Weaugh!"
An Electrical Fairy Tale``Founded Upon The Mysteries Of Electricity And The Optimism Of Its Devotees. It Was Written For Boys, But Others May Read It
If I speak of myself in this story, it is because I have been deeply involved in its startling events, events doubtless among the most extraordinary which this twentieth century will witness. Sometimes I even ask myself if all this has really happened, if its pictures dwell in truth in my memory, and not merely in my imagination. In my position as head inspector in the federal police department at Washington...
Now, said the woman, breaking the silence, so that her low dry voice sounded quite loud, "before you go further, Michael, listen to me. If you touch that money, I and this girl go with the man. Mind, it is a joke no longer."
The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion and Other Stories
So far from being as gay as its uniform, the regiment was pervaded by a dreadful melancholy, a chronic home-sickness, which depressed many of the men to such an extent that they could hardly attend to their drill. The worst sufferers were the younger soldiers who had not been over here long.
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
I think that you know me well enough, Watson, to understand that I am by no means a nervous man. At the``same time, it is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you. Might I``trouble you for a match? He drew in the smoke of his cigarette as if the soothing influence was grateful to``him.
To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgrac'd me and hind'red me half a million; laugh'd at my losses, mock'd at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies. And what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes?
'Gone!' he said; 'the things are gone, the fortune gone! We are paupers once more.``Boy! what do you know of this? Speak up, sir, speak up. Do you know of it? Where``are they?' He had him by the arm, shaking him like a bag, and the boy's words, if he``had any, were jolted forth in inarticulate murmurs. The Doctor, with a revulsion``from his own violence, set him down again.
Kafka's classic on family, fatherhood, salesmanship, wise men, and insects. Translated by a professor in Northern British Columbia.
The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics
These are such moral qualities as, when a man does not possess them, he is not bound to acquire them.``They are: the moral feeling, conscience, love of one's neighbour, and respect for ourselves (self-esteem).``There is no obligation to have these, since they are subjective conditions of susceptibility for the notion of duty,``not objective conditions of morality.
The plague raged in the city of London. The destroying angel had gone forth, and kindled with its fiery breath the awful pestilence, until all London became one mighty lazar-house. Thousands were swept away daily; grass grew in the streets, and the living were scarce able to bury the dead. Business of all kinds was at an end, except that of the coffin-makers and drivers of the pest-carte. --by Mary Agnes Fleming
`WHAT I want, you know,' said Mr Tulliver, `what I want, is to give Tom a good eddication: an eddication as'll be a``bread to him. That was what I was thinking on when I gave notice for him to leave th' Academy at Ladyday. I mean``to put him to a downright good school at Midsummer.
At dawn a clamor of voices shook the mill. Pere Merlier opened the door of Francoise's chamber. She went down into the courtyard, pale and very calm. But there she could not repress a shiver as she saw the corpse of a Prussian soldier stretched out on a cloak beside the well.
The Miracle Mongers -- An Expose
Secrets of Magic Revealed, circa 1920 -- by Harry Houdini.
OK, it's not even really a mystery. But you might as well keep all your damage in one place. Sort of cute, in an imperialist orientalism classic example of kind a way.
An anchor is a forged piece of iron, admirably adapted to its end, and technical language is an instrument wrought into``perfection by ages of experience, a flawless thing for its purpose. An anchor of yesterday (because nowadays there are``contrivances like mushrooms and things like claws, of no particular expression or shape - just hooks) - an anchor of yesterday``is in its way a most efficient instrument.
By William Wymark Jacobs, about whom very little is known, Internet-wise.
Scarcely had the Ithaca cleared the reef which lies almost across the mouth of the little harbor where she had``been moored for so many months than the tempest broke upon her in all its terrific fury. Bududreen was no``mean sailor, but he was short handed, nor is it reasonable to suppose that even with a full crew he could have``weathered the terrific gale which beat down upon the hapless vessel.
The greatness of Charles Strickland was authentic. It may be that you do not like his art, but at all events you can hardly refuse it the tribute of your interest. He disturbs and arrests. The time has passed when he was an object of ridicule, and it is no longer a mark of eccentricity to defend or of perversity to extol him. His faults are accepted as the necessary complement to his merits. -- by William Somerset Maugham
GOODWIN, Throckmartin went on at last, "I can describe him only as a thing of living light. He radiated``light; was filled with light; overflowed with it. A shining cloud whirled through and around him in radiant``swirls, shimmering tentacles, luminescent, coruscating spirals. ``By A. Merritt
A gift that keeps on giving.
The Wandering Jew? -- certainly not. More than eighteen centuries have passed over his head. In comparison with him, I am a very young Immortal.
BILLY BYRNE was a product of the streets and alleys of Chicago's great West Side. From Halsted to Robey, and``from Grand Avenue to Lake Street there was scarce a bartender whom Billy knew not by his first name. And, in``proportion to their number which was considerably less, he knew the patrolmen and plain clothes men equally``as well, but not so pleasantly.
Story staring attorney Skin o' my Tooth.
The Murders In The Rue Morgue And Other Stories
The Murders In The Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Roget, The Purloined Letter, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Cask of Amontillado, The Gold-Bug
From the first the voyage was going wrong. Routed out of my hotel on a bitter March morning, I had crossed Baltimore and reached the pier- end precisely on time. At nine o'clock the tug was to have taken me down the bay and put me on board the Elsinore, and with growing irritation I sat frozen inside my taxicab and waited.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
First Poirot Case.
Are we rising again? "No. On the contrary." "Are we descending?" "Worse than that, captain! we are falling!"``"For Heaven's sake heave out the ballast!" "There! the last sack is empty!" "Does the balloon rise?" "No!" "I``hear a noise like the dashing of waves. The sea is below the car! It cannot be more than 500 feet from us!"``"Overboard with every weight! ...everything!" .
The Mysterious Key and What it Opened
When Paul spoke in that tone and wore that look, Lillian felt as if they had changed places, and he was``the master and she the servant. She wondered over this in her childish mind, but proud and willful as``she was, she liked it, and obeyed him with unusual meekness when he suggested that it was time to``return.
The Mysterious Stranger - A Romance
IT WAS IN 1590--winter. Austria was far away from the world, and asleep; it was still the Middle Ages in Austria, and promised to remain so forever. Some even set it away back centuries upon centuries and said that by the mental and spiritual clock it was still the Age of Belief in Austria.
By Fergus Hume, who is not -- definitely not, an Australian.
Dickens' unfinished masterpiece.
On Thursday, the 9th of July, 186-, Jean Bertaud and his son, well known at Orcival as living by poaching and marauding, rose at three o'clock in the morning, just at daybreak, to go fishing.
he called me up to tell me t'at when he opened t'e wault a little while ago he found t'at since he closed it t'e night before a package wit' more t'an a million dollars in bonds was gone. He is responsible for t'e wault and no one else, and he called me up to tell me -- Broughton Brandenburg
The Mystery of the Yellow Room
First appearance of detective Rouletabille.
OF all the sensations to which the human mind is a prey, there is none so powerful in its finality, so``chilling in its sense of an impending event, as the knowledge that Death--grim, implacable Death--has``cast his shadow on a life that custom and circumstance have rendered familiar. Whatever the``personal feeling may be,--whether dismay, despair, or relief,--by Katherine Cecil Thurston
Richard Herrick was a young man with a gentle disposition, much money, and no sense of humor. His object in life was to marry Miss Catherweight. For three years she had tried to persuade him this could not be, and finally, in order to convince him, married some one else.
For he was perfectly aware that fear, and a sickening kind of repulsion,``formed a very large element in his emotions. For nearly two hours, unless three persons had lied``consummately, he--his essential being, that sleepless self that underlies all--had been in strange``company, had become identified in some horrible manner with the soul of a dead person. --by Robert Hugh Benson
We sailed from Peru, (where we had continued for the space of one whole year) for China and Japan, by the South Sea; taking with us victuals for twelve months; and had good winds from the east, though soft and weak, for five months space, and more. But the wind came about, and settled in the west for many days, so as we could make little or no way, and were sometime in purpose to turn back.
Playes in themselues have neither hopes, nor feares,/Their fate is only in their hearers eares:/If you expect more then you had to*night,/The maker is sick, and sad. But do him right,
When I think of how such things began in my mind, there comes back to me the memory of an enormous bleak room with its ceiling going up to heaven and its floor covered irregularly with patched and defective oilcloth and a dingy mat or so and a "surround" as they call it, of dark stained wood. Here and there against the wall are trunks and boxes.
The tone in which those words were spoken was an insult in itself. Mercy suddenly lifted her head; the angry answer was on her lips. She checked it, and submitted in silence. "I will be worthy of Julian Gray's confidence in me," she thought, as she stood patiently by the chair. "I will bear anything from the woman whom I have wronged."
This is the Nibelungs' fall.
Meantime the Narcissus, with square yards, ran out of the fair monsoon. She drifted slowly, swinging round``and round the compass, through a few days of baffling light airs. Under the patter of short warm showers,``grumbling men whirled the heavy yards from side to sine; they caught hold of the soaked ropes with groans``and sighs, while their officers, sulky and dripping with rain water, unceasingly ordered them about in wearied``voices.
