Arthur's Classic Novels: Complete Adventure Novels
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Achmed Abdullah
The Thief of Bagdad by Achmed Abdullah
In the Orient's motley, twisted annals the tale of Ahmed el-Bagdadi's -- "the Thief of Bagdad," as he is called in the ancient records -- search for happiness, which is by the same token the tale of his adventures and exploits and love, has assumed in the course of time the character of something Homeric
The Mystery of the Talking Idols by Achmed Abdullah
AFRICA was about them: a black, fetid hand giving riotously of gold and treasure, maiming and squeezing even while it gave. They loathed and feared it.
Fear by Achmed Abdullah
But here, in the African jungle -- and how Stuart McGregor remembered it -- the fear of death had seemed pregnant with unmentionable horror. There had been no sounds except the buzzing of the tsetse flies and a faint rubbing of drums
The Charmed Life by Achmed Abdullah
Magazine
readers want to be entertained -- that's what they plunk down their
little dimes for -- and take them all around, they prefer a story which
is full of action, of things daring, with some love and a fair dose of
adventure thrown in, and yet, as you put it, they do not want their
credulity strained to the breaking point.
Try Adventure Stories for your eReader.
Gertrude Atherton
The Greatest Good of the Greatest Number by Gertrude Atherton
But for one man he cherished an abiding sympathy; to that man he hastened on the slightest summons, as he hastened now. They had been intimate in boyhood; then in later years through mutual respect for each other's high abilities and ambitions.
The Dead and the Countess by Gertrude Atherton
It was an old cemetery, and they had been long dead. Those who died nowadays were put in the new burying-place on the hill, close to the Bois d'Amour and within sound of the bells that called the living to mass. But the little church where the mass was celebrated stood faithfully beside the older dead; a new church, indeed, had not been built in that forgotten corner of Finisterre for centuries, not since the calvary on its pile of stones had been raised in the tiny square, surrounded then, as now, perhaps, by gray naked cottages; not since the castle with its round tower, down on the river, had been erected for the Counts of Croisac. But the stone walls enclosing that ancient cemetery had been kept in good repair, and there were no weeds within, nor toppling headstones.
The White Morning by Gertrude Atherton
After some deliberation they concluded to inform their mother of their grim resolve. Naturally sympathetic, a pregnant upheaval had taken place in that good lady's psychology during the past year
The Living Present by Gertrude Atherton
One of the most striking results of the Great War has been the quickening in thousands of European women of qualities so long dormant
that they practically were unsuspected.
The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories by Gertrude Atherton
"I wish he were alive and here," he thought, with a sigh. "What a jolly little companion he would be! And this fine old mansion would make a far more complementary setting for him than for me."
The Doomswoman by Gertrude Atherton
We were discussing the frivolous mysteries of dress, if I remember aright, when she laid her hand on my mouth suddenly.
The Splendid Idle Forties by Gertrude Atherton
And what a brilliant sight it was! The flowers had faded on the hills, for June was upon them; but gayer than the hills had been was the race-field of Monterey.
What Dreams May Come by Gertrude Atherton
High up in Pera the gray walls of the English Embassy stood out sharply defined against the gold-wrought sky. The windows were thrown
wide to invite the faint, capricious breeze which wandered through the hot city
The Conqueror by Gertrude Atherton
From a distance Nevis looks like a solitary peak in mid-ocean, her base sweeping out on either side. But behind the great central cone--rising three thousand two hundred feet--are five or six lesser peaks
Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton
Rezanov forgot the bitter hu-
miliations, the mental and physical torments, the deprivations and dangers of the past three years;
forgot those harrowing months in the harbor of Nagasaki when the Russian bear had caged his tail
Sleeping Fires by Gertrude Atherton
He had always been absurdly liberal in spite of his blue Southern blood; and a man's man wandering alone at the age of forty was almost
foredoomed to disaster.
Senator North by Gertrude Atherton
when her active strong-willed
daughter entered her twentieth year, she gladly permitted her to become the mistress of the household and to think for both.
The Valiant Runaways by Gertrude Atherton
There was reason for his disquiet.
News had arrived an hour before which had thrown his young mind into
confusion: the soldiers were out for conscripts
The Striding-Place by Gertrude Atherton
Weigall, continental and detached, tired early of grouse shooting. To stand propped against a sod fence while his host's workmen routed up the birds with long poles and drove them towards the waiting guns, made him feel himself a parody on the ancestors who had roamed the moors and forests of this West Riding of Yorkshire in hot pursuit of game worth the killing.
Death and the Woman by Gertrude Atherton
Her husband was dying, and she was alone with him. Nothing could exceed the desolation of her surroundings. She and the man who was going from her were in the third- floor-back of a New York boarding-house. It was summer, and the other boarders were in the country; all the servants except the cook had been dismissed, and she, when not working, slept profoundly on the fifth floor.
Frances Hodgson Burnett
The White People by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Perhaps the things which happened could only have happened to me. I do not know. I never heard of things like them
happening to any one else. But I am not sorry they did happen. I am in secret deeply and
strangely glad.
The Secret Garden
When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most
disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true, too.
She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression.
A Lady of Quality
On a wintry morning at the close of 1690, the sun shining faint and red through a light fog, there was a great noise of baying dogs,
loud voices, and trampling of horses in the court-yard at Wildairs
Hall;
The Lost Prince
There are many dreary and dingy rows of ugly houses in certain parts of London, but there certainly could not be any row more
ugly or dingier than Philibert Place.
A Little Princess
She sat with her feet tucked under her, and leaned against her father, who held her in his arm, as she stared out of the window
at the passing people with a queer old-fashioned thoughtfulness in her big eyes.
My Robin
There were so many people in this garden--people with feathers, or fur--who, because I sat so quietly, did not mind me in the least, that it was not a surprising thing when I looked up one summer morning to see a small bird hopping about in the grass a yard or so away from me.
Sara Crewe by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Her papa had brought her all
the way from India. Her mamma had died when she was a baby, and her papa had kept her with him as
long as he could. And then, finding the hot climate was making her very delicate, he had brought her to England and left her with Miss Minchin, to be part of the Select Seminary for Young Ladies.
The Dawn of A To-morrow
As he went down the narrow staircase, covered with its dingy and threadbare carpet, he found the
house so full of dirty yellow haze that he realized that the fog must be
of the extraordinary ones which are remembered in after-years as abnormal
specimens of their kind. He recalled that there had been one of
the sort three years before, and that traffic and business had been almost
entirely stopped by it,
T. Tembarom
His education really began when he was ten years old. At that time his mother died of pneumonia, contracted by going out to sew, at seventy-five cents a day, in shoes almost entirely without soles, when the remains of a blizzard were melting in the streets. As, after her funeral, there remained only twenty-five cents in the shabby bureau which was one of the few articles furnishing the room in the tenement in which they lived together,
The Shuttle
Fate and Life planned the weaving, and it seemed mere circumstance which guided the Shuttle to and fro between
two worlds divided by a gulf broader and deeper than the
thousands of miles of salt, fierce sea--the gulf of a bitter
quarrel deepened by hatred and the shedding of brothers' blood.
Little Lord Fauntleroy
Cedric himself knew nothing whatever about it. It had never been even mentioned to him. He knew that his papa had been an
Englishman, because his mamma had told him so; but then his papa
had died when he was so little a boy that he could not remember
very much about him, except that he was big, and had blue eyes
and a long mustache
Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Oakdale Affair
The brazen assurance with which the lad crossed the lawn and mounted the steps to the verandah suggested
a familiarity with the habits and customs of the inmates
of the house upon the hill which bespoke long and careful
study of the contemplated job.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
And so the Colonial Office appointed John Clayton to a new post in British West Africa, but his confidential instructions
centered on a thorough investigation of the unfair treatment
of black British subjects by the officers of a friendly
European power. Why he was sent, is, however, of little moment
to this story, for he never made an investigation, nor,
in fact, did he ever reach his destination.
Tarzan the Terrible
Pausing momentarily in the full light of the gorgeous African moon the creature turned an attentive ear to the rear and then,
his head lifted, his features might readily have been discerned
in the moonlight. They were strong, clean cut, and
regular--features that would have attracted attention for their
masculine beauty in any of the great capitals of the world.
The Return of Tarzan
As Tarzan walked slowly toward the smoking-room he came unexpectedly upon two men whispering excitedly just
without. He would have vouchsafed them not even a passing
thought but for the strangely guilty glance that one of them
shot in his direction. They reminded Tarzan of melodramatic
villains he had seen at the theaters in Paris.
The Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Tarzan had recently brought his wife and infant son to London to escape the discomforts and dangers of the rainy season upon
their vast estate in Uziri--the land of the savage Waziri warriors
whose broad African domains the ape-man had once ruled.
The Son of Tarzan
"I doubt if there is any danger of his inheriting a taste for jungle life from me," replied the man, "for I cannot conceive that such a thing may be transmitted from father to son.
And sometimes, Jane, I think that in your solicitude for his
future you go a bit too far in your restrictive measures.
His love for animals--his desire, for example, to see this
trained ape--is only natural in a healthy, normal boy of his age.
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar
It was two weeks later that John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, riding in from a tour of inspection of his
vast African estate, glimpsed the head of a column of
men crossing the plain that lay between his bungalow
and the forest to the north and west.
The Jungle Tales of Tarzan
Just to have seen him there, lolling upon the swaying bough of the jungle-forest giant, his brown skin mottled
by the brilliant equatorial sunlight which percolated
through the leafy canopy of green above him, his clean-limbed
body relaxed in graceful ease, his shapely head partly
turned in contemplative absorption and his intelligent,
gray eyes dreamily devouring the object of their devotion,
you would have thought him the reincarnation of some
demigod of old.
Tarzan the Untamed by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Here Tantor, the elephant, took his long way from dust wallow to water. Here Buto, the rhinoceros, blundered blindly
in his solitary majesty, while by night the great cats paced
silently upon their padded feet beneath the dense canopy of
overreaching trees toward the broad plain beyond, where they
found their best hunting.
Tarzan And The Golden Lion
Tarzan smiled with them, but he did not cease his attentions toward the cub. Reaching out suddenly he caught the little lion by the scruff of its neck and then stroking it gently he talked to it in a low, crooning tone.
The Tarzan Twins by E. Rice Burroughs
Tarzan and the Lost Empire by E. Rice Burroughs
Tarzan at the Earth's Core by E. Rice Burroughs
Tarzan the Invincible by E. Rice Burroughs
Tarzan Triumphant by E. Rice Burroughs
Tarzan and the City of Gold by E. Rice Burroughs
Tarzan and the Lion-Man by E. Rice Burroughs
Tarzan and the Leopard Men by E. Rice Burroughs
Tarzan's Quest by E. Rice Burroughs
Tarzan and the Forbidden City by E. Rice Burroughs
Tarzan the Magnificent by E. Rice Burroughs
Tarzan and "The Foreign Legion" by E. Rice Burroughs
The Mad King
There had been murmurings then when the lad's uncle, Peter of Blentz, had announced to the people of Lutha the sudden mental affliction which had fallen upon his nephew, and more murmurings for a time after the announcement that Peter of Blentz had been appointed Regent during the lifetime of the young King Leopold, "or until God, in His infinite mercy, shall see fit to restore to us in full mental vigor our beloved monarch."
Richard Burton
The Arabian Nights
But when the night was half-spent he bethought him that he had forgotten in his palace somewhat which he should have brought with
him, so he returned privily and entered his apartments, where he found
the Queen, his wife, asleep on his own carpet bed embracing with
both arms a black cook of loathsome aspect and foul with kitchen
grease and grime.
Vikram and the Vampire
Some nineteen centuries ago, the renowned city of Ujjayani witnessed the birth of a prince to whom was given the gigantic
name Vikramaditya. Even the Sanskrit-speaking people, who are
not usually pressed for time, shortened it to "Vikram", and a little
further West it would infallibly have been docked down to "Vik".
Joseph Conrad
To-Morrow by Joseph Conrad
What was known of Captain Hagberd in the little seaport of Colebrook was not exactly in his favour. He did not belong to the place. ... He was possessed of some little money evidently, because he bought a plot of ground, and had a pair of ugly yellow brick cottages run up very cheaply.
The End Of The Tether by Joseph Conrad
For a long time after the course of the steamer Sofala had been altered for the land, the low swampy coast had retained its appearance of a mere smudge of darkness beyond a belt of glitter. The sunrays seemed to fall violently upon the calm sea--seemed to shatter themselves upon an adamantine surface into sparkling dust, into a dazzling vapor of light that blinded the eye and wearied the brain with its unsteady brightness.
Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
"One evening as I was lying flat on the deck of my steamboat, I heard voices approaching--and there were the nephew and the uncle strolling along the bank. I laid my head on my arm again, and had nearly lost myself in a doze, when somebody said in my ear, as it were: 'I am as harmless as a little child, but I don't like to be dictated to. Am I the manager--or am I not? I was ordered to send him there. It's incredible.' . . . I became aware that the two were standing on the shore alongside the forepart of the steamboat, just below my head.
The Inheritors
"You Americans," I began, but her smile stopped me. It was as if she were amused at the utterances of an old lady shocked by the habits of the daughters of the day.
Almayer's Folly: A Story Of An Eastern River
The well-known shrill voice startled Almayer from his dream of splendid future into the unpleasant realities of the present hour. An unpleasant voice too. He had heard it for many years, and with every year he liked it less. No matter; there would be an end to all this soon.
Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad
One day, as we trotted out of a large village into a shady bit of road, I saw on our left hand a low, black cottage, with diamond panes in the windows, a creeper on the end wall, a roof of shingle, and some roses climbing on the rickety trellis-work of the tiny porch. Kennedy pulled up to a walk. A woman, in full sunlight, was throwing a dripping blanket over a line stretched between two old apple-trees. And as the bobtailed, long-necked chestnut, trying to get his head, jerked the left hand, covered by a thick dogskin glove, the doctor raised his voice over the hedge: "How's your child, Amy?"
The Arrow Of Gold A Story Between Two Notes
How could I have avoided him? To this day I have a shadowy conviction of his inherent distinction of mind and heart, far beyond any man I have ever met since. He was unavoidable: and of course I never tried to avoid him. The first sight on which his eyes fell was a victoria pulled up before the hotel door, in which I sat with no sentiment I can remember now but that of some slight shyness. He got in without a moment's hesitation, his friendly glance took me in from head to foot and (such was his peculiar gift) gave me a pleasurable sensation.
Chance: A Tale In Two Parts by Joseph Conrad
The red tint of his clear-cut face with trim short black whiskers under a cap of curly iron-grey hair was the only warm spot in the dinginess of that room cooled by the cheerless tablecloth. We knew him already by sight as the owner of a little five-ton cutter, which he sailed alone apparently, a fellow yachtsman in the unpretending band of fanatics who cruise at the mouth of the Thames.
Falk by Joseph Conrad
As I was young then--not thirty yet--I took myself and my troubles very seriously. The old mate, who had acted as chief mourner at the captain's funeral, was not particularly pleased at my coming. But the fact is the fellow was not legally qualified for command, and the Consul was bound, if at all possible, to put a properly certificated man on board.
The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad
Some commanders of ships take their Departure from the home coast sadly, in a spirit of grief and discontent. They have a wife, children perhaps, some affection at any rate, or perhaps only some pet vice, that must be left behind for a year or more. I remember only one man who walked his deck with a springy step, and gave the first course of the passage in an elated voice. But he, as I learned afterwards, was leaving nothing behind him, except a welter of debts and threats of legal proceedings.
The Rescue: A Romance Of The Shallows
Misunderstood and traduced in life, the glory of his achievement has vindicated the purity of his motives. He belongs to history. But there were others--obscure adventurers who had not his advantages of birth, position, and intelligence; who had only his sympathy with the people of forests and sea he understood and loved so well.
The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
Mr Verloc, going out in the morning, left his shop nominally in charge of his brother-in-law. It could be done, because there was very little business at any time, and practically none at all before the evening. Mr Verloc cared but little about his ostensible business. And, moreover, his wife was in charge of his brother-in-law.
'Twixt Land and Sea Tales by Joseph Conrad
Ever since the sun rose I had been looking ahead. The ship glided gently in smooth water. After a sixty days' passage I was anxious to make my landfall, a fertile and beautiful island of the tropics. The more enthusiastic of its inhabitants delight in describing it as the "Pearl of the Ocean." Well, let us call it the "Pearl." It's a good name. A pearl distilling much sweetness upon the world.
Typhoon by Joseph Conrad
but every ship Captain MacWhirr commanded was the floating abode of harmony and peace. It was, in truth, as impossible for him to take a flight of fancy as it would be for a watchmaker to put together a chronometer with nothing except a two-pound hammer and a whip-saw in the way of tools. Yet the uninteresting lives of men so entirely given to the actuality of the bare existence have their mysterious side.
Nostromo: A Tale Of The Seaboard by Joseph Conrad
Some harbours of the earth are made difficult of access by the treachery of sunken rocks and the tempests of their shores. Sulaco had found an inviolable sanctuary from the temptations of a trading world in the solemn hush of the deep Golfo Placido as if within an enormous semi-circular and unroofed temple open to the ocean, with its walls of lofty mountains hung with the mourning draperies of cloud.
Notes on Life and Letters by Joseph Conrad
Especially of compassion. It has been said a long time ago that books have their fate. They have, and it is very much like the destiny of man. They share with us the great incertitude of ignominy or glory--of severe justice and senseless persecution--of calumny and misunderstanding--the shame of undeserved success.
An Outcast of the Islands by Joseph Conrad
When he stepped off the straight and narrow path of his peculiar honesty, it was with an inward assertion of unflinching resolve to fall back again into the monotonous but safe stride of virtue as soon as his little excursion into the wayside quagmires had produced the desired effect. It was going to be a short episode--a sentence in brackets, so to speak--in the flowing tale of his life: a thing of no moment
A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad
Books may be written in all sorts of places. Verbal inspiration may enter the berth of a mariner on board a ship frozen fast in a river in the middle of a town; and since saints are supposed to look benignantly on humble believers, I indulge in the pleasant fancy that the shade of old Flaubert
The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad
She floated at the starting point of a long journey, very still in an immense stillness, the shadows of her spars flung far to the eastward by the setting sun. At that moment I was alone on her decks. There was not a sound in her--and around us nothing moved, nothing lived, not a canoe on the water, not a bird in the air, not a cloud in the sky. In this breathless pause at the threshold of a long passage we seemed to be measuring our fitness for a long and arduous enterprise
The Shadow Line: A Confession by Joseph Conrad
It was in an Eastern port. She was an Eastern ship, inasmuch as then she belonged to that port. She traded among dark islands on a blue reefscarred sea, with the Red Ensign over the taffrail and at her masthead a house-flag, also red, but with a green border and with a white crescent in it. For an Arab owned her, and a Syed at that. Hence the green border on the flag. He was the head of a great House of Straits Arabs, but as loyal a subject of the complex British Empire as you could find east of the Suez Canal.
Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad
I am not aware of what my young friend had been doing on deck all that morning, but the hands he rubbed together vigorously were very red and imparted to me a chilly feeling by their mere aspect. He has remained the only banjoist of my acquaintance, and being also a younger son of a retired colonel, the poem of Mr. Kipling, by a strange aberration of associated ideas, always seems to me to have been written with an exclusive view to his person.
Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad
We knew him in those unprotected days when we were content to hold in our hands our lives and our property. None of us, I believe, has any
property now, and I hear that many, negligently, have lost their
lives; but I am sure that the few who survive are not yet so dim-eyed
as to miss in the befogged respectability of their newspapers the
intelligence of various native risings in the Eastern Archipelago.
Youth: A Narrative
We were sitting round a mahogany table that reflected the bottle, the claret-glasses, and our faces as we leaned on our elbows. There was a director of companies, an accountant, a lawyer, Marlow, and myself. The director had been a Conway boy, the accountant had served four years at sea, the lawyer -- a fine crusted Tory, High Churchman, the best of old fellows, the soul of honor -- had been chief officer in the P. & O. service in the good old days when mail-boats were square-rigged at least on two masts
Within the Tides
"I arrived yesterday at daylight. I am anchored out there in the bay - off Garden Point. I was in Dunster's office before he had
finished reading his letters. Have you ever seen young Dunster
reading his letters? I had a glimpse of him through the open door.
He holds the paper in both hands, hunches his shoulders up to his
ugly ears, and brings his long nose and his thick lips on to it
like a sucking apparatus. A commercial monster."
A Set of Six
That long contest, waged for independence on one side and for dominion on the other, developed in the
course of years and the vicissitudes of changing fortune
the fierceness and inhumanity of a struggle for life. All
feelings of pity and compassion disappeared in the
growth of political hatred. And, as is usual in war, the
mass of the people, who had the least to gain by the
issue, suffered most in their obscure persons and their humble fortunes.
James F. Cooper
The Pathfinder or The Inland Sea
The sublimity connected with vastness is familiar to every eye. The most abstruse, the most far-reaching, perhaps the most chastened of the poet's thoughts, crowd on the imagination as he gazes into the depths of the illimitable void. The expanse of the ocean is seldom seen by the novice with indifference; ... By letting in the light of heaven upon the dark and damp recesses of the wood, they form a sort of oases in the solemn obscurity of the virgin forests of America.
The Last of the Mohicans A Narrative of 1757
It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered before the adverse hosts could meet. A wide and apparently an impervious boundary of forests severed the possessions of the hostile provinces of France and England. The hardy colonist, and the trained European who fought at his side, frequently expended months in struggling against the rapids of the streams, or in effecting the rugged passes of the mountains, in quest of an opportunity to exhibit their courage in a more martial conflict.
Deerslayer Volume I
Our two adventurers had not far to go. Hurry knew the direction, as soon as he had found the open spot and the
spring, and he now led on with the confident step of a man assured
of his object. The forest was dark, as a matter of
course, but it was no onger obstructed by under-brush, and
the footing was firm and dry.
Deerslayer Volume II
Chingachgook stepped upon the beach, and cautiously
examined it, for some distance, on each side of the canoe.
In order to do this, he was often obliged to wade to his
knees in the lake, but no Hist rewarded his search.
Tales for Fifteen: or Imagination and Heart.
So long as Anna Miller was the inmate of the school, Julia was satisfied to remain also, but the father of Anna having determined to remove to an estate in the interior of the country, his daughter was taken from school; and while the arrangements were making for the reception of the family on the banks of the Gennessee, Anna was permitted to taste, for a short time, the pleasures of the world, at the residence of Miss Emmerson on the banks of the Hudson.
The Pioneers Or The Sources of the Susquehanna
Near the centre of the State of New York lies an extensive district of country whose surface is a succession of hills and dales, or, to speak with greater deference to geographical definitions, of mountains and valleys. It is among these hills that the Delaware takes its rise; and flowing from the limpid lakes and thousand springs of this region the numerous sources of the Susquehanna meander through the valleys until, uniting their streams, they form one of the proudest rivers of the United States.
Elinor Wyllys Or The Young Folk Of Longbridge
When was there ever an evening too warm for young people to dance! Elinor's friends had not been in the room half an hour,
before they discovered that they were just the right number to
make a quadrille agreeable.
The Spy A Tale Of The Neutral Ground
We would not be understood as throwing the gauntlet to our fair countrywomen, by whose opinions it is that we expect to stand or fall; we only mean to say, that if we have got no lords and castles in the book, it is because there are none in the country.
Precaution James Fenimore Cooper
While chatting with the doctor and his wife,
Francis returned from his morning ride, and
told them the Jarvis family had arrived; he
had witnessed an unpleasant accident to a
gig, in which were Captain Jarvis, and a
friend, Colonel Egerton; it had been awkwardly
driven in turning in the deanery gate, and upset:
The Prairie
Much was said and written, at the time, concerning the policy of adding the vast regions of Louisiana, to the, already, immense and but half-tenanted territories of the United States. As the warmth of controversy, however, subsided, and personal considerations gave place to more liberal views, the wisdom of the measure began to be, generally, conceded.
Old Ironsides
Congress now directed that the work on three of the six new frigates should be stopped, while the remainder were to be slowly completed. The three it was determined to complete were The States, Old Ironsides, and The Constellation. These three ships happened to be the most advanced, and the loss would be the heaviest by arresting the work on them.
The Lake Gun
Several times did our traveler stop to gaze on that immovable form. A feeling of superstition came over him
when he saw that not the smallest motion, nor relief of
limb or attitude, was made for the ten minutes that his eye
had rested on the singular and strange object.
The Eclipse
I had scarcely returned to the family party, left on the watch, when one of my brothers, more vigilant, or with clearer sight than his companions, exclaimed that he clearly saw a dark line, drawn on the western margin of the sun's disc! All faces were instantly turned upwards, and through the glasses we could indeed now see a dusky, but distinct object, darkening the sun's light.
Autobiography of a Pocket-Handkerchief
When the American enters on the
history of his ancestors, he is driven, after some ten or twelve
generations at most, to seek refuge in a country in Europe; whereas
exactly the reverse is the case with us, our most remote extraction being
American, while our more recent construction and education have taken
place in Europe.
Wyandotte 0r The Hutted Knoll
While it is true, then, that the mountainous region, which now contains the counties of Schoharie, Otsego, Chenango, Broome, Delaware, etc., was a wilderness in 1775, the colonial governors had begun to make grants of its lands, some twenty years earlier.
Jack Tier
The river, as the well-known arm of the sea in which the Swash was lying is erroneously termed, was just at that moment unusually clear of craft, and not a sail, larger than that of a boat, was to be seen between the end of Blackwell's Island and Corlaer's Hook,
The Pilot
To the utter amazement of every individual present, a small vessel was seen moving slowly round a point of land that formed one of the sides of the little bay, to which the field the labourers were in composed the other. There was something very peculiar in the externals of this unusual visiter
Marie Corelli
Jane
Here it will at once be seen how ignorant and foolish Jane was. If she had known better, -- if she had read her modern magazines properly, and if she had followed the tenor of "progressive" thought, -- she would of course have realised that Science had proved to its own entire satisfaction that there was no Creator at all to be thankful to,
The Soul of Lilith by Marie Corelli
"And so Fate decided for you," finished El-Rami sedately. "And instead of admiring the pretty ladies without proper clothing at the Empire, you find yourself here, wondering why the deuce Hamlet the Dane could not find anything better to do than bother himself about his father's ghost!
The Romance of Two Worlds
I became filled with the gloomiest anticipations of evil; and my system was strung up by slow degrees to such a high tension of physical and mental excitement, that the quietest and most soothing of friendly voices had no other effect upon me than to jar and irritate.