The talk had led on from the Graft Prosecution and the latest signs that the town was to be run wide open, down through all the grotesque sordidness and rottenness of manhate and man-meanness, until the name of O'Brien was mentioned--O'Brien, the promising young pugilist who had been killed in the prize-ring the night before. At once the air had seemed to freshen.
The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia
THE journey along the margin of the Atbara was similar to the entire route from Berber, a vast desert, with the narrow band of trees that marked the course of the river; the only change was the magical growth of the leaves, which burst hourly from the swollen buds of the mimosas: this could be accounted for by the sudden arrival of the river, as the water percolated rapidly through the sand and nourished the famishing roots. -- by Samuel W. Baker
The Ninescore Mystery and Other Tales
Lady Molly stories by Baroness Orczy, the author of The Scarlet Pimpernel.
From behind a low bush across the wide lawn a pair of eyes transferred to an alert brain these simple perceptions from which the brain deduced with Sherlockian accuracy and Raffleian purpose that the family of the president of The First National Bank of--Oh, let's call it Oakdale--was at dinner, that the servants were below stairs and the second floor deserted.
Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could not save his men,
Little Nell stood timidly by, with her eyes raised to the countenance of Mr Quilp as he read the letter, plainly showing by her looks that while she entertained some fear and distrust of the little man, she was much inclined to laugh at his uncouth appearance and grotesque attitude. And yet there was visible on the part of the child a painful anxiety for his reply, and consciousness of his power to render it disagreeable or distressing
Boy, you come home from a war and look what happens. OK, OK, so sacrificing the daughter was bad.
Um, Mom, about what you did to dad...
Mine is the right to add the final vote/And I award it to Orestes' cause/For me no mother bore within her womb/And, save for wedlock evermore eschewed/I vouch myself the champion of the man
The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis
Collection of six of Freud's lectures in the states.
The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection
From the most remote period in the history of the world organic beings have been found to resemble each other in descending degrees, so that they can be classed in groups under groups. This classification is not arbitrary like the grouping of the stars in constellations. The existence of groups would have been of simple significance, if one group had been exclusively fitted to inhabit the land, and another the water; one to feed on flesh, another on vegetable matter, and so on;
HERE is a story that has lain dormant for seven hundred years. At first it was suppressed by one of the``Plantagenet kings of England. Later it was forgotten. I happened to dig it up by accident. The accident being the``relationship of my wife's cousin to a certain Father Superior in a very ancient monastery in Europe.
The two went round it carefully, but could find nothing for a long time likely to enlighten them as to``the cause of the robbery. Then in the lepers' window, a small opening at the side of the chancel,``Raston discovered that some of the stones had been chipped. "I believe the church was entered``through this window," said Raston, but the vicar was inclined to doubt. --by Fergus Hume
Charles Sadler must know something of this! His vague``words of warning take a meaning now. Oh, if I had only listened to him then, before I helped by these``repeated sittings to forge the links of the chain which binds me! But I will see him to-day.
The Party, Terror, A Woman's Kingdom, A Problem, The Kiss, "Anna on the Neck," The Teacher of Literature, Not Wanted, Typhus, A Misfortune, A Trifle from Life
The Magician uttered such a wild cry that Ojo jumped away and the Patchwork Girl sprang after him and clasped her stuffed arms around him in terror. The Glass Cat snarled and hid under the table, and so it was that when the powerful Liquid of Petrifaction was spilled it fell only upon the wife of the Magician and the uncle of Ojo. With these two the charm worked promptly. They stood motionless and stiff as marble statues
Hmm, just read that this one's in volumes. I'll keep looking...
Eustace Cardoc, Viscount Miltoun, had lived a very lonely life, since he first began to understand the``peculiarities of existence. With the exception of Clifton, his grandmother's 'majordomo,' he made, as a small``child, no intimate friend. His nurses, governesses, tutors, by their own confession did not understand him,``finding that he took himself with unnecessary seriousness
The first five books of the Bible, chronicling the giving the of the law.
Nowhere in the streets of London may one escape the sight of abject poverty, while five minutes' walk from almost any point will bring one to a slum; but the region my hansom was now penetrating was one unending slum. The streets were filled with a new and different race of people, short of stature, and of wretched or beer-sodden appearance.
Caprona has always been considered a more or less mythical land, though it is vouched for by an eminent navigator of the eighteenth century; but Bowen's narrative made it seem very real, however many miles of trackless ocean lay between us and it. Yes, the narrative had us guessing. We were agreed that it was most improbable;
The Opera ghost really existed. He was not, as was long believed, a creature of the imagination of the artists, the superstition of the managers, or a product of the absurd and impressionable brains of the young ladies of the ballet, their mothers, the box-keepers, the cloak-room attendants or the concierge.
'Mr. Pickwick observed (says the secretary) that fame was dear to the heart of``every man. Poetic fame was dear to the heart of his friend Snodgrass; the fame of``conquest was equally dear to his friend Tupman; and the desire of earning fame in``the sports of the field, the air, and the water was uppermost in the breast of his``friend Winkle.
Lord Henry elevated his eyebrows and looked at him in amazement through the thin blue wreaths of smoke``that curled up in such fanciful whorls from his heavy, opium-tainted cigarette. "Not send it anywhere? My dear``fellow, why? Have you any reason? What odd chaps you painters are!
The Pilgrim's Progress From This World To That Which Is To Come
Now I saw in my dream, that just as they had ended this talk they drew near to a very miry slough, that was in the midst of the plain; and they, being heedless, did both fall suddenly into the bog. The name of the slough was Despond. Here, therefore, they wallowed for a time, being grievously bedaubed with the dirt; and Christian, because of the burden that was on his back, began to sink in the mire.
Murder, Scotland Yard, bidness. What more could you want? By Freeman Wills Croft
This book aims to be neither the first word on the tangled problems of human society to-day, nor the last. My aim has been to emphasize, by the use of concrete and challenging examples and neglected facts, the need of a new approach to individual and social problems. Its central challenge is that civilization, in any true sense of the word, is based upon the control and guidance of the great natural instinct of Sex.-- by Margaret Sanger
Being an account of another adventure of Prof. George E. Challenger, Lord John Roxton, Prof. Summerlee, and``Mr. E. D. Malone, the discoverers of "The Lost World"
Hello! Yes, this is Professor Kennedy. I didn't catch the name oh, yes - President Blake of the Standard Burglary Insurance Company. What - really? The Branford pearls - stolen? Maid chloroformed? Yes, I'll take the case. You'll be up in half an hour? All right, I'll be here. Goodbye
And then, with a superstition for which I never could give any reason even to myself, having removed the packings, we closed and locked the door, leaving the candles about the room, in their soft, strange illumination, lighting the first night of her return to her old place.
Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. There are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea or not- some people of course never do- the situation is in itself delightful. Those that I have in mind in beginning to unfold this simple history offered an admirable setting to an innocent pastime.
I was just setting out for Scotland Yard this morning when Tomlin, the valet, rang me up and said he had found a card in the waistcoat of the dress clothes that Charles had worn the night before he left. It had a name on it like Konalevsky, and it struck me that they might know something about the business at the Russian Embassy. Well, I went round there
By Desiderio Erasmus. Etext dedicated to the gang at concordance.com.
Coming now to the other qualities mentioned above, I say that every prince ought to desire to be considered clement and not cruel. Nevertheless he ought to take care not to misuse this clemency. Cesare Borgia was considered cruel; notwithstanding, his cruelty reconciled the Romagna, unified it, and restored it to peace and loyalty.
Coming now to the other qualities mentioned above, I say that every prince ought to desire to be considered clement and not cruel. Nevertheless he ought to take care not to misuse this clemency. Cesare Borgia was considered cruel; notwithstanding, his cruelty reconciled the Romagna, unified it, and restored it to peace and loyalty.
From Sammy Clemens.
A prince I was, blue-eyed, and fair in face,/Of temper amorous, as the first of May,/With lengths of yellow ringlet, like a girl,/For on my cradle shone the Northern star -- By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Whether I had slept a minute or a year I knew not. I awoke with a start and a shiver; my face, hair and clothes dripped water, and opposite me stood old Sapt, a sneering smile on his face and an empty bucket in his hand. On the table by him sat Fritz von Tarlenheim, pale as a ghost and black as a crow under the eyes.
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
I am busy with the hawkweeds; that is to say, I am learning to distinguish and to name as many as I can. For scientific``classification I have little mind; it does not happen to fall in with my habits of thought; but I like to be able to give its name (the``"trivial" by choice) to every flower I meet in my walks. Why should I be content to say, "Oh, it's a hawkweed"?--by George Gissing
The moving was over and done. Professor St. Peter was alone in the dismantled house where he had lived``ever since his marriage, where he had worked out his career and brought up his two daughters. It was``almost as ugly as it is possible for a house to be; square, three stories in height, painted the colour of ashes``-- the front porch just too narrow for comfort, with a slanting floor and sagging steps.
The Prophet of Berkeley Square
By Robert Smythe Hitchens. The great telescope of the Prophet was carefully adjusted upon its lofty, brass-bound stand in the bow window of Number One Thousand Berkeley Square. It pointed towards the remarkably bright stars which twinkled in the December sky over frosty London, those guardian stars which always seemed to the Prophet to watch with peculiar solicitude over the most respectable neighbourhood in which he resided.
The poor young man hesitated and procrastinated: it cost him such an effort to broach the subject of terms, to``speak of money to a person who spoke only of feelings and, as it were, of the aristocracy.
Collection of ghastly tales, as recorded by a parish priest in southern Ireland. Includes THE LAST HEIR OF CASTLE CONNOR.
Second group in the Legacy of the late Francis Purcell, P. P. of Drumcoolagh. Includes STRANGE EVENT IN THE LIFE OF SCHALKEN THE PAINTER.
Short story/novella collection continued, includes Billy Malowney's Taste of Love and Glory/
At the last word his voice rose, and he grew restless on a sudden. I saw him shudder on the straw; his withered face became distorted, and he threw up both his hands with a quick hysterical gasp. They struck against the bottom of the manger under which he lay, and the blow awakened him. I had just time to slip through the door and close it before his eyes were fairly open, and his senses his own again.
The Quest of the Sacred Slipper
The most mysterious case I have ever had anything to do with, sir, he said. ````The power of speech seemed to desert me. It was unthinkable that Deeping, with whom I had been speaking less than an hour ago, should now be no more; that some malign agency should thus murderously have thrust him into the great borderland.
The Real Thing and Other Tales
I could fancy the "sort of thing" they put on the presentation-copies of their photographs, and I was sure they``wrote a beautiful hand. It was odd how quickly I was sure of everything that concerned them. If they were now``so poor as to have to earn shillings and pence, they never had had much of a margin.
One of the two or three most popular books on this site, at least during shool year.
The Red Cross Girl and Other Stories
Introduction, The Red Cross, Girl, The Grand Cross Of The Crescent, The Invasion Of England, Blood Will Tell, The Sailorman, The Mind Reader, The Naked Man, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, The Card-Sharp
ONCE upon a time there lived a man whose one wish and prayer was to get rich. Day and night he thought of``nothing else, and at last his prayers were granted, and he became very wealthy. Now being so rich, and``having so much to lose, he felt that it would be a terrible thing to die and leave all his possessions behind;``so he made up his mind to set out in search of a land where there was no death.
Something's happened, said Cayley. He was breathing quickly. "I heard a shot-it sounded like a shot - I``was in the library. A loud bang - I didn't know what it was. And the door's locked." He rattled the handle``again, and shook it. "Open the door!" he cried. "I say, Mark, what is it? Open the door!" -- By A.A. Milne
THERE are some stories that have to be true - the sort that cannot be fabricated by a ready fiction-reckoner. And by the same token there are some men with stories to tell who cannot be doubted. Such a man was Julian Jones. Although I doubt if the average reader of this will believe the story Julian Jones told me. Nevertheless I believe it.
The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories
Red Gilbat was nutty--and his batting average was .371. Any student of baseball could weigh these two facts``against each other and understand something of Delaney's trouble. It was not possible to camp on Red Gilbat's``trail. The man was a jack-o'-lantern, a will-o'-the-wisp, a weird, long- legged, long-armed, red-haired illusive``phantom.
Sitting opposite, in the compartment from which he had contrived to have other travellers excluded, Darrow``looked at her curiously. He had never seen a face that changed so quickly. A moment since it had danced like``a field of daisies in a summer breeze; now, under the pallid oscillating light of the lamp overhead, it wore the``hard stamp of experience, as of a soft thing chilled into shape before its curves had rounded
The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry
The history of the Renaissance ends in France, and carries us away from Italy to the beautiful cities of the country of the Loire. But it was in France also, in a very important sense, that the Renaissance had begun; and French writers, who are so fond of connecting the creations of Italian genius with a French origin, who tell us how Francis of Assisi took not his name only -- by Walter Pater
I had always admired the genius of Glaucon and Adeimantus, but on hearing these words I was quite delighted, and said: Sons of an illustrious father, that was not a bad beginning of the Elegiac verses which the admirer of Glaucon made in honour of you after you had distinguished yourselves at the battle of Megara:--
It was a little after sunrise one bright morning in September that Benham came up on to the deck of the sturdy Austrian steamboat that was churning its way with a sedulous deliberation from Spalato to Cattaro, and lit himself a cigarette and seated himself upon a deck chair. Save for a yawning Greek sailor busy with a mop the first-class deck was empty.
And though every nerve``revolted at the thought, she was finally convinced, unwillingly even, but assuredly, that her husband``was here. He seemed to haunt, like a ghostly emanation, this strange, detestable face--as memory``supplies the features concealed beneath a mask. The face was still and stony--by Walter de la Mare
I suppose the presence of Eltham and the irritating recollection of his half-confidence were the responsible factors, but my mind persistently dwelt upon the subject of Fu-Manchu and the atrocities which he had committed during his sojourn in England. So actively was my imagination at work that I felt again the menace which so long had hung over me;
T was in the year '95 that a combination of events, into which I need not enter, caused Mr. Sherlock Holmes``and myself to spend some weeks in one of our great University towns, and it was during this time that the``small but instructive adventure which I am about to relate befell us.
It was not until late the following afternoon that Tarzan saw anything more of the fellow passengers into the midst of whose affairs his love of fair play had thrust him. And then he came most unexpectedly upon Rokoff and Paulvitch at a moment when of all others the two might least appreciate his company.
Along the road walked an old man. He was white-headed as a mountain, bowed in the shoulders, and faded in general aspect. He wore a glazed hat, an ancient boat-cloak, and shoes; his brass buttons bearing an anchor upon their face. In his hand was a silver-headed walking stick, which he used as a veritable third leg, perseveringly dotting the ground with its point at every few inches' interval.
THE FIRST days were spent in drill, in exhortation, in feasting, and in singing. Grace Ingleby fitted``new words to old tunes, and the men sang them marching across the park. A detachment of``keepers was placed at the gates to receive new recruits, and to keep out the women who crowded``round them all day long--some laughing, some crying, some threatening. --by Walter Besant
The Revolt of Mother and Other Stories
And what do you do, with a revolution?
"God, conquered, will become Satan; Satan, conquering, will become God. May the fates spare me this terrible lot; I love the Hell which formed my genius. I love the Earth where I have done some good, if it be possible to do any good in this fearful world where beings live but by rapine. Now, thanks to us, the god of old is dispossessed of his terrestrial empire, and every thinking being on this globe disdains him or knows him not.
david moynihan
dmoynihan@blackmask.com
0
No
No
0
0
Yes"
Brought up by nothing but hisself.
A little girl, radiant and beautiful, shapely as a fairy and exquisitely dressed, was dancing gracefully in the``middle of the lonely road, whirling slowly this way and that, her dainty feet twinkling in sprightly fashion. She``was clad in flowing, fluffy robes of soft material that reminded Dorothy of woven cobwebs, only it was colored``in soft tintings of violet, rose, topaz, olive, azure, and white, mingled together most harmoniously in stripes
The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid
A fine-framed dark-mustachioed gentleman, in dressing-gown and slippers, was sitting there in the damp without a hat on. With one hand he was tightly grasping his forehead, the other hung over his knee. The attitude bespoke with sufficient clearness a mental condition of anguish. He was quite a different being from any of the men to whom her eyes were accustomed. She had never seen mustachios before, for they were not worn by civilians in Lower Wessex at this date.
George Borrow and travelling people in Ireland.
By that time the Amelia had been towed half a mile or so away from Cape Esterel. This change had brought``her nearer to the two watchers on the hillside, who would have been plainly visible to the people on her deck,``but for the head of the pine which concealed their movements. Lieutenant Real, bestriding the rugged trunk``as high as he could get,
The Rover; or, The Banish'd Cavaliers
'Tis true, I was never a Lover yet -- but I begin to have a shreud Guess, what 'tis to be so, and fancy it very pretty``to sigh, and sing, and blush and wish, and dream and wish, and long and wish to see the Man; and when I``do, look pale and tremble; just as you did when my Brother brought home the fine English Colonel to see you``-- what do you call him? Don Belvile.
The moon shone brightly, but everyone in the Emerald City was fast asleep! Through the deserted streets hurried the Scarecrow. For the first time since his discovery by little Dorothy, he was really unhappy. Living as he did in a Fairyland, he had taken many things for granted and had rather prided himself on his unusual appearance.-- actually, by Ruth Plumly Thompson
The Saga of Grettir the Strong
Grettir went out with his companions to visit them.``On their meeting Grettir found Bjorn amongst the company and said: "It is well that we``meet here, for now we can continue our former quarrel. I should like to try which of us is``the better man."
Cap'n Bill and Trot rode very comfortably in the sunbonnet. The motion was quite steady, for they weighed so little that the Ork flew without effort. Yet they were both somewhat nervous about their future fate and could not help wishing they were safe on land and their natural size again.