The Modern Marriage Market
For never in all the passing pageant and phantasmagoria of history did a greater generation of civilised hypocrites cumber the face of the globe than cumber it to-day,--never was the earth so oppressed with the weight of polite lying,--never were there such crowds of civil masqueraders, cultured tricksters, and social humbugs, who, though admirable as tricksters and humbugs, are wholly contemptible as men and women. Truth is at a discount
The Mighty Atom by Marie Corelli
The window was open, and in the room beyond it a small boy sat at a school-desk reading, and every now and then making pencil notes on a large folio sheet of paper beside him. He was intent upon his work,--yet he turned quickly at the sound of the bird's song and listened, his deep thoughtful eyes darkening and softening with a liquid look as of unshed tears. It was only for a moment that he thus interrupted his studies
The Treasure Of Heaven
London,--and a night in June. London, swart and grim, semi-shrouded in a warm close mist of mingled human breath and acrid vapour steaming up from the clammy crowded streets,--London, with a million twinkling lights gleaming sharp upon its native blackness, and looking, to a dreamer's eye, like some gigantic Fortress, built line upon line and tower upon tower
Ardath
Deep in the heart of the Caucasus mountains a wild storm was gathering. Drear shadows drooped and thickened above the Pass of Dariel, -- that terrific gorge which like a mere thread seems to hang between the toppling frost-bound heights above and the black abysmal depths below
Thelma
There was one solitary watcher of the splendid spectacle. This was a man of refined features and aristocratic appearance, who, reclining on a large rug of skins which he had thrown down on the shore for that purpose
God's Good Man A Simple Love Story
in the towns, the breath of Spring is foetid and feverish, -- it arouses sick longings and weary regrets, but scarcely any positive ecstasy. The close, stuffy streets, the swarming people, the high buildings and stacks of chimneys which only permit the narrowest patches of sky to be visible
The Master-Christian by Marie Corelli
He raised his eyes devoutly, and instinctively touched the silver crucifix hanging by its purple ribbon at his breast. The orange-red glow of the sun encompassed him with fiery rings, as though it would fain consume his thin, black-garmented form after the fashion in which flames consumed the martyrs of old
Vendetta
I dwelt in my father's villa -- a miniature palace of white marble, situated on a wooded height overlooking the Bay of Naples. My
pleasure-grounds were fringed with fragrant groves of orange and myrtle, where hundreds of full-voiced nightingales warbled their love-melodies to the golden moon.
The Secret Power
She obeyed, moving with the soft tread of a forest animal, and, face to face with him, looked up. He smiled kindly into her dark fierce eyes, and noted with artistic approval the unspoiled beauty of natural lines in her form
Ziska The Problem Of A Wicked Soul
Dark against the sky towered the Great Pyramid, and over its apex hung the moon. Like a wreck cast ashore by some titanic storm, the Sphinx, reposing amid the undulating waves of grayish sand surrounding it, seemed for once to drowse.
Innocent Her Fancy and His Fact
The farmyard was terminated at its other end by a broad stone archway, which showed as in a semi-circular frame the glint of scarlet geraniums in the distance, and in the shadow cast by this embrasure was the small unobtrusive figure of a gir
F. Marion Crawford
An American Politician by F. Marion Crawford
"Mrs. Wyndham," began Vancouver again after a pause, "I have an idea -- do not laugh, it is a very good one, I am sure."
Claudius by F. Marion Crawford
"Yes, I am certainly very old," he said again, rapping absently on the arm of the chair with the pen he held. But the fingers that held the instrument were neither thin nor withered, and there was no trembling in the careless motion of the hand.
The Little City Of Hope by F. Marion Crawford
Such was the position when John Henry sat down upon the lid of Pandora's box in a sunny corner of the Central Park and reflected on Mr. Burnside's remark that "there was plenty of hope about."
Whosoever Shall Offend by F. Marion Crawford
it was much pleasanter to drown in the end than never to have had the chance of swimming in the big stream at all, and bumping sides
with the really big fish, and feeling oneself as good as any of them.
Don Orsino by F. Marion Crawford
But there have been other and greater deaths, beside which the mortality of a whole society of noblemen sinks into insignificance. An empire is dead and another has arisen in the din of a vast war, begotten in bloodshed
A Roman Singer by F. Marion Crawford
He was an ugly little boy, with a hat of no particular shape and a dirty face. He had great black eyes, with ink-saucers under them,
calamai, as we say, just as he has now. Only the eyes are bigger now, and the circles deeper.
By the Waters of Paradise by F. Marion Crawford
"It's the Woman of the Water," she used to say; and sometimes she would threaten that if I did not go to sleep the Woman of the Water would steal up to the high window and carry me away in her wet arms.
The Children of the King by F. Marion Crawford
Sail straight across the wide gulf of Salerno, and when you are over give the Licosa Point a wide berth, for the water is shallow and there are reefs along shore.
Saracinesca by F. Marion Crawford
But my business is with Rome, and not with Europe at large. I intend to tell the story of certain persons, of their good and bad fortune, their adventures, and the complications in which they found themselves placed during a period of about twenty years.
A Tale of a Lonely Parish by F. Marion Crawford
The weather was warm and
sultry, the trees were all in full leaf and Cambridge was deserted. Only a few hard-reading men, who stayed up during the Long, wandered out with books at the backs of the colleges or strayed slowly through the empty courts, objects of considerable interest to the youths who had come up
for the entrance examination
Taquisara by F. Marion Crawford
"I thank you with all my heart!" she cried. "It is a proof of affection which I shall never forget! You will live a hundred years--a thousand, if God will it! But the mere wish to leave me your fortune is a token of love and esteem which I shall know how to value."
The Primadonna by F. Marion Crawford
When the accident happened, Cordova was singing the mad scene in Lucia for the last time in that season, and she had never sung it better.
The Upper Berth F. Marion Crawford
Everybody stopped talking. Brisbane's voice was not loud, but possessed a peculiar quality of penetrating general conversation, and cutting it like a knife. Everybody listened. Brisbane, perceiving that he had attracted their general attention, lit his cigar with great equanimity.
For the Blood is the Life
"Perhaps it is. But the inexplicable part of the matter is that it makes no difference whether the moon is rising or setting, or waxing or waning. If there's any moonlight at all, from east or west or overhead, so long as it shines on the grave you can see the outline of the body on top."
Katharine Lauderdale
"For that matter," said Bright, "the fact is about as illusory as the illusion itself. If you insist upon being considered as one of the Lauderdale tribe, we're glad to have you on your own merits -- but you'll get nothing out of it but the glory --"
The Heart of Rome
She was not pleased, and spoke with excessive coldness when she asked if Donna Clementina was at home. The porter stood motionless beside the cab, leaning on his broom. After a pause he said in a rather strange voice that Donna Clementina was certainly in, but that he
could not tell whether she were awake or not.
Sant' Ilario
Anastase was an artist by nature and no amount of military service could crush the chief aspirations of his intelligence. He had not abandoned work since he had joined the Zouaves, for his hours of leisure from duty were passed in his studio.
In The Palace Of The King
Inez sat opposite her sister, at the other end of the table, listening. She knew what Dolores was doing, how during long months her sister had written a letter, from time to time, in little fragments, to give to the man she loved, to slip into his hand at the first brief meeting or to drop at his feet in her glove
The Witch Of Prague A Fantastic Tale
He who loves with his whole soul has a knowledge and a learning which surpass the wisdom of those who spend their lives in the study of things living or long dead, or never animate. They, indeed, can construct the figure of a flower from the dried web of a single leaf
The Screaming Skull by F. Marion Crawford
I have often heard it scream. No, I am not nervous, I am not imaginative, and I never believed in ghosts, unless that thing is one. Whatever it is, it hates me almost as much as it hated Luke Pratt, and it screams at me.
Greifenstein
Poverty is too insignificant a word to describe the state in which the mother and daughter lived, and had lived for many years. They had no means of subsistence whatever beyond the pension accorded to the widow of Lieutenant von Sigmundskron, 'fallen on the field of honour,' as the official report had expressed it, in the murderous war with France.
Via Crucis A Romance of the Second Crusade
In the morning, and after dinner, and before sunset, she came every day to the little garden under the west wall of the manor, and looked long toward the road--not that she wished Sir Raymond back, nor that she cared when Gilbert came, but she well knew that the return of either would mean that the fighting was over, and that Sir Arnold, too, would be at leisure to go home.
Mr. Isaacs
In spite of Jean-Jacques and his school, men are not everywhere born
free, any more than they are everywhere in chains, unless these be of
their own individual making. Especially in countries where excessive
liberty or excessive tyranny favours the growth of that class most
usually designated as adventurers
Man Overboard!
Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster
Marietta
A Cigarette-Maker's Romance
The Children of the King
The White Sister
Charles Dickens
Bleak House
It is not a large world. Relatively even to this world of ours, which has its limits too (as your Highness shall find when you have made the tour of it and are come to the brink of the void beyond), it is a very little speck. There is much good in it; there are many good and true people in it; it has its appointed place. But the evil of it is that it is a world wrapped up in too much jeweller's cotton and fine wool, and cannot hear the rushing of the larger worlds, and cannot see them as they circle round the sun. It is a deadened world, and its growth is sometimes unhealthy for want of air.
A Tale of Two Cities
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
David Copperfield
In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was declared by the nurse, and by some sage women in the neighbourhood who had taken a lively interest in me several months before there was any possibility of our becoming personally acquainted, first, that I was destined to be unlucky in life; and secondly, that I was privileged to see ghosts and spirits; both these gifts inevitably
attaching, as they believed, to all unlucky infants of either gender, born towards the small hours on a Friday night.
The Old Curiosity Shop
One night I had roamed into the City, and was walking slowly on in my usual way, musing upon a great many things, when I was arrested by an inquiry, the purport of which did not reach me, but which seemed to be addressed to myself, and was preferred in a soft sweet voice that struck me very pleasantly. I turned hastily round and found at my elbow a pretty little girl, who begged to be directed to a certain street at a considerable distance, and indeed in quite another quarter of the town.
Hard Times
'Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!'
Holiday Romance
This beginning-part is not made out of anybody's head, you know. It's real. You must believe this beginning-part more than what comes after, else you won't understand how what comes after came to
be written.
The Haunted Man and The Ghost's Bargain
Far be it from me to assert that what everybody says must be true. Everybody is, often, as likely to be wrong as right. In the general experience, everybody has been wrong so often, and it has taken, in most instances, such a weary while to find out how wrong, that the authority is proved to be fallible.
The Pickwick Papers
The first ray of light which illumines the gloom, and converts into a dazzling brilliancy that obscurity in which the earlier history of the public career of the immortal Pickwick would appear to be involved, is derived from the perusal of the following
entry in the Transactions of the Pickwick Club
The Chimes
For the night-wind has a dismal trick of wandering round and round a building of that sort, and moaning as it goes; and of trying,
with its unseen hand, the windows and the doors; and seeking out some crevices by which to enter. And when it has got in; as one not finding what it seeks, whatever that may be, it wails and howls
to issue forth again
Oliver Twist or The Parish Boy's Progress
Along this same footpath, Oliver well-remembered he had trotted beside Mr. Bumble, when he first carried him to the workhouse from the farm. His way lay directly in front of the cottage. His heart beat quickly when he bethought himself of this; and he half resolved to turn back.
Great Expectations
I give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the authority of his tombstone and my sister - Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived from their tombstones.
American Notes For General Circulation
IN all the public establishments of America, the utmost courtesy prevails. Most of our Departments are susceptible of considerable improvement in this respect, but the Custom-house above all others would do well to take example from the United States and render itself somewhat less odious and offensive to foreigners.
Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit
It was pretty late in the autumn of the year, when the declining sun struggling through the mist which had obscured it all day, looked brightly down upon a little Wiltshire village, within an easy
journey of the fair old town of Salisbury.
Little Dorrit
The man who lay on the ledge of the grating was even chilled. He jerked his great cloak more heavily upon him by an impatient
movement of one shoulder, and growled, 'To the devil with this
Brigand of a Sun that never shines in here!'
The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby
here once lived, in a sequestered part of the county of Devonshire, one Mr Godfrey Nickleby: a worthy gentleman, who, taking it into his head rather late in life that he must get married, and not being
young enough or rich enough to aspire to the hand of a lady of
fortune, had wedded an old flame out of mere attachment, who in her
turn had taken him for the same reason. Thus two people who cannot
afford to play cards for money, sometimes sit down to a quiet game
for love.
Barnaby Rudge A Tale Of The Riots Of 'Eighty
'It was just such a night as this; blowing a hurricane, raining heavily, and very dark--I often think now, darker than I ever saw it before or since; that may be my fancy, but the houses were all close shut and the folks in doors, and perhaps there is only one other man who knows how dark it really was.
The Wreck of the Golden Mary
I was apprenticed to the Sea when I was twelve years old, and I have encountered a great deal of rough weather, both literal and
metaphorical. It has always been my opinion since I first possessed such a thing as an opinion, that the man who knows only one subject is next tiresome to the man who knows no subject. Therefore, in the course of my life I have taught myself whatever I could, and although I am not an educated man, I am able, I am thankful to say, to have an intelligent interest in most things.
The Uncommercial Traveller
Even as I stood on the beach with the words 'Here she went down!' in my ears, a diver in his grotesque dress, dipped heavily over the
side of the boat alongside the Lighter, and dropped to the bottom. On the shore by the water's edge, was a rough tent, made of fragments of wreck, where other divers and workmen sheltered
themselves, and where they had kept Christmas-day with rum and roast beef, to the destruction of their frail chimney.