A throng of bearded men, in sad-coloured garments and grey steeple-crowned hats, inter-mixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.
During the greater part of the day the guillotine had been kept busy at its ghastly work: all that France had``boasted of in the past centuries, of ancient names, and blue blood, had paid toll to her desire for liberty and``for fraternity. The carnage had only ceased at this late hour of the day because there were other more``interesting sights for the people to witness, a little while before the final closing of the barricades for the``night.
The Schoolmaster and Other Stories
The Schoolmaster, Enemies, The Examining Magistrate, Betrothed, From the Diary of a Violent-Tempered Man, In the Dark, A Play, A Mystery, Strong Impressions, Drunk, The Marshal's Widow,``A Bad Business, In the Court, Boots,``Joy, Ladies, A Peculiar Man, At the Barber's, An Inadvertence, The Album, Oh! the Public!, A Tripping Tongue, Overdoing It, The Orator, Malingerers, In the Graveyard, Hush!, In an Hotel, In a Strange Land
The Schoolmistress and Other Stores
I'll skip the list here. This one includes "The Bet."
Her experience``of the people of Clonmore went far beyond her worst expectations. She made up her mind that Dr.``O'Grady had been murdered; that everybody in the place knew the fact; and that, either through fear``or an innate fondness for crime, no one would help to bring the murderers to justice. --by George Birmingham
My reason dictated that the beating Thomas Mugridge had received was an ill thing,``and yet for the life of me I could not prevent my soul joying in it. And even while I was oppressed by``the enormity of my sin, - for sin it was, - I chuckled with an insane delight. I was no longer``Humphrey Van Weyden.
The two young people greeted each other affectionately, and momentarily blocked the Dover Street Tube exit in doing so. The adjective "old" was misleading. Their united ages would certainly not have totalled forty-five.
To alert the world and draw attention the cause, he must destroy: the observatory.
The story went, that somewhere``hid amid the massive walls and tortuous passages there was a secret chamber in Gowrie Castle.``Everybody knew of its existence; but save the earl, his heir, and one other person, not of the family, but``filling a confidential post in their service, no mortal knew where this mysterious hiding-place was.
At first each day which passed by for Mary Lennox was exactly like the others. Every morning she awoke in her``tapestried room and found Martha kneeling upon the hearth building her fire; every morning she ate her``breakfast in the nursery which had nothing amusing in it; and after each breakfast she gazed out of the``window across to the huge moor which seemed to spread out on all sides and climb up to the sky,
So Justinian and Theodora ascended the imperial throne three days before Easter, a time, indeed, when even``making visits or greeting one's friends is forbidden. And not many days later Justin died of an illness, after a``reign of nine years. Justinian was now sole monarch, together, of course, with Theodora. -- by Procopius of Caesarea
The mysterious hand held a phial and poured the entire contents into the potion. Then the hand withdrew as it had come, slowly, prudently, slyly, and the key turned in the lock and the bolt slipped back into place.
The Secret Places of the Heart
The patient left the house with much more self possession than he had shown when entering it. Dr. Martineau had thrust him back from his intenser prepossessions to a more generalized view of himself, had made his troubles objective and detached him from them. He could even find something amusing now in his situation.
The Secret Power: A Romance of the Time
`I'll be Master of the world' gave him an unpleasant thrill. One man on``the planet with power to destroy nations seemed quite a fantastic idea--yet science made it actually``possible! He bethought himself of a book he had lately read concerning radio-activity, in which he had``been struck by the following passage--`Radio-activity is an explosion of great violence;-- by Marie Corelli
while I lingered yet, my hand resting lightly on my ship's rail as if on the shoulder of a trusted friend. But, with all that multitude of celestial bodies staring down at one, the comfort of quiet communion with her was gone for good.
The Sequel of Appomattox, A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States
The Southern States reconstructed by Congress were subject for periods of varying length to``governments designed by radical Northerners and imposed by elements thrown to the surface in``the upheaval of Southern society. Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina each had a brief experience``with these governments; other States escaped after four or five years-- by Walter Lynwood Fleming
In the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, a relative of mine came limping down, on foot, to this town of Chatham. I call it this town, because if anybody present knows to a nicety where Rochester ends and Chatham begins, it is more than I do. He was a poor traveller, with not a farthing in his pocket.
The Shape of Fear and Other Ghostly Tales
It was strange that at sight of a thing so unspeakably fair, a coldness like that which comes from the``jewel-blue lips of a Muir crevasse should have fallen upon Dodson, or that it was only by summoning all``the manhood that was left in him, that he was able to restore light to the room, and to rush to his friend.``When he reached poor Tim he was stone-still with paralysis. -- By Elia W. Peattie
By his dress, the man was from the world beyond the ridges, and his carefully tailored clothing looked strangely out of place in the mountain wilderness. His form stooped a little in the shoulders, perhaps with weariness, but he carried himself with the unconscious air of one long used to a position of conspicuous power and influence -- by Harold Bell Wright
No man knew when the Shuttle began its slow and heavy weaving from shore to shore, that it was held and``guided by the great hand of Fate. Fate alone saw the meaning of the web it wove, the might of it, and its place in``the making of a world's history. Men thought but little of either web or weaving, calling them by other names and``lighter ones
Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel- piece, and his hypodermic syringe from its neat``morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle and rolled back his left``shirtcuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist, all dotted and``scarred with innumerable puncture-marks.
First of the Professor Kennedy Mysteries, and first novel by Reeve.
The Sketch-Book Of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.
Short stories by Washington Irving, includes Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle.
In a vague manner he had connected the Jesuit party with the disturbances in Paris and the``importation of the English rifles wherewith the crowd had been armed. The gay capital was at that``time in the hands of the most "Provisional" and uncertain Government imaginable, and the home``politics of France were completely disorganised. It was just the moment for the Church party to``attempt a retrieval of their lost power. --by HENRY SETON MERRIMAN
The Sleuth of St. James Street
It is the inspirational quality in these cases he said, "that impresses me. It is very nearly absent in our modern methods of``criminal investigation. We depend now on a certain formal routine. I rarely find a man in the whole of Scotland Yard with a``trace of intuitive impulse to lead him . . . . Observe how this old justice in Virginia bridged the gaps between his incidents." --by Melville Davisson Post
It is established beyond doubt that Mr. Butler was drunk at the time. This rests upon the evidence of Sergeant Flanagan and the troopers who accompanied him, and it rests upon Mr. Butler's own word, as we shall see.
The Social Contract, Or Principles of Political Right
THE first and most important deduction from the principles we have so far laid down is that the``general will alone can direct the State according to the object for which it was instituted, i.e., the``common good: for if the clashing of particular interests made the establishment of societies``necessary, the agreement of these very interests made it possible. --by Jean Jacques Rousseau
As the leopard leaped for the great ape Meriem gasped in surprise and horror--not for the impending fate of``the anthropoid, but at the act of the youth who but for an instant before had angrily struck his strange``companion; for scarce had the carnivore burst into view than with drawn knife the youth had leaped far out``above him,
Man rarely places a proper valuation upon his womankind, at least not until deprived of them. He has no conception of the subtle atmosphere exhaled by the sex feminine, so long as he bathes in it; but let it be withdrawn, and an ever-growing void begins to manifest itself in his existence, and he becomes hungry, in a vague sort of way, for a something so indefinite that he cannot characterize it.
Blowing that horn.
The main business street ran, of course, through the center of the town. To the west of this street lived all the``people who were, as Tillie Kronborg said, "in society." Sylvester Street, the third parallel with Main Street on``the west, was the longest in town, and the best dwellings were built along it. Far out at the north end, nearly a``mile from the court-house and its cottonwood grove, was Dr. Archie's house
All 154 Sonnets, with index to first lines.
merry set of``fellows, and they were all laughing and joking together. I watched Charlotte's eyes. They wandered``from one to the other; but they did not light on me, on me, who stood there motionless, and who``saw nothing but her! My heart bade her a thousand times adieu, but she noticed me not. The``carriage drove off; and my eyes filled with tears.
That was mere dreaming, of course. Was it dreaming after Raphael? After Raphael? The drowsy mind wandered into a side issue. Was the picture that had suggested this dream the one in the Vatican where all the Fathers of the Church are shown disputing together? But there surely God and the Son themselves were painted with a symbol--some symbol--also?
Although the hunter seemed familiar with his surroundings, he moved cautiously, and hesitated as if debating``whether he should seek the protection of this lonely hut, or remain all night under dripping trees. Feeling of his``hunting frock, he found that it was damp and slippery. This fact evidently decided him in favor of the cabin, for``he stooped his tall figure and went in.
My going to Valencia was entirely an accident. But the more often I stated that fact, the more satisfied was everyone at the capital that I``had come on some secret mission. Even the venerable politician who acted as our minister, the night of my arrival, after dinner, said``confidentially, "Now, Mr. Crosby, between ourselves, what's the game?"
The Story of Burnt Njal (Njaal's Saga)
Njal and Gunnar met and talked about the battle. Then Njal said to Gunnar, "Now be ware of thyself.``Now hast thou slain twice in the same stock; and so now take heed to thy behaviour, and think that it is``as much as thy life is worth, if thou dost not hold to the settlement that is made."