Tom Tiddler's Ground
Mr. Traveller looked all around him on Tom Tiddler's ground, and his glance at last encountered a dusky Tinker lying among the weeds and rank grass, in the shade of the dwelling-house. A rough walking-staff lay on the ground by his side, and his head rested on a small wallet.
To Be Read at Dusk
The mountain in the sunset had stopped the five couriers in a conversation. It is a sublime sight, likely to stop conversation.
The mountain being now out of the sunset, they resumed. Not that I had heard any part of their previous discourse; for indeed, I had not then broken away from the American gentleman, in the
travellers' parlour of the convent, who, sitting with his face to the fire, had undertaken to realise to me the whole progress of events which had led to the accumulation by the Honourable Ananias Dodger of one of the largest acquisitions of dollars ever made in our country.
Sunday Under Three Heads
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.
Speeches: Literary and Social
You are a sailor, Captain Hewett, in the truest sense of the word; and the devoted admiration of the ladies, God bless them, is a
sailor's first boast. I need not enlarge upon the honour they have done you, I am sure, by their presence here. Judging of you by myself, I am certain that the recollection of their beautiful faces will cheer your lonely vigils upon the ocean for a long time to come.
Somebody's Luggage
here was a Cemetery outside the town, and it happened ill for the reputation of the Vaubanois, in this sentimental connection, that he
took a walk there that same afternoon.
Sketches of Young Gentlemen
We found ourself seated at a small dinner party the other day, opposite a stranger of such singular appearance and manner, that he
irresistibly attracted our attention.
Sketches of Young Couples
There is to be a wedding this morning at the corner house in the terrace. The pastry-cook's people have been there half-a-dozen
times already; all day yesterday there was a great stir and bustle, and they were up this morning as soon as it was light. Miss Emma Fielding is going to be married to young Mr. Harvey.
Sketches by Boz
He has been one of those men one occasionally hears of, on whom misfortune seems to have set her mark; nothing he ever did, or was concerned in, appears to have prospered. A rich old relation who had brought him up, and openly announced his intention of providing for him, left him 10,000 pounds. in his will, and revoked the bequest in a codicil.
The Seven Poor Travellers
It was the witching time for Story-telling. "Our whole life, Travellers," said I, "is a story more or less intelligible,--
generally less; but we shall read it by a clearer light when it is ended. I, for one, am so divided this night between fact and fiction, that I scarce know which is which. Shall I beguile the time by telling you a story as we sit here?"
Reprinted Pieces
When the wind is blowing and the sleet of rain is driving against the dark windows, I love to sit by the fire, thinking of what I
have read in books of voyage and travel. Such books have had a strong fascination for my mind from my earliest childhood; and I wonder it should have come to pass that I never have been round the world, never have been shipwrecked, ice-environed, tomahawked, or eaten.
Pictures From Italy
There was, of course, very little in the aspect of Paris - as we rattled near the dismal Morgue and over the Pont Neuf - to reproach us for our Sunday travelling. The wine-shops (every second house) were driving a roaring trade; awnings were spreading, and chairs and tables arranging, outside the cafes, preparatory to the eating of ices, and drinking of cool liquids, later in the day; shoe-blacks were busy on the bridges; shops were open; carts and waggons clattered to and fro; the narrow, up-hill, funnel-like streets across the River, were so many dense perspectives of crowd and bustle, parti-coloured night-caps, tobacco-pipes, blouses, large boots, and shaggy heads of hair;
The Perils of Certain English Prisoners
It was in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and forty-four, that I, Gill Davis to command, His Mark, having then the
honour to be a private in the Royal Marines, stood a-leaning over the bulwarks of the armed sloop Christopher Columbus, in the South American waters off the Mosquito shore.
Our Mutual Friend
The figures in this boat were those of a strong man with ragged grizzled hair and a sun-browned face, and a dark girl of nineteen or
twenty, sufficiently like him to be recognizable as his daughter. The girl rowed, pulling a pair of sculls very easily; the man, with the rudder-lines slack in his hands, and his hands loose in his waistband, kept an eager look out. He had no net, hook, or line, and he could not be a fisherman; his boat had no cushion for a sitter, no paint, no inscription, no appliance beyond a rusty boathook and a coil of rope, and he could not be a waterman; his boat was too crazy and too small to take in cargo for delivery, and he could not be a lighterman or river-carrier; there was no clue to what he looked for, but he looked for something, with a most intent and searching gaze.
No Thoroughfare
The moon is at the full, and the night is fair with light clouds. The day has been otherwise than fair, for slush and mud, thickened with the droppings of heavy fog, lie black in the streets. The veiled lady who flutters up and down near the postern-gate of the Hospital for Foundling Children has need to be well shod to-night.
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
How can the ancient English Cathedral tower be here! The well-known massive gray square tower of its old Cathedral? How can that be here! There is no spike of rusty iron in the air, between the eye and it, from any point of the real prospect. What is the spike that intervenes, and who has set it up? Maybe it is set up by the Sultan's orders for the impaling of a horde of Turkish robbers, one by one. It is so, for cymbals clash, and the Sultan goes by to his palace in long procession. Ten thousand scimitars flash in the sunlight, and thrice ten thousand dancing-girls strew flowers. Then, follow white elephants caparisoned in countless gorgeous colours, and infinite in number and attendants.
The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices
he misguided young men who thus shirked their duty to the mistress from whom they had received many favours, were actuated by the low idea of making a perfectly idle trip, in any direction. They had no intention of going anywhere in particular; they wanted to see nothing, they wanted to know nothing, they wanted to learn nothing, they wanted to do nothing.
The Lamplighter
'Tom turns pale when he hears the old gentleman expressing himself to this unpleasant effect, and stammers out that if it's quite
agreeable to all parties, he would like to know exactly what has happened, and what change has really taken place in the prospects of that company.
Hunted Down
I had never been in those chambers before. They were dismal, close, unwholesome, and oppressive; the furniture, originally good,
and not yet old, was faded and dirty, - the rooms were in great disorder; there was a strong prevailing smell of opium, brandy, and tobacco; the grate and fire-irons were splashed all over with unsightly blotches of rust; and on a sofa by the fire, in the room where breakfast had been prepared,
The Holly Tree
It happened in the memorable year when I parted for ever from Angela Leath, whom I was shortly to have married, on making the discovery that she preferred my bosom friend. From our school-days I had freely admitted Edwin, in my own mind, to be far superior to myself; and, though I was grievously wounded at heart, I felt the preference to be natural, and tried to forgive them both. It was under these circumstances that I resolved to go to America--on my way to the Devil.
Dombey and Son
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
Doctor Marigold
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?
The Cricket on the Hearth
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 kettle began it, full five minutes by the little waxy-faced Dutch clock in the corner, before the Cricket uttered a chirp.
A Christmas Carol
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.
A Child's History of England
IF you look at a Map of the World, you will see, in the left-hand upper corner of the Eastern Hemisphere, two Islands lying in the sea. They are England and Scotland, and Ireland. England and Scotland form the greater part of these Islands. Ireland is the next in size. The little neighbouring islands, which are so small upon the Map as to be mere dots, are chiefly little bits of Scotland, - broken off, I dare say, in the course of a great length of time, by the power of the restless water.
Master Humphrey's Clock
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.
A Message From the Sea
Captain Jorgan had to look high to look at it, for the village was built sheer up the face of a steep and lofty cliff. There was no
road in it, there was no wheeled vehicle in it, there was not a level yard in it. From the sea-beach to the cliff-top two irregular rows of white houses, placed opposite to one another, and twisting here and there, and there and here, rose, like the sides of a long succession of stages of crooked ladders,
No.1 Branch Line The Signalman
When he heard a voice thus calling him, he was standing at the door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short pole. One would have thought, considering the nature of the ground, that he could not have doubted from what quarter the voice came; but, instead of looking up to where I stood on the top of the steep cutting nearly over his head, he turned himself about and looked down the Line.
Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy
Mentioning Mr. Baffle gives an instance of there being good in persons where good is not expected, for it cannot be denied that Mr. Buffle's manners when engaged in his business were not agreeable
Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings
am an old woman now and my good looks are gone but that's me my dear over the plate-warmer and considered like in the times when you used to pay two guineas on ivory and took your chance pretty much how you came out, which made you very careful how you left it about afterwards because people were turned so red and uncomfortable by mostly guessing it was somebody else quite different,
Alexandre Dumas
The Three Musketeers Vol. I
There were nobles, who made war against each other; there was the king, who made war against the cardinal; there was Spain,
which made war against the king. Then, in addition to these
concealed or public, secret or open wars, there were robbers,
mendicants, Huguenots, wolves, and scoundrels, who made war upon everybody.
Ten Years Later The Three Musketeers Vol. II
He was a young man of from twenty-four to twenty-five years of age, tall and slender, wearing gracefully the picturesque
military costume of the period. His large boots contained a
foot which Mademoiselle de Montalais might not have disowned
if she had been transformed into a man. With one of his
delicate but nervous hands he checked his horse in the
middle of the court, and with the other raised his hat,
whose long plumes shaded his at once serious and ingenuous countenance.
Twenty Years After The Three Musketeers Vol. III
In a splendid chamber of the Palais Royal, formerly styled the Palais Cardinal, a man was sitting in deep reverie, his
head supported on his hands, leaning over a gilt and inlaid
table which was covered with letters and papers. Behind this
figure glowed a vast fireplace alive with leaping flames;
The Man In The Iron Mask More Musketeers
The man to whom we have just alluded walked along with a firm step, although he was no longer in his early prime. His dark cloak and long sword outlined beneath the cloak plainly revealed a man seeking
adventures; and judging from his curling mustaches, his fine and
smooth skin, as seen under his sombrero, the gallantry of his
adventures was unquestionable.
The Count of Monte Cristo One Large File!
"Yes," said Danglars, darting at Edmond a look gleaming with hate. "Yes, he is young, and youth is invariably
self-confident. Scarcely was the captain's breath out of his
body when he assumed the command without consulting any one,
and he caused us to lose a day and a half at the Island of
Elba, instead of making for Marseilles direct."
The Black Tulip
This daring miscreant detailed, with all the embellishments and flourishes suggested by his base mind and his ruffianly
imagination, the attempts which he pretended Cornelius de
Witt had made to corrupt him; the sums of money which were
promised, and all the diabolical stratagems planned
beforehand to smooth for him, Tyckelaer, all the
difficulties in the path of murder.
Marguerite de Valois
It was the night of the marriage of the French King's sister, Marguerite de Valois, to Henry, King of Navarre.
The marriage of a princess is most often a matter of state policy. It may be welcome or not to the one who is most concerned, but reasons which have led to its arrangement are usually easy to see. Yet this marriage had been an astonishment to the world.
Derues
Was it possible to be obedient, to refrain from the desire to spread one's wings? The scent of the meadows mounted to the heads of
the steadiest among them, and intoxicated even the most timid. It
was resolved to betray the confidence of the reverend fathers, even
at the risk of disgrace and punishment next morning, supposing the
escapade were discovered.
Camille (La Dame aux Camilias)
I was not long in discovering the reason of this astonishment and admiration, for, having begun to examine things a little
carefully, I discovered without difficulty that I was in the house of a kept woman. Now, if there is one thing which women in society would like to see (and there were society women there),
it is the home of those women whose carriages splash their own carriages day by day, who, like them, side by side with them, have their boxes at the Opera and at the Italiens, and who parade
in Paris the opulent insolence of their beauty, their diamonds, and their scandal.
Vaninka Alexandre Dumas, Pere
The serf upon whom Ivan was about to exercise his dexterity was a man of five or six-and-thirty, red of hair and beard, a little above average height. His Greek origin might be traced in his countenance, which even in its expression of terror had preserved its habitual characteristics of craft and cunning.
Massacres of the South Alexandre Dumas
The death of Henri IV led to new conflicts, in which although at first success was on the side of the Protestants it by degrees went over to the Catholics; for with the accession of Louis XIII Richelieu had taken possession of the throne
Mary Stuart Alexandre Dumas, pere
In the midst of this unlucky race, Mary Stuart was the favourite of misfortune. As Brantome has said of her, "Whoever desires to write about this illustrious queen of Scotland has, in her, two very, large subjects, the one her life, the other her death
The Vicomte de Bragelonne Alexandre Dumas
Whilst, however, the horses were climbing the steep acclivity which leads from the river to the castle, several shop-boys approached the last horse, from whose saddle-bow a number of birds were suspended by the beak
Celebrated Crimes, Complete Alexandre Dumas, Pere
The contents of these volumes of 'Celebrated Crimes', as well as the motives which led to their inception, are unique. They are a series of stories based upon historical records, from the pen of Alexandre
Dumas, pere, when he was not "the elder," nor yet the author of
D'Artagnan or Monte Cristo, but was a rising young dramatist and a
lion in the literary set and world of fashion.
The Corsican Brothers Alexandre Dumas
One thing only struck me with surprise--the house apparently fortified by machicoulis, which had first attracted my attention, was in reality not protected; that is, its windows had neither planks, nor bricks, nor loop-holes, but only common sashes, guarded at night by wooden shutters.
La Constantin Alexandre Dumas
Fashion had taken up its abode in the Marais,
near the Place Royale, and it was thither that profligate women and celebrated beauties now enticed the humming swarm of old rakes and young libertines.
The Cenci Alexandre Dumas
A pope like this could not reign long: he died after a year's pontificate. The morning after his death his physician's door was found decorated with garlands of flowers, bearing this inscription: "To the liberator of his country."