The Story of the Ere-Dwellers ("Eyrbyggia Saga")
Biorn the son of Ketil Flatneb was in Iamtaland till Kiallak the earl died; he gat to wife``Giaflaug the earl's daughter, and thereafter fared west over the Keel, first to Thrandheim``and then south through the land, and took to himself those lands which his father had``owned, and drove away the bailiffs that King Harald had set over them.
THE STORY OF THE GLITTERING PLAIN; OR THE LAND OF LIVING MEN
Drink, O black-fledged nestling! But call a health over the cup if thou wilt. So Hallblithe raised the cup aloft and cried: "Health to the House of the Raven and to them that love it! an ill day to its foemen!" Then he set his lips to the cup and drank; and that wine seemed to him better and stronger than any he had ever tasted. But when he had given the cup back again to Fox, that red one filled it again, and cried over it
The Story of the Good Little Boy
Once there was a good little boy by the name of Jacob Blivens. He always obeyed his parents, no matter how``absurd and unreasonable their demands were; and he always learned his book, and never was late at``Sabbath-school. He would not play hookey, even when his sober judgment told him it was the most profitable``thing he could do.
The Story of the Heath-Slayings ("Heitharviga Saga")
That summer there was with Bardi in his Thing-journey one Thord, the goodman at Broadford in Waterdale; he had two``horses, all white except for black ears. These horses he deemed beasts so dear, that he would not miss them for any other``horses. But it befell for Thord's faring-mishap that both these horses vanished away.
The branch of a tree was thrown out in front of the sled to send us over the bank. It was murder, if intention is crime.
On the other point which is involved in the just equality of women, their admissibility to all the functions and``occupations hitherto retained as the monopoly of the stronger sex, I should anticipate no difficulty in``convincing anyone who has gone with me on the subject of the equality of women in the family. I believe that``their disabilities elsewhere are only clung to in order to maintain their subordination in domestic life--by John Stuart Mill
The Survivors of the Chancellor
It probably arose, he answered, "from the spontaneous combustion of the cotton. The case is rare, but it``is far from unknown. Unless the cotton is perfectly dry when it is shipped, its confinement in a damp or``ill-ventilated hold will sometimes cause it to ignite; and I have no doubt it is this that has brought about our``misfortune."
Thus spoke Richard, a little ashamed, perhaps, of his own condescension, though sanctioned both by``humanity and gratitude. But when Neville continued to make remonstrances on the peril to his royal person, the``King imposed silence on him.
I tell thee, Kate, 'twas burnt and dried away,/And I expressly am forbid to touch it;/For it engenders choler, planteth anger;/And better 'twere that both of us did fast,``Since, of ourselves, ourselves are choleric,
The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao. The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name. -- by Lao-Tse
It was about the close of the month, that, yielding at length to the urgent importunities of Rose, I``accompanied her in a visit to Wildfell Hall. To our surprise, we were ushered into a room where the first``object that met the eye was a painter's easel, with a table beside it covered with rolls of canvas, bottles``of oil and varnish, palette, brushes, paints, etc. -- by Anne Bronte
The Theory of Business Enterprise
Further insight from Veblen: The Last Man who knew everything (I believe that's how Mencken put it.)
The Theory of the Leisure Class
Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure. As``wealth accumulates on his hands, his own unaided effort will not avail to sufficiently put his opulence in``evidence by this method. The aid of friends and competitors is therefore brought in by resorting to the giving``of valuable presents and expensive feasts and entertainments. -- by Thorstein Veblen
A shadow hung ever over the door, which stood black in the depth of its arched recess, like an unfathomable``eye under a frowning brow. The landing was wide and panelled, and a heavy rail, supported by a carved``balustrade, stretched away in alternate slopes and levels down the dark staircase, past other doors, and so to``the courtyard and the street. --by Arthur Morrison
Porthos
The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us.``His grey eyes shone and twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and animated. The fire burned``brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescent lights in the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that``flashed and passed in our glasses.
IT was the summer of 1840. Sanin was in his twenty-second year, and he was in Frankfort on his way home from Italy to Russia. He was a man of small property, but independent, almost without family ties. By the death of a distant relative, he had come into a few thousand roubles, and he had decided to spend this sum abroad before entering the service, before finally putting on the government yoke, without which he could not obtain a secure livelihood
It pressed against him at every turn. He told himself that this was because there was no escape from the visible evidences of his act. The "Letters" confronted him everywhere. People who had never opened a book discussed them with critical reservations; to have read them had become a social obligation in circles to which literature never penetrates except in a personal guise.
The Toys of Peace and Other Stories
Includes Clovis stories: Louise, Fate,``Shock Tactics and The Oversight
The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson
This history must henceforth accommodate itself to the change which Roxana has consummated, and call the real heir "Chambers" and the usurping little slave, "Thomas `a Becket"--shortening this latter name to "Tom," for daily use, as the people about him did.
When La Boulaye recovered consciousness he was lying on his back in the middle of the courtyard of the``Chateau de Bellecour. From a great stone balcony above, a little group, of which Mademoiselle de Bellecour``was the centre, observed the scene about the captive, who was being resuscitated that he might fittingly``experience the Seigneur's vengeance.
It was more than a month before the legend of the peacock trees was again discussed in the Squire's circle. It fell out one evening, when his eccentric taste for meals in the garden that gathered the company round the same table, now lit with a lamp and laid out for dinner in a glowing spring twilight.
Euripides. Cassandra saw it coming, but it didn't matter.
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories
Includes Paul's Case.
Anne was so flurried by the military incidents attending her return home that she was almost afraid to venture``alone outside her mother's premises. Moreover, the numerous soldiers, regular and otherwise, that haunted``Overcombe and its neighbourhood, were getting better acquainted with the villagers, and the result was that they``were always standing at garden gates, walking in the orchards, or sitting gossiping just within cottage doors,
We must Grow! We must be Big! We must be Bigger! Bigness means Money! And the thing began to happen; their longing became a mighty Will. We must be Bigger! Bigger! Bigger! Get people here! Coax them here! Bribe them! Swindle them into coming, if you must, but get them! Shout them into coming! Deafen them into coming!
James has his own category, but if you read only one book by him, read this one -- twice.
Aramis
Subtitled: A Thrilling Narrative of life in the Kansas and Missouri``Penitentiaries. By John N. Reynolds. History looked lonely -- think Foucault.
Her enemies, in their honester moments, would have admitted that she was svelte and knew how to dress, but they would have agreed with her friends in asserting that she had no soul. When one's friends and enemies agree on any particular point they are usually wrong. Francesca herself, if pressed in an unguarded moment to describe her soul, would probably have described her drawing-room.
No landlord is my friend and brother, no chambermaid loves me, no waiter worships me, no boots admires and envies me. No round of beef or tongue or ham is expressly cooked for me, no pigeon-pie is especially made for me, no hotel-advertisement is personally addressed to me, no hotel-room tapestried with great-coats and railway wrappers is set apart for me, no house of public entertainment in the United Kingdom greatly cares for my opinion of its brandy or sherry.
Said the Voice: "To thee, O Hadji, I come from the Beautiful Sea; the interminable, unfathomable sea, that``begins at the Outer-Edge-Of-Things and stretches away into Neverness. I speak from out the Deeps Beneath.``I tell of the Great That Is. I am a Voice of Life, O Hadji, and mine it is to begin for you The Tale of The``Uncrowned King." -- by Harold Bell Wright
TEN minutes afterwards, James Starr and Harry issued from the principal gallery. They were now standing in a glade, if we may use this word to designate a vast and dark excavation. The place, however, was not entirely deprived of daylight. A few rays straggled in through the opening of a deserted shaft. It was by means of this pipe that ventilation was established in the Dochart pit.
The Unfortunate Happy Lady: A True History
``I hope you will, Madam,'' said the barbarous Man. ``But my Business now calls me hence; to Morrow at Dinner I``will return to you, and Order the rest of your Things to be brought with me. In the mean while'' (pursu'd the Traytor,``kissing his Sister, as he thought and hop'd, the last time) ``be as chearful as you can, my Dear! and expect all``you can wish from me.''
It broke your heart. You have had your heart broken. I have had my heart broken more times than I care to talk about now. Your home was darkened, your plans were wrecked, you thought you had nothing more to live for. --by Ralph Parlette
Study of Haunted Houses by Maurice Maeterlinck
SOMEBODY asked for the cigars. We had talked long, and the conversation as beginning to``languish; the tobacco smoke had got into the heavy curtains, he wine had got into those brains which were liable``to become heavy, and it was already perfectly evident that, -- by Marion Crawford
The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories
A collection of incidents by Andrew Lang
It was one of those dramatic moments for which my friend existed. It would be an overstatement to say that he was shocked or even excited by the amazing announcement. Without having a tinge of cruelty in his singular composition, he was undoubtedly callous from long overstimulation.