Marquise de Brinvilliers Alexandre Dumas
Sainte-Croix cast a rapid glance at the paper, and instantly recognised the signature of the minister of police: he then apparently confined his attention to the woman who was still in the carriage; then he returned to his first question.
Celebrated Crimes Alexandre Dumas
Scarcely had this smoke appeared, to vanish almost immediately, when all the innumerable crowd, knowing well that there was nothing else to wait for, and that all was said and done until ten o'clock the next morning
Ali Pacha Alexandre Dumas
Albania was one of the most difficult provinces to manage. Its inhabitants were poor, brave, and, the nature of the country was mountainous and inaccessible. The pashas had great difficulty in collecting tribute, because the people were given to fighting for their bread.
Urbain Grandier Alexandre Dumas, Pere
there was great excitement in
the little town of Loudun, especially in the narrow streets which led to the church of Saint-Pierre in the marketplace, from the gate of which the town was entered by anyone coming from the direction of the abbey of Saint-Jouin-les-Marmes. This excitement was caused by the
expected arrival of a personage who had been much in people's mouths latterly in Loudun, and about whom there was such difference of opinion that discussion on the subject between those who were on his side and those who were against him was carried on with true provincial acrimony.
Nisida Alexandre Dumas, Pere
The officer's profane allusion was lost in the prolonged murmur of admiration that suddenly rose from the crowd, and every gaze was
turned upon one of the young girls who was strewing flowers before the holy Madonna. She was an exquisite creature.
Murat Alexandre Dumas, Pere
Beyond this plain, glittering in the last rays of the sun, pale and motionless as a mirror lay the sea, and on the surface of the water glided one brig-of-war, which, taking advantage of a fresh land breeze, had all sails spread, and was bowling along rapidly, making for Italian seas.
Massacres of the South Alexandre Dumas, Pere
The mountains are the refuge of all rising or decaying sects; God has given to the powerful on earth city, plain, and sea, but the
mountains are the heritage of the oppressed.
Un Bal Masqué
I went up to him, therefore, with the half-bored face of an author interrupted in one of those moments of sorest self-mistrust, while I found him so pale and haggard that the first words I addressed to him were these:
"What is the matter? What has happened to you?"
"Oh! Let me take breath," said he. "I'm going to tell you all about it, besides, it's a dream perhaps, or perhaps I am mad."
Karl Ludwig Sand Alexander Dumas, Pere
Mannheim is seen rising calm and
smiling amid gardens which once were ramparts, and which now surround and embrace it like a girdle of foliage and flowers. Having reached this spot, he lifted his cap, above the peak of which were
embroidered three interlaced oak leaves in silver, and uncovering his brow, stood bareheaded for a moment to feel the fresh air that rose from the valley of the Neckar.
Joan of Naples Alexandre Dumas, Pere
In the night of the 15th of January 1343, while the inhabitants of Naples lay wrapped in peaceful slumber, they were suddenly awakened by the bells of the three hundred churches that this thrice blessed capital contains. In the midst of the disturbance caused by so rude a call the first bought in the mind of all was that the town was on fire, or that the army of some enemy had mysteriously landed under cover of night and could put the citizens to the edge of the sword.
A Gil Blas In California
Oh saintly hospitality! What makes you supreme and worthy of being revered is not only the fact of being offered without compensation, but also with a friendly voice and a smiling countenance. Saintly hospitality; undoubtedly you dwell at Montmorency; and Rousseau, who was not always entirely judicious, was fully aware of his acts when he asked for hospitality at La Chevrette.
The Countess of Saint Geran Alexandre Dumas, Pere
Then the young girl, pretending to have been roused by the noise, hindered the preparations by mislaying the saddlery, impeding the
horsemen instead of helping them; nevertheless, after a quarter of an hour, all the party were galloping along the road. The provost swore like a pagan.
Ange Pitou Alexandre Dumas
The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I Alexandre Dumas
The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II Alexandre Dumas
The Queen's Necklace Alexandre Dumas
Alexandre Dumas
Chicot the Jester Alexandre Dumas
E. M. Forster
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
And, indeed, a perfect torrent of information burst on them. People told them what to see, when to see it, how to stop the electric trams, how to get rid of the beggars, how much to give for a vellum blotter, how much the place would grow upon them.
Where Angels Fear to Tread
The good-natured young man hurried away, and Philip, taking his place, flooded her with a final stream of advice and injunctions -- where to stop, how to learn Italian, when to use mosquito-nets, what pictures to look at. "Remember," he concluded, "that it is only by going off the track that you get to know the country.
The Longest Journey
It was philosophy. They were discussing the existence of objects.
Do they exist only when there is some one to look at them? Or
have they a real existence of their own? It is all very
interesting, but at the same time it is difficult. Hence the cow.
Howards End
The train sped northward, under innumerable tunnels. It was only an hour's journey, but Mrs. Munt had to raise and lower the window again and again. She passed through the South Welwyn Tunnel, saw light for a moment, and entered the North Welwyn Tunnel, of tragic fame. She traversed the immense viaduct, whose arches span untroubled meadows and the dreamy flow of Tewin Water.
The Machine Stops
Imagine, if you can, a small room, hexagonal in shape, like the cell of a bee. It is lighted neither by window nor by lamp, yet it is filled with a soft radiance. There are no apertures for ventilation, yet the air is fresh. There are no musical instruments, and yet, at the moment that my meditation opens, this room is throbbing with melodious sounds. An armchair is in the centre, by its side a reading-desk-that is all the furniture. And in the armchair there sits a swaddled lump of flesh-a woman, about five feet high, with a face as white as a fungus. It is to her that the little room belongs.
H. Rider Haggard
King Solomon's Mines
Well, it is eighteen months or so ago since first I met Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good. It was in this way. I had been up elephant hunting beyond Bamangwato, and had met with bad luck. Everything went
wrong that trip, and to top up with I got the fever badly.
Nada the Lily
She is said to be robed in white, and to take the form of a young maiden, in fact an angel. She is said to
appear to some chosen person, to whom she imparts some revelation;
but, whatever that revelation may be, it is kept a profound secret
from outsiders. I remember that, just before the Zulu war,
Nomkubulwana appeared, revealing something or other which had a great
effect throughout the land, and I know that the Zulus were quite
impressed that some calamity was about to befall them.
Montezuma's Daughter
Now glory be to God who has given us the victory! It is true, the strength of Spain is shattered, her ships are sunk or fled, the sea has swallowed her soldiers and her sailors by hundreds and by thousands, and England breathes again. They came to conquer, to bring us to the torture and the stake--to do to us free Englishmen as Cortes did by the Indians of Anahuac.
Marie by H. Rider Haggard
It is, however, with an earlier Africa that this story deals. In 1836, hate and suspicion ran high between the Home Government and its Dutch subjects. Owing to the freeing of the slaves and mutual
misunderstandings, the Cape Colony was then in tumult, almost in
rebellion, and the Boers, by thousands, sought new homes in the unknown,
savage-peopled North.
Finished
I nodded sagely and he departed. Then I went to my wagon to tell the boys not to send the oxen off to graze at present, for I
feared lest they should be stolen if there were trouble, but to
keep them tied to the trek-tow. After this I put on the best
coat and hat I had, feeling that as an Englishman it was my duty
to look decent on such an occasion, washed, brushed my hair--with
me a ceremony without meaning, for it always sticks up
When the World Shook by H. Rider Haggard
No, I will make an exception, the East did interest me enormously. There it was, at Benares, that I came into touch with
certain thinkers who opened my eyes to a great deal. They
released some hidden spring in my nature which hitherto had
always been striving to break through the crust of our
conventions and inherited ideas. I know now that what I was
seeking was nothing less than the Infinite;
Child of Storm
he
swam his horse across the Tugela and hid with it in a bush-clad kopje,
blindfolding the animal with his coat lest it should betray him. As it
chanced, the great fight of the day, that of the regiment of veterans,
which Sir Melmoth informed me Panda had sent down at the last moment to
the assistance of Umbelazi, his favourite son, took place almost at the
foot of this kopje.
Allan Quatermain
Ah! this civilization, what does it all come to? For forty years and more I lived among savages, and studied them and their ways;
and now for several years I have lived here in England, and have
in my own stupid manner done my best to learn the ways of the
children of light; and what have I found?
Queen Sheba's Ring
This brings me to the real story. There is nobody else to write it; Oliver will not; Higgs cannot (outside of anything learned and
antiquarian, he is hopeless); so I must. At any rate, if it is not interesting, the fault will be mine, not that of the story, which in all conscience is strange enough.
Love Eternal
More than thirty years ago two atoms of the eternal Energy sped forth from the heart of it which we call God, and incarnated themselves in the human shapes that were destined to hold them for a while
Stories by English Authors Long Odds
We wrapped up our treasure, and made our way across the hills toward
home. On the way, Tom told me how, while a law student in the Middle
Temple, he had come upon a dusty pamphlet in the library, by one Jans
van Hounym, which told of an experience very similar to ours, which
had befallen that worthy Dutchman in the latter part of the
seventeenth century, and which resulted in the discovery of a luminous
diamond.
The Yellow God
It was a very magnificent office, quite one of the finest that could be found within half a mile of the Mansion House. Its exterior
was built of Aberdeen granite, a material calculated to impress the prospective investor with a comfortable sense of security. Other stucco, or even brick-built, offices might crumble and fall in an actual or a financial sense, but this rock-like edifice of granite, surmounted by a life-sized statue of Justice with her scales
Allan's Wife
When his death was known, his papers were handed to myself as his literary executor. Among them I found two manuscripts, of which the following is one. The other is simply a record of events wherein Mr. Quatermain was not personally concerned
Beatrice
The autumn afternoon was fading into evening. It had been cloudy weather, but the clouds had softened and broken up. Now they were lost in slowly darkening blue. The sea was perfectly and utterly still. It seemed to sleep, but in its sleep it still waxed with the rising tide. The eye could not mark its slow increase, but Beatrice, standing upon the farthest point of the Dog Rocks
Benita
Beautiful, beautiful was that night! No air that stirred; the black smoke from the funnels of the mail steamer Zanzibar lay low over the surface of the sea like vast, floating ostrich plumes that vanished one by one in the starlight.
The Brethren
Standing a while ago upon the flower-clad plain above Tiberius, by the Lake of Galilee, the writer gazed at the double peaks of the Hill of Hattin. Here, or so tradition says, Christ preached the Sermon on the Mount
Black Heart and White Heart
it is certain that he had
emigrated to Natal under a cloud, and equally certain that his
relatives at home were content to take no further interest in his
fortunes. During the fifteen or sixteen years which he had spent in or
about the colony, Hadden followed many trades, and did no good at any of them.
Cleopatra
In the recesses of the desolate Libyan mountains that lie behind the temple and city of Abydus, the supposed burying place of the holy Osiris, a tomb was recently discovered, among the contents of which were the papyrus rolls whereupon this history is written.
Eric Brighteyes
"Eric Brighteyes" is a romance founded on the Icelandic Sagas. "What is a saga?" "Is it a fable or a true story?" The answer is not altogether simple. For such sagas as those of Burnt Njal and Grettir the Strong partake both of truth and fiction: historians dispute as to the proportions. This was the manner of the saga's growth: In the early days of the Iceland community
The Ivory Child
Now I, Allan Quatermain, come to the story of what was, perhaps, one of the strangest of all the adventures which have befallen me in the course of a life that so far can scarcely be called tame or humdrum.
Elissa
The sun, which shone upon a day that was gathered to the past some three thousand years ago, was setting in full glory over the expanses of south-eastern Africa -- the Libya of the ancients. Its last burning rays fell upon a cavalcade of weary men, who, together with long strings of camels, asses and oxen, after much toil had struggled to the crest of a line of stony hills, where they were halted to recover breath. Before them lay a plain, clothed with sere yellow grass
Long Odds
It was on the last evening of my stay at his house that he told the ensuing story to me and Captain Good, who was dining with him. He had eaten his dinner and drunk two or three glasses of old port, just to help Good and myself to the end of the second bottle. It was an unusual thing for him to do, for he was a most abstemious man, having conceived, as he used to say, a great horror of drink from observing
its effects upon the class of men
Maiwa's Revenge
One day -- it was about a week after Allan Quatermain told me his story of the "Three Lions," and of the moving death of Jim-Jim -- he and I were walking home together on the termination of a day's shooting. He
owned about two thousand acres of shooting round the place he had bought in Yorkshire, over a hundred of which were wood.
Moon of Israel,
We walked down a broad street bordered by trees, beyond which were lime-washed, flat-roofed houses built of sun-dried brick, standing, each of them, in its own garden, till at length we came to the great market-place just as the full moon rose above the palm-trees, making the world almost as light as day.
Morning Star
It was morning at Thebes, and the great city glowed in the rays of the new-risen sun. In a royal barge sat Abi the prince, splendidly apparelled, and with him Kaku, his astrologer, his captain of the guard and three other of his officers
The Wanderer's Necklace
Of my childhood in this Olaf life I can regain but little. There come to me, however, recollections of a house, surrounded by a moat, situated in a great plain near to seas or inland lakes, on which plain stood mounds that I connected with the dead.