She flung wild glances, like those of an entrapped animal, up and down the big whitewashed room that panted with heat and that was thickly humid with the steam that sizzled from the damp cloth under the irons of the many ironers. From the girls and women near her, all swinging irons steadily but at high pace, came quick glances, and labor efficiency suffered
By John Polidori, Byron's physician. The tale of the construction of this story, the first vampire tale in English, is an extremely complicated one that I can hopefully find a good link to...
There were very few people upon Platform Number Twenty-one of Liverpool Street Station at a quarter to``nine on the evening of April 2 - possibly because the platform in question is one of the most remote and``least used in the great terminus. The station-master, however, was there himself, with an inspector in``attendance.
Let observation with extensive view,/Survey mankind, from China to Peru;/Remark each anxious toil, each eager strife,/And watch the busy scenes of crouded life; -- by Samuel Johnson
A book may be amusing with numerous errors, or it may be very dull without a single absurdity. The hero of this piece unites in himself the three greatest characters upon earth; he is a priest, a husbandman, and the father of a family.
Once on a time there were three princes, who had a step-sister. One day they all set out hunting together.``When they had gone some way through a thick wood they came on a great grey wolf with three cubs. Just as``they were going to shoot, the wolf spoke and said, 'Do not shoot me, and I will give each of you one of my``young ones. It will be a faithful friend to you.'
Smile when you say that. By Owen Wister.
Learn the story behind that whole Ride of the Valkyries thing.
AFTER having been twice driven back by heavy southwestern gales, Her Majesty's ship Beagle, a ten-gun brig, under the command of Captain Fitz Roy, R. N., sailed from Devonport on the 27th of December, 1831. The object of the expedition was to complete the survey of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego -- by a nature writer name of Darwin
In the streets of London where beauty goes unregarded, eccentricity must pay the penalty, and it``is better not to be very tall, to wear a long blue cloak, or to beat the air with your left hand. -- by Virginia Woolf
First in the Kai Lung series.
http://www.blackmask.com/zipbook/wanderer.zip">
Bert Smallways was a vulgar little creature, the sort of pert, limited soul that the old civilisation of the early twentieth century produced by the million in every country of the world. He had lived all his life in narrow streets, and between mean houses he could not look over, and in a narrow circle of ideas from which there was no escape.
They say, said he, "that there's another of those blessed things fallen there--number two. But one's``enough, surely. This lot'll cost the insurance people a pretty penny before everything's settled." He``laughed with an air of the greatest good humour as he said this. The woods, he said, were still burning,``and pointed out a haze of smoke to me.
The Rev. Septimus Harding was, a few years since, a beneficed clergyman residing in the cathedral town of ---; let us call it Barchester. Were we to name Wells or Salisbury, Exeter, Hereford, or Gloucester, it might be presumed that something personal was intended; and as this tale will refer mainly to the cathedral dignitaries of the town in question, we are anxious that no personality may be suspected.
For six long Martian months I had haunted the vicinity of the hateful Temple of the Sun, within whose slow-revolving shaft, far beneath the surface of Mars, my princess lay entombed-- but whether alive or dead I knew not. Had Phaidor's slim blade found that beloved heart? Time only would reveal the truth.
An organic tragedy.
MR. Pontifex was not the man to trouble himself much about his motives. People were not so introspective then as we are now; they lived more according to a rule of thumb. Dr. Arnold had not yet sown that crop of earnest thinkers which we are now harvesting, and men did not see why they should not have their own way if no evil consequences to themselves seemed likely to follow upon their doing so.
The silver god,``and the golden goddess, before many gods and goddesses. . . . The silver god, and the golden``goddess on a throne. . . . The silver god, following the star." Having said these words, which``seemed to be nonsensical, he tired me. Whereat I smacked him, shaking his hand till the dark ink``trickled over his thighs; and so I dismissed him to relieve Nesamun at the steering-oar. -- by Frederick William Rolfe
Long ago there was a little land, over which ruled a regulus or kinglet, who was called King Peter, though his kingdom was but little.
Sweyn, not able to believe that his ears had deceived him, got up and went to the door. It was a dark night; the``clouds were heavy with snow, that had fallen fitfully when the wind lulled. Untrodden snow lay up to the porch;``there was no sight nor sound of an human being. Sweyn strained his eyes far and near, only to see dark sky,``pure snow, and a line of black fir trees on a hill brow, bowing down before the wind.-- by Clemence Houseman
It was like some shadowy pantomime: The dark mouth of an alleyway thrown into murky relief by the rays of``a distant street lamp...the swift, forward leap of a skulking figure...a girl's form swaying and struggling in the``man's embrace. Then, a pantomime no longer, there came a half threatening, half triumphant oath; and``then the girl's voice, quiet, strangely contained, almost imperious:
I went to tea under the big apple-tree. It was very big and old and wonderful. No wonder Mr. MacNairn and his``mother loved it. Its great branches spread out farther than I had ever seen the branches of an apple-tree``spread before. They were gnarled and knotted and beautiful with age. Their shadows upon the grass were``velvet, deep and soft.
After Rafael Sabatini's Mistress Wilding, this book is the number one miscontrued download at this site -- I guess folks want a xxx marriage...
Properly speaking, this fascinating part of the river's life begins soon after leaving Pressburg, and we, in our Canadian canoe, with gipsy tent and frying-pan on board, reached it on the crest of a rising flood about mid-July. By Algernon Blackwood
The Wind in the Rose-Bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural
As Rebecca spoke she started violently, and lost sight of her resentment, for something singular``happened. Suddenly the rosebush was agitated violently as if by a gust of wind, yet it was a remarkably still``day. Not a leaf of the hydrangea standing on the terrace close to the rose trembled.
THE Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then``with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his``throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms.-- by Kenneth Grahame
Finally, after knocking over an ornament that shattered on the hearth and sounded like the crash of doom, I``found on the mantel a heavy brass candlestick, and with it in my hand I stepped into the gloom of the hallway``and felt my way to the stairs.
She waited, Kate Croy, for her father to come in, but he kept her unconscionably, and``there were moments at which she showed herself, in the glass over the mantel, a face``positively pale with the irritation that had brought her to the point of going away``without sight of him.
THE consulting-rooms of Dr Orion Hood, the eminent criminologist and specialist in certain moral disorders, lay along the sea-front at Scarborough, in a series of very large and well-lighted french windows, which showed the North Sea like one endless outer wall of blue-green marble.
THE WITCH, PEASANT WIVES, THE POST, THE NEW VILLA, DREAMS, THE PIPE, AGAFYA, AT CHRISTMAS TIME, GUSEV, THE STUDENT, IN THE RAVINE, THE HUNTSMAN, HAPPINESS, A MALEFACTOR, PEASANTS
All that day we explained and all the next--or rather my friend did, for I knew very little of the language --and they listened with great interest. At last the chief of the wizards and the first prophet to the king rose to question us. He was named Hokosa, a tall, thin man, with a spiritual face and terrible calm eyes.
By request, the first of Frank Baum's series. Should others so desire, I can certainly add another 20 or so texts.
I was, perhaps, the plainest girl in the room that night. I was also the happiest--up to one o'clock. Then my whole world crumbled, or, at least, suffered an eclipse. Why and how, I am about to relate.
But the Law is still, in certain inevitable cases, the pre-engaged servant of the long purse; and the story is left to be told, for the first time, in this place. As the Judge might once have heard it, so the Reader shall hear it now. No circumstance of importance, from the beginning to the end of the disclosure, shall be related on hearsay evidence.
Aw, come off! Woman-hater! You hate women same as the boy at the poorhouse``hated ice cream--'cause there ain't none around. Why, I wouldn't trust you as fur as I``could see you! -- by Joseph C. Lincoln
An odd one, with gypsies and manikins, and -- By Fitz-James O'brien
Winterborne sped on his way to Sherton Abbas without elation and without discomposure. Had he``regarded his inner self spectacularly, as lovers are now daily more wont to do, he might have felt pride``in the discernment of a somewhat rare power in him--that of keeping not only judgment but emotion``suspended in difficult cases. But he noted it not.
The Works and Days and Theogony
Guide to Greek Mythos (and a guide to farming), by relative Homer contemporary Hesioid.
The problem which was already being mooted by such scientific men as Ramsay, Rutherford, and Soddy, in the very beginning of the twentieth century, the problem of inducing radio-activity in the heavier elements and so tapping the internal energy of atoms, was solved by a wonderful combination of induction, intuition, and luck by Holsten so soon as the year 1933.
A hard fight it had been and a long, and the Wanderer was weary. He took the tiller of the ship in his hand, and steered for the South and for the noonday sun, which was now at his highest in the heavens. But suddenly the bright light of the sky was darkened and the air was filled with the rush, and the murmur, and the winnowing of innumerable wings. -- Written with Andrew Lang
Certain it is at least, that when we had reached the police office, and the mates had made their deposition, and told their horrid tale of five men murdered, some with savage passion, some with cold brutality, between Sandy Hook and San Francisco, the police were despatched in time to be too late. -- with Lloyd Osbourne
'It's much worse than that,' said Gideon; 'a combination of circumstances really providentially unjust--a--in fact, a syndicate of murderers seem to have perceived my latent ability to rid them of the traces of their crime. It's a legal study after all, you see!' And with these words, Gideon, for the second time that day, began to describe the adventures of the Broadwood Grand. -- Robert Louis Stevenson with Lloyd Osbourne
Then--his brows drawn together--he stooped to the body of the murdered woman. Partially raising the fur cloak, he suppressed a gasp of astonishment. ````"Why! she only wears a silk night-dress, and a pair of suede slippers!"
I am an old man, he said softly, "but I will live to see them suffer who have done this evil thing."
The King in his anguish of mind consented, and the old woman led him to her little house where her``daughter was sitting by the fire. She received the King as if she were expecting him, and he saw that she was``certainly very beautiful; but she did not please him, and he could not look at her without a secret feeling of``horror.
It was the night of full moon and of the great feast of the return of Little Bonsa. Alan sat in his chamber waiting``to be summoned to take part in this ceremony and listening the while to that Wow! Wow! Wow! of the death``drums, whereof Jeekie had once spoken in England, which could be clearly heard even above the perpetual``boom of the cataract tumbling down its cliff behind the town.
The "rest cure" was prescribed to Gilman by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, author of the Autobiography of a Quack
The line of rolling cloud expanded, seemed to burst and roll upward, to bulge and mushroom. In a few``short moments it covered the second slope as far to the right and left as we could see. The under surface was``a bluish white. It shot up swiftly, to spread out into immense, slow-moving clouds of creamy yellow.
We arrived at Zumbo, at the mouth of the Loangwa, on the 1st of November. The``water being scarcely up to the knee, our land party waded this river with ease. A``buffalo was shot on an island opposite Pangola's, the ball lodging in the spleen. It``was found to have been wounded in the same organ previously, for an iron bullet``was imbedded in it, and the wound entirely healed.--by David Livingstone
A new tenseness seemed to have crept into the situation. The conversation, never without its emotional``tendencies, at once changed its character. Philippa, cold and reserved, with a threat lurking all the time in``her tone and manner, became its guiding spirit.
Theodore Roosevelt and His Times
There was plenty of work to be done in the Police Department. The conditions under which it must be done``were dishearteningly unfavorable. In the first place, the whole scheme of things was wrong. The Police``Department was governed by one of those bi-partisan commissions which well-meaning theorists are wont``sometimes to set up when they think that the important thing in government is to have things arranged so that``nobody can do anything harmful. -- By Harold Howland
I am a Republican in theory, but it grieved me that a son of mine could be drawn to such companionship. They contrived to keep it for a week--till the police found it one night, artfully hidden behind bushes. Logically, I do not see why stealing apples should be noble and stealing bicycles should be mean, but it struck me that way at the time. It was not the particular steal I had been hoping for. By Jerome K. Jerome.
There was, also, a curious strain of weakness running``crosswise through his make-up ... a harsh phrase from the lips of an older boy (older boys usually detested``him) was liable to sweep him off his poise into surly sensitiveness, or timid stupidity ... he was a slave to his``own moods and he felt that though he was capable of recklessness and audacity, he possessed neither``courage, perseverance, nor self-respect.
Includes The Signal-Man
Rather an amusing thing happened while dressing that morning. I was very cold when I got back into the boat,``and, in my hurry to get my shirt on, I accidentally jerked it into the water. It made me awfully wild, especially as``George burst out laughing. I could not see anything to laugh at, and I told George so, and he only laughed the``more. I never saw a man laugh so much.
No, I said, "the thing is to be frank and manly. I shall tell Ethelbertha that I have come to the conclusion a man``never values happiness that is always with him. I shall tell her that, for the sake of learning to appreciate my own``advantages as I know they should be appreciated, I intend to tear myself away from her and the children for at``least three weeks.
Over my head hung chestnut trees decked with gold; at my feet lay a mass of chestnut leaves which``resembled the amputated palms of human hands; on the opposite bank, where there waved,``tanglewise, the stripped branches of a hornbeam, an orange-tinted woodpecker was darting to and``fro, as though caught in the mesh of foliage--by Maxim Gorky
I used to have a copy of the Portable Nietzche from Penguin or whoever. Most of part three from Zarathustra was gone, replaced by a repeated big chunk from part II, then went straight to part IV. You won't have that problem.
Thuvia of Ptarth was no stranger to such places. During her wanderings in search of the River Iss, that time she had set out upon what, for countless ages, had been the last, long pilgrimage of Martians, toward the Valley Dor, where lies the Lost Sea of Korus, she had encountered several of these sad reminders of the greatness and the glory of ancient Barsoom.
Three days later the Grand Army of Oogaboo assembled in the square in front of the royal palace. The sixteen officers were attired in gorgeous uniforms and carried sharp, glittering swords. The Private had picked his gun and, although it was not a very big weapon, Files tried to look fierce and succeeded so well that all his commanding officers were secretly afraid of him
'Bah!' said the German, presently. 'I speak of things that really do happen. When I want to see the conjurer, I pay to see a professed one, and have my money's worth. Very strange things do happen without ghosts. Ghosts! Giovanni Baptista, tell your story of the English bride. There's no ghost in that, but something full as strange. Will any man tell me what?' --by Charles Dickens
(Do not ask me how it is that I recollect his own exact words-- whether I took them down in shorthand at the``time, or whether he had the story written out, and handed me the MS. afterwards for publication in this book,``because I should not tell you if you did. It is a trade secret.)
Gone to ground, eh? roared Flashman. "Push 'em out then, boys; look under the beds." And he pulled up the``little white curtain of the one nearest him. "Who-o-op!" he roared, pulling away at the leg of a small boy, who held``on tight to the leg of the bed, and sang out lustily for mercy. -- by Thomas Hughes ... I kind of like the Flashman series by Frazier.
One of several sequels.
Another sequel. Hey, until demand surged, this was a mystery-only site.
A slothful, unsavoury, nasty reversal of the laws of human mature, said the Traveller; "and for the sake of GOD'S working world and its wholesomeness, both moral and physical, I would put the thing on the treadmill (if I had my way) wherever I found it; whether on a pillar, or in a hole; whether on Tom Tiddler's ground, or the Pope of Rome's ground, or a Hindoo fakeer's ground, or any other ground."
Mrs. Postwhistle, who, in the days of her``Hebehood, had been likened by admiring frequenters of the old Mitre in Chancery Lane to the ladies,``somewhat emaciated, that an English artist, since become famous, was then commencing to popularise, had``developed with the passing years, yet still retained a face of placid youthfulness. The two facts, taken in``conjunction, had resulted in an asset to her income not to be despised.
And as I went along the embankment the first effect was all against my uncle. He shrank--for a little while he continued to shrink--in perspective until he was only a very small shabby little man in a dirty back street, sending off a few hundred bottles of rubbish to foolish buyers.
Any 'property' rendered is always either essential and permanent or relative and temporary: e.g. it``is an 'essential property' of man to be 'by nature a civilized animal': a 'relative property' is one like``that of the soul in relation to the body, viz. that the one is fitted to command, and the other to``obey
IT was not very long after this that there occurred the first of the mysterious events that rid us at last of the captain, though not, as you will see, of his affairs. It was a bitter cold winter, with long, hard frosts and heavy gales; and it was plain from the first that my poor father was little likely to see the spring.
Identified by Dorothy L. Sayers as the first modern mystery novel. Author E.C. Bentley was primarily a newspaperman.
I've thought of putting this text in the Arthurian section, but then again, that might be pandering.
Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland
Since eight in the morning he had wandered among long``grasses, and ironstone kopjes, and stunted bush, and had come upon no sign of human habitation, but the remains of a burnt``kraal, and a down-trampled and now uncultivated mealie field, where a month before the Chartered Company's forces had``destroyed a native settlement.
Twelth Night, A Winter's Tale, the Tempest
That completes our collection of Shakespearian plays.
That settles it, Pyecraft! Since you WILL be abject, since you WILL behave as though I was not a man of``honour, here, right under your embedded eyes, I write the thing down--the plain truth about Pyecraft. The``man I helped, the man I shielded, and who has requited me by making my club unendurable
Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus:/``Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits./Were't not affection chains thy tender days/To the sweet glances of thy honour'd love,
Richard Henry Dana's novel of the sea.
Two Years in the Forbidden City
Princess Dar Ling's chronicle of life at court.
. Sailors are the only class of men who now-a-days see anything like stirring adventure; and many things which to fire-side people appear strange and romantic, to them seem as commonplace as a jacket out at elbows.
Voted the #1 Book of the 20th Century by at least a few terribly important people whose names escape me at the moment.
Have yet to read Uncle Tom? Now's your chance.
But perhaps we are telling our little story too gravely. There are always great arguments at hand``for a true action, even for the writing of a few pages. There is nothing but seems near it and``prompts it, -- the sphere in the ecliptic, the sap in the apple tree, -- every fact, every appearance``seem to persuade to it.
It was really a question. Mercy and murder were alike impossible. We finally compromised by binding his wrists and ankles and trussing him up behind, using a portion of one of the spear-thongs for the purpose, and gagging him. Then we carried him behind a large boulder some distance from the ledge and tucked him away in a dark corner.