Hunter Quatermain's Story
Sir Henry Curtis, as everybody acquainted with him knows, is one of the most hospitable men on earth. It was in the course of the
enjoyment of his hospitality at his place in Yorkshire the other day that I heard the hunting story which I am now about to transcribe. Many of those who read it will no doubt have heard some of the strange rumours that are flying about to the effect that Sir Henry Curtis and his friend Captain Good
Red Eve
They knew nothing of it in England or all the Western countries in those days before Crecy was fought, when the third Edward sat upon the throne. There was none to tell them of the doom that the East, whence come light and life, death and the decrees of God, had loosed upon the world. Not one in a multitude in Europe
She
There are some events of which each circumstance and surrounding detail seems to be graven on the memory in such fashion that we cannot forget it, and so it is with the scene that I am about to describe. It rises as clearly before my mind at this moment as thought it had happened but yesterday.
Swallow
The girl, Suzanne Kenzie, my great-
granddaughter, who writes this, alone is left of my blood, since her father and grandfather, who was our adopted son, and the husband of our only child, fell in the Zulu war fighting with the English against Cetywayo.
Stella Fregelius
A man leaned on the low wall that bordered the cliff edge, and looked at sea beneath and sky above. Then he contemplated the horizon, and murmured some line heard or learnt in childhood, ending "where earth and heaven meet."
Smith And The Pharaohs
During his visit of the previous year Smith had marked the place where he meant to dig. It was in the cemetery of old Thebes, at the wild spot not far from the temple of Medinet Habu, that is known as the Valley of the Queens. Here, separated from the resting-places of their
royal lords by the bold mass of the intervening hill, some of the greatest ladies of Egypt have been laid to rest, and it was their tombs that Smith desired to investigate.
Jess
Suddenly the whirlwind, which had been travelling along smartly, halted, and the dust, after revolving a few times in the air like a dying top, slowly began to disperse in the accustomed fashion. The man on the horse halted also, and contemplated it in an absent kind of way.
Allan and The Ice-Gods
Elsewhere I have told how, years after our joint adventure into Central Africa, once again I came into touch with the widowed Lady Ragnall and allowed myself to be persuaded in her company to inhale the charmed smoke of the Taduki herb
Heu-Heu or The Monster
"I know that this is the case with snakes," he continued hurriedly as though to avoid the larger topic, "for once I came across one as large as the biggest Anaconda that is told of in South America, where occasionally they are said to reach a length of sixty feet or more.
Doctor Therne
At length I arranged to start for the City of Mexico, to which in those days the journey from Vera Cruz was performed by diligence as the railway as not yet finished.
Child Of Storm
These survivors ran to a mound, round which they formed a ring, and here for a long while withstood the attack of a third regiment, until at length they perished almost to a man, buried beneath heaps of their slain assailants, the Usutu.
The Lady Of Blossholme
The old farmsteads and the few halls in which reside the gentry of the district, stand where they always stood. The glorious tower of the Abbey still points
upwards to the sky, although bells and roof are gone, while half-a-mile away the parish church that was there before it
Ayesha
Often I have wondered, idly enough, what happened to them there; whether they were dead, or perhaps droning their lives away as monks in some Thibetan Lamasery, or studying magic and practising asceticism under the tuition of the Eastern Masters
Allan And The Holy Flower
Mr. Scroope was a rich man and as he offered to pay all the expenses of the expedition while I was to take all the profit in the shape of ivory or anything else that might accrue, of course I did not decline his proposal.
The Mahatma and the Hare
It may be asked how I came to know Jorsen. Well, in a strange way. Nearly thirty years ago a dreadful thing happened to me. I was married and, although still young, a person of some mark in literature. Indeed even now one or two of the books which I wrote are read and remembered, although it is supposed that their author has long left the world.
The Virgin of the Sun
Off he went crawling down the dusky stairs and leaving me wondering what Mrs. Potts, of whom now I heard for the first time, could have been like. An aggravating woman
The Wizard
It was a beautiful church, ancient and spacious; moreover, it had recently been restored at great cost. Seven or eight hundred people could have found sittings in it, and doubtless they had done so when Busscombe was a large manufacturing town, before the failure of the coal supply and other causes drove away its trade. Now it was much what it had been in the time of the Normans
The World's Desire
Across the wide backs of the waves, beneath the mountains, and between the islands, a ship came stealing from the dark into the dusk, and from the dusk into the dawn. The ship had but one mast, one broad brown sail with a star embroidered on it in gold; her stem and stern were built high, and curved like a bird's beak
A Tale of Three Lions
we went back again, and now for many months I have heard nothing at all of him, and to be frank, I greatly doubt if anybody will ever hear of him again. I fear that the wilderness, that has for so many years been a mother to him
Queen of the Dawn
They failed because they were too weak, indeed the hour of their final victory was yet far away and of it our tale does not tell.
Thomas Hardy
Far From The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
His Christian name was Gabriel, and on working days he was a young man of sound judgment, easy motions, proper dress, and
general good character. On Sundays he was a man of misty
views, rather given to postponing, and hampered by his best
clothes and umbrella:
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman
"At first I resolved not to disturb you with such a useless piece of information," said he. "However, our
impulses are too strong for our judgement sometimes.
I thought you might perhaps know something of it all the
while."
Wessex Tales
Hardly had they sat
down to tea when the landlady called. Her gentleman, she said, had
been so obliging as to offer to give up his rooms for three or four
weeks rather than drive the new-comers away.
The Three Strangers
When the shepherd and his family who tenanted the house were pitied for their sufferings from the exposure, they said that upon the whole they were less inconvenienced by 'wuzzes and flames' (hoarses and phlegms) than when they had lived by the stream of a snug neighbouring valley.
A Group of Noble Dames
The season was winter, in days long ago, the last century having run but little more than a third of its length. North, south, and west, not a casement was unfastened, not a curtain undrawn; eastward, one window on the upper floor was open, and a girl of twelve or thirteen was leaning over the sill. That she had not taken up the position for purposes of observation was apparent at a glance, for she kept her eyes covered with her hands.
A Laodicean
Instead of entering he passed round to where the stove-chimney came through the bricks, and holding on to the iron stay he
put his toes on the plinth and looked in at the window.
The Hand Of Ethelberta
Young Mrs. Petherwin stepped from the door of an old and well-appointed inn in a Wessex town to take a country walk. By her look
and carriage she appeared to belong to that gentle order of society
which has no worldly sorrow except when its jewellery gets stolen
Desperate Remedies
Graye was handsome, frank, and gentle. He had a quality of thought which, exercised on homeliness, was humour; on nature,
picturesqueness; on abstractions, poetry. Being, as a rule, broadcast, it was all three.
A Changed Man And Other Tales
This playing at ghosts was the most innocent of the amusements indulged in by the choice young spirits who inhabited the lichened, red-brick building at the top of the town bearing 'W.D.' and a broad arrow on its quoins.
A Pair of Blue Eyes
Elfride Swancourt was a girl whose emotions lay very near the surface. Their nature more precisely, and as modified by the
creeping hours of time, was known only to those who watched the
circumstances of her history.
Return of the Native
A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known
as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment.
Overhead the hollow stretch of whitish cloud shutting
out the sky was as a tent which had the whole heath for its floor.
The Mayor of Casterbridge
What was really peculiar, however, in this couple's progress, and would have attracted the attention of any
casual observer otherwise disposed to overlook them, was the
perfect silence they preserved. They walked side by side in
such a way as to suggest afar off the low, easy,
confidential chat of people full of reciprocity;
Jude the Obscure
The rector had gone away for the day, being a man who disliked the sight of changes. He did not mean to return till the evening,
when the new school-teacher would have arrived and settled in,
and everything would be smooth again.
The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy
a deserted highway expresses solitude to a degree that is not reached by mere dales or downs, and bespeaks a
tomb-like stillness more emphatic than that of glades and pools.
The contrast of what is with what might be probably accounts for this.
The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion
Phyllis told me the story with her own lips. She was then an old lady of seventy-five, and her auditor a lad of fifteen. She enjoined silence as to her share in the incident, till she should be "dead, buried and forgotten."
The Thieves Who Couldn't Stop Sneezing
One cold Christmas Eve his father, having no other help at hand, sent him on an important errand to a small town several miles from home. He travelled on horseback, and was detained by the business till a late hour of the evening. At last, however, it was completed; he returned to the inn, the horse was saddled, and he started on his way.
Squire Petrick's Lady
Indeed, I can't call to mind half his landed possessions, and I don't know that it matters much at this time of day, seeing that he's been dead and gone many years. It is said that when he bought an estate he would not decide to pay the price till he had walked over every single acre with his own two feet,
Life's Little Ironies
To the eyes of a man viewing it from behind, the nut-brown hair was a wonder and a mystery. Under the black beaver hat, surmounted by its tuft of black feathers, the long locks, braided and twisted and coiled like the rushes of a basket, composed a rare, if somewhat barbaric, example of ingenious art.
The Trumpet-Major
In the days of high-waisted and muslin-gowned women, when the vast amount of soldiering going on in the country was a cause of much trembling to the sex, there lived in a village near the Wessex coast two ladies of good report, though unfortunately of limited means. The elder was a Mrs. Martha Garland, a landscape-painter's widow, and the other was her only daughter Anne.
Two on a Tower
She walked round the column to the other side, where she found the door through which the interior was reached. The paint, if it had ever had any, was all washed from the wood, and down the decaying surface of the boards liquid rust from the nails and hinges had run in red stains. Over the door was a stone tablet, bearing, apparently, letters or words; but the inscription, whatever it was, had been smoothed over with a plaster of lichen.
Under the Greenwood Tree
To dwellers in a wood almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature. At the passing of the breeze the fir-trees sob and moan no less distinctly than they rock; the holly whistles as it battles with itself; the ash hisses amid its quiverings; the beech rustles while its flat boughs rise and fall. And winter, which modifies the note of such trees as shed their leaves, does not destroy its individuality.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Twice Told Tales
And who was the Gray Champion? Perhaps his name might be found in
the records of that stern Court of Justice, which passed a
sentence, too mighty for the age, but glorious in all
after-times, for its humbling lesson to the monarch and its high
example to the subject.
The House Of The Seven Gables
The aspect of the venerable mansion has always affected me like
a human countenance, bearing the traces not merely of outward
storm and sunshine, but expressive also, of the long lapse of
mortal life, and accompanying vicissitudes that have passed
within.
The Blithedale Romance
And now we were seated by the brisk fireside of the old farmhouse, the
same fire that glimmers so faintly among my reminiscences at the
beginning of this chapter. There we sat, with the snow melting out of
our hair and beards, and our faces all ablaze, what with the past
inclemency and present warmth.
Fanshawe
If pen could give an adequate idea of Ellen Langton's loveliness,
it would achieve what pencil (the pencils
at least of the Colonial artists who attempted it) never
could; for though the dark eyes might be painted, the
pure and pleasant thoughts that peeped through them
could only be seen and felt.
The Great Stone Face
The Great Stone Face, then, was a work of Nature in her mood of majestie playfulness, formed on the perpendicular side of a mountain
by some immense rocks, which had been thrown together in such a position as, when viewed at a proper distance, precisely to resemble the features of the human countenance.
The Marble Faun Volume I
Four individuals, in whose fortunes we should be glad to interest the
reader, happened to be standing in one of the saloons of the
sculpture-gallery in the Capitol at Rome. It was that room (the first,
after ascending the staircase) in the centre of which reclines the noble
and most pathetic figure of the Dying Gladiator,
The Marble Faun Volume II
"Yet the stairs are steep and dark," rejoined the Count; "none but
yourself would seek me here, or find me, if they sought."
Grandfather's Chair
At last the children grew weary of their sports, because a summer afternoon is like a long lifetime to the young. So they came into the room together, anti clustered round Grandfather's great chair. Little Alice, who was hardly five years old, took the privilege of the youngest, and climbed his knee.
Mosses From An Old Manse
To explain this conversation it must be mentioned that in the centre of Georgiana's left cheek there was a singular mark,
deeply interwoven, as it were, with the texture and substance of
her face. In the usual state of her complexion--a healthy though
delicate bloom--the mark wore a tint of deeper crimson, which
imperfectly defined its shape amid the surrounding rosiness.
Our Old Home
A parcel of letters had been accumulating at the Consulate for two or three weeks, directed to a certain Doctor of Divinity, who had left America by a sailing-packet and was still upon the sea. In due time, the vessel arrived, and the reverend Doctor paid me a visit. He was a fine-looking middle-aged gentleman, a perfect model of clerical propriety,
Passages From The American Note-Books
I bathed in the cove, overhung with maples and walnuts, the water cool and thrilling. At a distance it sparkled bright and blue in the breeze and sun. There were jelly-fish swimming about, and several left to melt away on the shore. On the shore, sprouting amongst the sand and gravel,
The Scarlet Letter
Cluster all these individuals together, as they sometimes were, with other miscellaneous ones to diversify the group, and, for
the time being, it made the Custom-House a stirring scene. More
frequently, however, on ascending the steps, you would discern --
in the entry if it were summer time, or in their appropriate
rooms if wintry or inclement weathers row of venerable figures,
sitting in old-fashioned chairs,
The Snow Image
Accordingly, the good lady bundled up her darlings in woollen jackets and wadded sacks, and put comforters round their necks,
and a pair of striped gaiters on each little pair of legs, and
worsted mittens on their hands, and gave them a kiss apiece, by
way of a spell to keep away Jack Frost.
Tanglewood Tales
"Simple as it looks," said he, "this little edifice seems to be the work of magic. It is full of suggestiveness, and, in its
way, is as good as a cathedral. Ah, it would be just the spot
for one to sit in, of a summer afternoon, and tell the children
some more of those wild stories from the classic myths!"
Edward Fane's Rosebud
There is hardly a more difficult exercise of fancy, than, while gazing at a figure of melancholy age, to re-create its youth, and, without entirely obliterating the identity of form and features, to restore those graces which time has snatched away. Some old people, especially women, so age-worn and woful are they, seem never to have been young and gay.
Rappaccini's Daughter
Guasconti mechanically did as the old woman advised, but could not quite agree with her that the Lombard sunshine was as cheerful as that of southern Italy. Such as it was, however, it fell upon a garden beneath the window
The Gentle Boy
The fines, imprisonments, and stripes, liberally distributed by our pious forefathers; the popular antipathy, so strong that it endured nearly a hundred years after actual persecution had ceased, were attractions as powerful for the Quakers, as peace, honor, and reward, would have been for the worldly-minded.
The Celestial Railroad
It interested me much to learn that by the public spirit of some of the inhabitants a railroad has recently been established between this populous and flourishing town and the Celestial City. Having a little time upon my hands, I resolved to gratify a liberal curiosity by making a trip thither.
Robert E. Howard
Black Talons
Joel Brill slapped shut the book he had been scanning, and gave vent to his dissatisfaction in language more appropriate for the deck of a whaling ship than for the library of the exclusive Corinthian Club. Buckley, seated in an alcove nearby, grinned quietly.
Pigeons from Hell
The Valley of the Worm
The Purple Heart of Erlik
Black Canaan
Black Vulmeas Vengeance
Cursing luridly he lurched in a reeling run across the poop to the swivel-gun which stood at the head of the larboard ladder. Seizing this he swung it about until its muzzle bore full on the bulwark of the approaching frigate.
Fangs of Gold
Graveyard Rats
Moon of Zambebwei
Names In The Black Book
The Black Stone
But he spoke of it as one of the keys-a phrase used many times by him, in various relations, and constituting one of the obscurities of his work. And he hinted briefly at curious sights to be seen about the monolith on midsummer's night.
The Cairn on the Headland
As if sensing my thoughts, Ortali wheeled to face me.. I quickly slipped the stone into my pocket, not knowing whether he noted the action. But he must have seen the red killing instinct burning in my eyes, for again he recoiled and again his hand sought the hidden revolver.
Sea Curse
The Fire of Asshurbanipal
The Haunter of the Ring
The Horror From The Mound
Brill nodded abstractedly, hardly heeding. Of all the continent of North America there is no section so haunted by tales of lost or hidden treasure as is the Southwest. Uncounted wealth passed back and forth over the hills and plains of Texas and New Mexico in the old days when Spain owned the gold and silver mines of the New World and controlled the rich fur trade of the West, and echoes of that wealth linger on in tales of golden caches. Some such vagrant dream, born of failure and pressing poverty, rose in Brill's mind.
The House of Arabu
The Tomb's Secret
Wolfshead
THE 'SOLOMON KANE' STORIES:
Skulls in the Stars
Kane eyed the boy piercingly. The lad squirmed and shuffled his feet.
"Since this moor road is so dour to wayfarers," said the Puritan, "why did not the villagers tell me the whole tale, instead of vague mouthings?"
The Footfalls Within
Red Shadows
Rattle of Bones
The Moon of Skulls
The Hills of the Dead
Wings in the Night
Kane shrugged his broad shoulders and his hand unconsciously touched the black butts of his heavy pistols, the hilt of his long rapier, and the dirk in his belt.
THE 'EL BORAK' STORIES:
The Daughter of Erlik Khan
Hawk of the Hills
Scenery, however awesome, is but a background for the human drama in its varying phases. Gordon's soul was a maelstrom of wrath, and the distant, dwindling shout below him drove crimson waves of murder surging through his brain.
Blood of The Gods
Son Of The White Wolf
The Country of The Knife
THE 'CONAN' STORIES:
The Phoenix on the Sword
"Go into the night, creatures of the night," a voice mocked. "Oh, fools, your doom hounds your heels like a blind dog, and you know it not."
The Scarlet Citadel
The Tower of the Elephant
Black Colossus
This unnaturalness was in keeping with the general aura of these devil-haunted ruins. This desert was the mysterious expanse lying southeast of the lands of Shem. A few days' ride on camel-back to the southwest, as Shevatas knew
The Slithering Shadow
The Pool Of The Black One
Rogues in the House
"Within the hour. There is but one guard in this part of the dungeon at night. He can be bribed; he has been bribed. See, here are the keys to your chains.
Shadows In The Moonlight
Queen Of The Black Coast
The Devil in Iron
People Of The Black Circle
Her voice died at the utter vacancy of his face. A low confused moan waned from his mouth. The slave-girls at the foot of the dais whimpered with fear, and Yasmina beat her breast in anguish.
A Witch Shall Be Born
Jewels of Gwahlur
Beyond the Black River
urning, he stepped back to the hushes and pulled them apart. Still not certain just what had happened, the wayfarer from the east advanced and stared down into the bushes. A man lay there, a short, dark, thickly-muscled man, naked except for a loin-cloth, a necklace of human teeth and a brass armlet.
Shadows in Zamboula
The Hour of the Dragon
Red Nails
Gods of the North
He spoke no word as he drove at her, fingers spread to grip her soft flesh. With a shriek of laughter she leaped back and ran, laughing at him over her white shoulder. With a low growl Conan followed. He had forgotten the fight, forgotten the mailed warriors who lay in their blood
From the Magazines
Night of Battle
General Ironfist
Fist and Fang
Circus Fists
Champ of the Forecastle
Alleys of Peril
Alleys of Darkness
Breckenridge Elkins
The Riot at Cougar Paw
War On Bear Creek
The Scalp Hunter
The Road to Bear Creek
The Haunted Mountain
The Feud Buster
The Conquerin' Hero of the Humbolts
The Apache Mountain War
Sharp's Gun Serenade
Pistol Politics
While Smoke Rolled
Texas John Alden
Pilgrims To the Pecos
No Cowherders Wanted
Mountain Man
Washington Irving
The Alhambra
At noon we halted in sight of Archidona, in a pleasant little meadow among hills covered with olive-trees. Our cloaks were spread on the grass, under an elm by the side of a bubbling rivulet; our horses were tethered where they might crop the herbage, and Sancho was told to produce his alforjas.
The Adventures of Captain Bonneville
In consequence of the apathy and neglect of the American government, Mr. Astor abandoned all thoughts of regaining
Astoria, and made no further attempt to extend his enterprises
beyond the Rocky Mountains
Tales of a Traveller
I was once at a hunting dinner, given by a worthy fox-hunting old Baronet, who kept Bachelor's Hall in jovial style, in an ancient rookhaunted family mansion, in one of the middle counties. He had been a devoted admirer of the fair sex in his young days; but having travelled much, studied the sex in various countries with distinguished success, and returned home profoundly instructed, as he supposed, in the ways of woman
Astoria
It was the fur trade, in fact, which gave early sustenance and vitality to the great Canadian provinces. Being destitute of the
precious metals, at that time the leading objects of American
enterprise, they were long neglected by the parent country.
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon including Legend of Sleepy Hollow
I was always fond of visiting new scenes, and observing strange characters and manners. Even when a mere child I began my
travels, and made many tours of discovery into foreign parts and
unknown regions of my native city, to the frequent alarm of my
parents, and the emolument of the town crier. As I grew into
boyhood, I extended the range of my observations.
Rip Van Winkle
The old gentleman died shortly after the publication of his work, and now that he is dead and gone, it cannot do much harm to his memory to say that his time might have been much better employed in weightier labors. He, however, was apt to ride his hobby his own way; and though it did now and then kick up the dust a little in the eyes of his neighbors
The Adventure Of The German Student
Gottfried Wolfgang was a young man of good family. He had studied for some time at Gottingen, but being of a visionary and enthusiastic character, he had wandered into those wild and speculative doctrines which have so often bewildered German students. His secluded life, his intense application, and the singular nature of his studies, had an effect on both mind and body.
A Tour on the Prairies
several hundred miles beyond the Mississippi, extends a vast tract of uninhabited country, where there is neither to be seen the log-house of the white man, nor the wigwam of the Indian. It consists of great grassy plains, interspersed with forests and groves, and clumps of trees, and watered by the Arkansas, the grand Canadian, the Red River, and their tributary streams.
A History of New York
As the Independent Columbian Hotel is a very small house, I was a little puzzled at first where to put him; but my wife, who seemed taken with his looks, would needs put him in her best chamber, which is genteely set off with the profiles of the whole family
Little Britain
Little Britain still bears traces of its former splendor. There are several houses ready to tumble down, the fronts of which are magnificently enriched with old oaken carvings of hideous faces
Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada
His glowing zeal, also, in the cause of the Catholic faith entitles him to be held up as a model of the good old orthodox chroniclers, who recorded with such pious exultation the united triumphs of the cross and the sword
Jack London
Adventure
With the automatic swiftness of a wild animal the black gathered himself to spring. The anger of a wild animal was in his eyes; but
he saw the white man's hand dropping to the pistol in his belt.
The spring was never made. The tensed body relaxed, and the black,
stooping over the corpse, helped carry it out. This time there was
no muttering.
Before Adam
Often, before I learned,
did I wonder whence came the multitudes of pictures
that thronged my dreams; for they were pictures the
like of which I had never seen in real wake-a-day life.
They tormented my childhood, making of my dreams a
procession of nightmares and a little later convincing
me that I was different from my kind, a creature
unnatural and accursed.
White Fang
Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The
trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of
frost, and they seemed to lean towards each other, black and
ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the
land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without
movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that
of sadness.
Burning Daylight
At the bar, which ranged
along one side of the large chinked-log room, leaned half a dozen
men, two of whom were discussing the relative merits of
spruce-tea and lime-juice as remedies for scurvy. They argued
with an air of depression and with intervals of morose silence.
The other men scarcely heeded them. In a row, against the
opposite wall, were the gambling games. The crap-table was
deserted. One lone man was playing at the faro-table.
The Call of the Wild
Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-
water 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.
The Cruise of the Snark
It began in the swimming pool at Glen Ellen. Between swims it was our wont to come out and lie in the sand and let our skins breathe the warm air and soak in the sunshine. Roscoe was a yachtsman. I
had followed the sea a bit. It was inevitable that we should talk
about boats. We talked about small boats, and the seaworthiness of
small boats. We instanced Captain Slocum and his three years'
voyage around the world in the Spray.
The Sea Wolf
I scarcely know where to begin, though I sometimes facetiously place the cause of it all to Charley Furuseth's credit. He kept a
summer cottage in Mill Valley, under the shadow of Mount Tamalpais,
and never occupied it except when he loafed through the winter
mouths and read Nietzsche and Schopenhauer to rest his brain. When
summer came on, he elected to sweat out a hot and dusty existence
in the city and to toil incessantly.
The Faith of Men
A Relic of the Pliocene, A Hyperborean Brew, Too Much Gold, The One Thousand Dozen, The Marriage of Lit-lit, Batard, The Story of Jees Uck
I wash my hands of him at the start. I cannot father his tales, nor will I be responsible for them. I make these preliminary
reservations, observe, as a guard upon my own integrity. I possess
a certain definite position in a small way, also a wife; and for
the good name of the community that honours my existence with its
approval, and for the sake of her posterity and mine, I cannot take
the chances I once did, nor foster probabilities with the careless
improvidence of youth.
When God Laughs and Other Stories
The Apostate, A Wicked Woman, Just Meat, Created He Them, The Chinago, Make Westing, Semper Idem, A Nose For The King, The "Francis Spaight", A Curious Fragment, A Piece Of Steak
He stole a glance at the rattling windows, looked upward at the beamed roof, and listened for a moment to the savage
roar of the south-easter as it caught the bungalow in its bellowing jaws.
Then he held his glass between him and the fire and laughed for joy through
the golden wine.
The Human Drift
Small-Boat Sailing, Four Horses and a Sailor, Nothing that Ever Came to Anything, That Dead Men Rise up Never, A Classic of the Sea, A Wicked Woman (Curtain Raiser), The Birth Mark
The history of civilisation is a history of wandering, sword in hand, in search of food. In the misty younger world we catch
glimpses of phantom races, rising, slaying, finding food, building
rude civilisations, decaying, falling under the swords of stronger
hands, and passing utterly away. Man, like any other animal, has
roved over the earth seeking what he might devour; and not romance
and adventure, but the hunger-need, has urged him on his vast
adventures.
The Iron Heel
The soft summer wind stirs the redwoods, and Wild-Water ripples sweet cadences over its mossy stones. There are butterflies in the sunshine, and from everywhere arises the drowsy hum of bees. It is
so quiet and peaceful, and I sit here, and ponder, and am restless.
It is the quiet that makes me restless. It seems unreal. All the
world is quiet, but it is the quiet before the storm.
The Jacket (Star-Rover)
All my life I have had an awareness of other times and places. I have been aware of other persons in me.--Oh, and trust me, so have
you, my reader that is to be. Read back into your childhood, and
this sense of awareness I speak of will be remembered as an
experience of your childhood. You were then not fixed, not
crystallized. You were plastic, a soul in flux, a consciousness and
an identity in the process of forming--ay, of forming and
forgetting.
John Barleycorn
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. Then I had ridden up through the vine-clad hills and rolling
pastures of the ranch, and arrived at the farm-house in time for
another drink and supper.
Jerry of the Islands
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.