Under the Greenwood Tree, or the Mellstock Quire
William Dewy--otherwise grandfather William--was now about seventy; yet an ardent vitality still``preserved a warm and roughened bloom upon his face, which reminded gardeners of the sunny side of``a ripe ribstone-pippin; though a narrow strip of forehead, that was protected from the weather by lying``above the line of his hat-brim, seemed to belong to some town man, so gentlemanly was its whiteness.
To the end of his life I have heard that the great king``loved this district, and would sigh, when years and State fell heavily on him, for the beech groves and``box-covered hills of South Bearn. From the terraced steps of Auch you can see the forest roll away in``light and shadow
No other proof can I or will I produce, but this I will affirm in the presence of God. The``person who gave me this information was the very same who decoyed the infant Bertalda into the water, and``who, after thus taking her from her parents, placed her on the green grass of the meadow, where he knew the``duke was to pass."
His fancy only paused, when he would force it to adorn with beauty vice, death, and misery, when``disguised by a kingly robe, by the trappings of a victorious army, or the false halo of glory spread``over the smoking ruins of a ravaged town. Then his heart sickened, and the banners of triumph or``the song of victory could not drive from his recollection the varieties of death, and the groans of``torture that occasion such exultation to the privileged murderers of the earth.
Without knowing how, Captain William Dobbin found himself the great promoter, arranger, and manager of``the match between George Osborne and Amelia. But for him it never would have taken place: he could not but``confess as much to himself, and smiled rather bitterly as he thought that he of all men in the world should be``the person upon whom the care of this marriage had fallen.
Heyst was not conscious of either friends or of enemies. It was the very essence of his life to be a``solitary achievement, accomplished not by hermit-like withdrawal with its silence and immobility,``but by a system of restless wandering, by the detachment of an impermanent dweller amongst``changing scenes.
Classic tales translated by Sir Richard Burton.
Villa Rubein and Other Stories
Miss Naylor continued to peer across the rosebush; but her thin face, close to the glistening leaves, had become oddly soft, pink, and girlish. At a deeper breath from Greta, the little lady put down her basket, and began to pace the lawn, followed dubiously by Scruff. It was thus that Christian came on them. -- Includes "Salvation of a Forsyte."
The next day, on my return from a long walk, I found, as I entered my bedroom, an unexpected change. In addition to my own French bed in its shady recess, appeared in a corner a small crib, draped with white; and in addition to my mahogany chest of drawers, I saw a tiny rosewood chest. I stood still, gazed, and considered.
Get compared a lot to Henry James' The Princess Casamassima; whether that's fair to Turgenev or not I leave to you.
A`` Hold thee, Mosca,/Take of my hand; thou strik'st on truth, in all:/And they are enuious, terme thee Parasite./Call forth my Dwarfe, my Eunuch, and my Foole,/And let them make me sport.
O'Henry collection, includes "the Detective Detector."
Godot's famous play.
"Wilt thou for ever sleep? Wilt thou never more awake, my beloved, but henceforth repose for ever from thy short pilgrimage on earth? O yet once again return! and bring back with thee the vivifying dawn of hope to one whose existence hath, since thy departure, been obscured by the dunnest shades. -- Johann Ludwig Tieck
david moynihan
dmoynihan@blackmask.com
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No
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When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again. -- includes Civil Disobedience
Trick for readers: stay loose through the peace parts; you'll get through.
The mountain warfare of Italy is extraordinarily unlike that upon any other front.``From the Isonzo to the Swiss frontier we are dealing with high mountains, cut by``deep valleys between which there is usually no practicable lateral communication.``Each advance must have the nature of an unsupported shove along a narrow``channel-- by HG Wells
It is quite fair to say that I became a Socialist in a fashion somewhat similar to the way in which the Teutonic pagans became Christians--it was hammered into me. Not only was I not looking for Socialism at the time of my conversion, but I was fighting it. I was very young and callow, did not know much of anything, and though I had never even heard of a school called "Individualism,"
Washington and His Comrades in Arms
On the 16th of November took place the worst``disaster which had yet befallen American arms. Fort Washington, lying just south of the Harlem,``was the only point still held on Manhattan Island by the Americans. In modern war it has become``clear that fortresses supposedly strong may be only traps for their defenders.
As a side note, the neighbhorhood where they shot the most recent film version of this book is approximately four blocks from the setting of HBO's "The Corner." Juxtapose...
Waverly, or 'Tis 60 Years Since
He was in his sixteenth year, when his habits of abstraction and love of solitude became so``much marked, as to excite Sir Everard's affectionate apprehension. He tried to counterbalance``these propensities, by engaging his nephew in field sports, which had been the chief pleasure``of his own youthful days.
So I do--I did, I supplemented. "But whether I like him or not has nothing to do with it. He has been injured--perhaps murdered"--I choked a little. "Which--which of you did it?"
When God Laughs and Other Stories
Ah Cho did not understand French. He sat in the crowded court room, very weary and bored,``listening to the unceasing, explosive French that now one official and now another uttered. It was``just so much gabble to Ah Cho, and he marvelled at the stupidity of the Frenchmen who took so``long to find out the murderer of Chung Ga, and who did not find him at all.
What a wonderfully complex thing! this simple seeming unity--the self! Who can trace its reintegration as morning after morning we awaken, the flux and confluence of its countless factors intenveaving, rebuilding, the dim first stirrings of the soul, the growth and synthesis of the unconscious to the subconscious, the sub-conscious to dawning consciousness, until at last we recognise ourselves again.
That carved stone and the marble hand took a great hold of my imagination. What did they mean? How could they have come to the bottom of that hole, unless indeed they were part of some building and its ornaments which had been destroyed in the neighbourhood? The stone of which we had only uncovered a corner seemed far too big to have been carried there from any ship
I thought I was a murderess! she cried. "Oh, the thought! Blood on my soul! Why, Minnie Waters, wherever did you get that sealskin coat!"
EM Forster's depiction of an intricate custody battle, to say the least.
The two victims opened wide eyes at each other. The fence separated them, and so``it was impossible for them to immediately engage; but they seemed to understand``that they were ultimately to be sacrificed to the ferocious aspirations of the other``boys, and each scanned the other to learn something of his spirit. They were not``angry at all.
Dissed almost immediately as "The Call of the Tame." Leave it to you.
WIELAND; OR THE TRANSFORMATION
In a state thus verging upon madness, my eye glanced upon Carwin. His astonishment appeared to have struck him motionless and dumb. My life was in danger, and my brother's hand was about to be embrued in my blood. I firmly believed that Carwin's was the instigation. I could rescue me from this abhorred fate; I could dissipate this tremendous illusion;
The red stallion did not appear to be hurt. The twitching of his muscles must have been caused by the cactus``spikes embedded in him. There were drops of blood all over one side. Lucy thought she dared to try to pull``these thorns out. She had never in her life been afraid of any horse. Farlane, Holley, all the riders, and her``father, too, had tried to make her realize the danger in a horse, sooner or later.
E. A. Freemen's account of the events before and after the Battle of Hastings, and the man behind it.
Amid the gloom hovering over the early history of Windsor Castle appear the mighty phantoms of the renowned King Arthur``and his knights, for whom it is said Merlin reared a magic fortress upon its heights, in a great hall whereof, decorated with``trophies of war and of the chase, was placed the famous Round Table. But if the antique tale is now worn out, and no longer``part of our faith, it is pleasant at least to record it--by William Harrison Ainsworth
The first book added to Blackmask Online. Personal favorite and inspiration. And hey, author Sherwood Anderson gave Faulkner his start.
With Lee in Virginia: A Story of the American Civil War
Sometimes Ashley would draw together a score of troopers, and crossing the river in a ferryboat, would ride``twenty miles north, and, dashing into quiet villages, astonish the inhabitants by the sight of the Confederate``uniform. Then the villagers would be questioned as to the news that had reached them of the movement of the``troops; the post office would be seized and the letters broken open; any useful -information contained in them``being noted.
In that clamour which has arisen in the modern world, where now this, and then that, is demanded for and by``large bodies of modern women, he who listens carefully may detect as a keynote, beneath all the clamour, a``demand which may be embodied in such a cry as this: Give us labour and the training which fits for labour!``We demand this, not for ourselves alone, but for the race.
Heathcliff! Madness! Revenge! And oh yeah, some funky cherubs. -- By Emily Bronte
Yvain or, The Knight with the Lion
The King could not reply to all before he saw the lady coming toward him to hold his``stirrup. However, he would not wait for this, but hastened to dismount himself as soon as he caught``sight of her. Then she salutes him with these words: "Welcome a hundred thousand times to the``King, my lord, and blessed be his nephew, my lord Gawain!"
The Rosicrucians! repeated the old gentleman, and in his turn he surveyed me with deliberate surprise. "Who but a Rosicrucian could explain the Rosicrucian mysteries! And can you imagine that any members of that sect, the most jealous of all secret societies, would themselves lift the veil that hides the Isis of their wisdom from the world?" -- by Bulwer-Lytton