Tales of the Klondyke
On every hand stretched the forest primeval,--the home of noisy comedy and silent tragedy. Here the struggle for survival
continued to wage with all its ancient brutality. Briton and
Russian were still to overlap in the Land of the Rainbow's End--
and this was the very heart of it--nor had Yankee gold yet
purchased its vast domain. The wolf-pack still clung to the flank
of the cariboo-herd, singling out the weak and the big with calf,
and pulling them down as remorselessly as were it a thousand,
Lost Face
It was the end. Subienkow had travelled a long trail of bitterness and horror, homing like a dove for the capitals of Europe, and here, farther away than ever, in Russian America, the trail ceased.
The People Of The Abyss
I found the cabby and a policeman with their heads together, but the latter, after looking me over sharply and particularly scrutinizing the bundle under my arm, turned away and left the cabby to wax mutinous by himself.
A Thousand Deaths
I had been in the water about an hour, and cold, exhausted, with a terrible cramp in my right calf, it seemed as though my hour had come.
Love of Life And Other Stories
Narrative Of Shorty, The White Man's Way, The Story Of Keesh, The Unexpected, Brown Wolf, The Sun-Dog Trail, Negore, The Coward
... the foremost of the
two men staggered among the rough-strewn rocks. They were tired
and weak, and their faces had the drawn expression of patience
which comes of hardship long endured. They were heavily burdened
with blanket packs which were strapped to their shoulders. Head-
straps, passing across the forehead, helped support these packs.
Each man carried a rifle. They walked in a stooped posture, the
shoulders well forward, the head still farther forward, the eyes
bent upon the ground.
Michael, Brother of Jerry
Very early in my life, possibly because of the insatiable curiosity that was born in me, I came to dislike the performances
of trained animals. It was my curiosity that spoiled for me this
form of amusement, for I was led to seek behind the performance in
order to learn how the performance was achieved. And what I found
behind the brave show and glitter of performance was not nice.
Martin Eden
The one opened the door with a latch-key and went in, followed by a young fellow who awkwardly removed his cap. He wore rough clothes that smacked of the sea, and he was manifestly out of place in the
spacious hall in which he found himself. He did not know what to
do with his cap, and was stuffing it into his coat pocket when the
other took it from him. The act was done quietly and naturally,
and the awkward young fellow appreciated it. "He understands," was
his thought. "He'll see me through all right."
Moon-Face and Other Stories
John Claverhouse was a moon-faced man. You know the kind, cheek-bones wide apart, chin and forehead melting into the cheeks to complete the perfect round, and the nose, broad and pudgy, equidistant from the circumference,
flattened against the very centre of the face like a dough-ball upon the
ceiling. Perhaps that is why I hated him,
Makaloa Mat / Island Tales
Unlike the women of most warm races, those of Hawaii age well and nobly. With no pretence of make-up or cunning concealment of
time's inroads, the woman who sat under the hau tree might have
been permitted as much as fifty years by a judge competent anywhere
over the world save in Hawaii. Yet her children and her
grandchildren, and Roscoe Scandwell who had been her husband for
forty years, knew that she was sixty-four and would be sixty-five
come the next twenty-second day of June. But she did not look it,
The Night-Born
The Madness Of John Harned, When The World Was Young, The Benefit Of The Doubt, Winged Blackmail, Bunches Of Knuckles, War, Under The Deck Awnings, To Kill A Man, The Mexican
It was in the old Alta-Inyo Club--a warm night for San Francisco--and through the open windows, hushed and far, came
the brawl of the streets. 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--
Smoke Bellew
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. Nor would it
have happened had he not had a fond mother and an iron uncle, and
had he not received a letter
The Son of the Wolf
The White Silence, The Men of Forty Mile, In a Far, Country, To the Man on the Trail, The Priestly Prerogative, The Wisdom of the Trail, The Wife of a King, An Odyssey of the North
'I never saw a dog with a highfalutin' name that ever was worth a rap,' he said, as he concluded his task and shoved her aside. 'They just fade away and die under the responsibility. Did ye
ever see one go wrong with a sensible name like Cassiar, Siwash,
or Husky? No, sir! Take a look at Shookum here, he's--' Snap! The
lean brute flashed up, the white teeth just missing Mason's
throat.
South Sea Tales
The House of Mapuhi, The Whale Tooth, Mauki, "Yah! Yah! Yah!", The Heathen, The Terrible Solomons, The Inevitable White Man, The Seed of McCoy
Despite the heavy clumsiness of her lines, the Aorai handled easily in the light breeze, and her captain ran her well in before he hove to just outside the suck of the surf. The atoll of Hikueru lay low on the water, a circle of
pounded coral sand a hundred yards wide, twenty miles in circumference, and
from three to five feet above high-water mark. On the bottom of the huge and
glassy lagoon was much pearl shell, and from the deck of the schooner, across
the slender ring of the atoll, the divers could be seen at work.
Strength of the Strong
South of the Slot, The Unparalleled Invasion, The Enemy of All the World, The Dream of Debs, The Sea-Farmer, Samuel
Old Long-Beard paused in his narrative, licked his greasy fingers,
and wiped them on his naked sides where his one piece of ragged
bearskin failed to cover him. Crouched around him, on their hams,
were three young men, his grandsons, Deer-Runner, Yellow-Head, and
Afraid-of-the-Dark.
The Game
For a fleeting moment a shadow darkened his boyish face, to be replaced by the glow of tenderness. He was only a boy, as she was
only a girl--two young things on the threshold of life, house-
renting and buying carpets together.
Tales of the Fish Patrol
San Francisco Bay is so large that often its storms are more disastrous to ocean-going craft than is the ocean itself in its
violent moments. The waters of the bay contain all manner of fish,
wherefore its surface is ploughed by the keels of all manner of
fishing boats manned by all manner of fishermen.
The Red One
The Hussy, Like Argus of the Ancient Times, The Princess
Then had begun the chase. He retreated up the pig-run before his hunters, who were between him and the beach. How many there were, he could not guess. There might have been one, or a hundred, for
aught he saw of them.
The Valley of the Moon
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 to the extent of a
score of suspended or inadequate movements.
War of the Classes
The Tramp , The Scab , The Question Of The Maximum , A Review , Wanted: A New Law Of Development , How I Became A Socialist
When I was a youngster I was looked upon as a weird sort of creature, because, forsooth, I was a socialist. Reporters from
local papers interviewed me, and the interviews, when published,
were pathological studies of a strange and abnormal specimen of man.
At that time (nine or ten years ago), because I made a stand in my
native town for municipal ownership of public utilities, I was
branded a "red-shirt," a "dynamiter,"
and an "anarchist"; and really
decent fellows, who liked me very well, drew the line at my
appearing in public with their sisters.
The Acorn-Planter
The Cruise of the Dazzler
Captain Frederick Marryat
The Three Cutters
You observe that this yacht is cutter-rigged, and that she sits gracefully on the smooth water. She is just heaving up her anchor; her foresail is loose, all ready to cast her
Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet
The ancient royal residence of Holyrood having been offered, as a retreat, to his unhappy master, my father bade an eternal adieu to his country and with me, his only son, then but nine years of age, followed in the suite of the monarch, and established himself in Edinburgh.
Diary in America Series I
At 9:30 a.m. -- Embarked on board the good ship Quebec; and a good ship she proved to be, repeatedly going nine and a-half knots on a bowling, sails lifting. Captain H. quite delighted to see me -- all captains of packets are to see passengers:
Diary in America Series II
I believe that the remarks of a traveller in any country not his own, let his work be ever so trifling or badly written
The Phantom Ship
At the commencement of this address of Philip, his mother appeared to be transfixed, and motionless as a statue; gradually her lips separated, and her eyes glared; she seemed to have lost the power of reply
Frank Mildmay
My father was a gentleman, and a man of considerable property. In my infancy and childhood I was weak and sickly, but the favourite of my parents beyond all my brothers and sisters, because they saw that my mind was far superior to my sickly frame
Japhet, in Search of Father
The practitioner who thus took me by the hand was a Mr Phineas Cophagus, whose house was most conveniently situated for business, one side of the shop looking upon Smithfield Market, the other presenting a surface of glass to the principal street leading out of the same market.
Jacob Faithful
Gentle reader, I was born upon the water -- not upon the salt and angry ocean, but upon the fresh and rapid-flowing river. It was in a floating sort of box, called a lighter, and upon the river Thames, at low water, when I first smelt the mud.
The Little Savage
He called me, Boy, and I called him, Master. His inveterate silence was the occasion of my language being composed of very few words
Masterman Ready
Besides the captain of the ship and the two men at the wheel, there were two other personages on deck: one was a young lad about twelve years old, and the other a weather-beaten old seaman, whose grisly locks
California As I Saw It
The town of Chagres deserves notice, inasmuch as it is the birth-place of a malignant fever, that became excessively popular among the Californian emigrants; many of whom have acknowledged the superiority of this malady
The Children of the New Forest
The New Forest, ... , was first enclosed by William the Conqueror as a royal forest for his own amusement, for in those days most crowned heads were passionately fond of the chase
Newton Forster Vol I
And I also beat a retreat to my sofa; and as I threw myself upon it, mentally vowed that, for two months at the least, I never would take up a pen.
Newton Forster Vol II
The reef upon which the brig had been wrecked was one of those extending along the southward of the Virgin Isles. Newton had intended to steer well to the eastward, with the view of reaching one of the northernmost English colonies
Newton Forster Vol III
The Bombay Castle arrived at Madras without further adventure. A few hours after she had anchored, all the passengers, receiving kind messages from, or escorted on shore by their relatives or consignees, had landed
Olla Podrida
I once witnessed a young lady smelling to a bottle of Eau de Cologne, as if her existence depended upon it, who handed it over to another, whose state was even more pitiable, and I was reminded of Sir Philip Sidney and the cup of water
The Pacha of Many Tales
Barbers are privileged persons for many reasons: running from one employer to another to obtain their livelihood, they also obtain matter for conversation, which, impertinent as it may sometimes be
Percival Keene
"And I'll flog him as soon as I get him on board," rejoined the captain. "I will not have your feelings shocked, and your mind harassed in this way, by any impropriety on the part of my followers -- most infamous -- shameful -- abominable
The Pirate
The topmast studding-sail flapped and fluttered, the foresail shivered, and the jib filled as the frigate rounded to, narrowly missing the wreck, which was now under the bows
The Poacher
It is an old saying, that "if there were no receivers there would be no thieves," and it would have been of very little use for Rushbrook to take the game if he had not had the means of disposing of it.
Poor Jack
The frigate in which my father eventually served as captain's coxswain was commanded by a Sir Hercules Hawkingtrefylyan, Baronet. He was very poor and very proud, for baronets were not so common in those days.
The Privateersman
She had been chartered by a French gentleman -- , who had acquired a large fortune in the West Indies, and was then going home, having embarked on board his whole property, as well as his wife and his only son, a youth of about seventeen.
Peter Simple
After dinner, Mr Handycock went down to the cellar for a bottle of wine. "O deary me!" exclaimed his wife, "he must have lost a mint of money -- we had better go upstairs and leave him alone; he'll be better after a bottle of port
Rattlin the Reefer
The stairs approaching the lady's chamber were lined with master, mistress, man-servant and maid-servants, all eagerly listening to the awful bustle within. At length there is a dead silence of some minutes. The listeners shuddered.
The Mission or Scenes in Africa
he bowed in humility to the dispensation, submitting with resignation to his loss, and still thankful to Heaven that it had graciously spared one of the objects of his affections to console him, and to watch his declining years.
The Settlers in Canada
at the end of ten years, Mr Campbell found himself with a flourishing business, and at the same time with a family to support, his wife having presented him with four boys, of whom the youngest was but a few months old.
Snarleyyow
a one-masted vessel, with black sides, was running along the coast near Beachy Head, at the rate of about five miles per hour. The wind was from the northward and blew keenly, the vessel was under easy sail
Valerie
But when I was about nine years old I was guilty of a very heavy offence, which I shall narrate, on account of the peculiar punishment which I received
Herman Melville
Bartleby the Scrivener
I am a rather elderly man. The nature of my avocations for the last thirty years has brought me into more than ordinary contact with what would seem an interesting and somewhat singular set of men, of whom as yet nothing that I know of has ever been written:--I mean the law-copyists or scriveners. I have known very many of them, professionally and privately, and if I pleased, could relate divers histories
Moby Dick; or The Whale
No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast,
plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head.
True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to
spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of
thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one's sense of honour,
particularly if you come of an old established family in the land,
The Lightning-Rod Man
What grand irregular thunder, thought I, standing on my hearthstone among the Acroceraunian hills, as the scattered bolts boomed overhead and crashed down among the valleys, every bolt followed by zigzag irradiations, and swift slants of sharp rain, which audibly rang, like a charge of spear-points, on my low shingled roof. I suppose, though, that the mountains hereabouts break and churn up the thunder, so that it is far more glorious here than on the plain. Hark! -- some one at the door.
The Confidence-Man
His cheek was fair, his chin downy, his hair flaxen, his hat a white fur one, with a long fleecy nap. He had neither trunk, valise, carpet-bag, nor parcel. No porter followed him. He was unaccompanied by friends. From the shrugged shoulders, titters, whispers, wonderings of the crowd, it was plain that he was, in the extremest sense of the word, a stranger.
Billy Budd
In The time before steamships, or then more frequently than now, a stroller along the docks of any considerable sea-port would occasionally have his attention arrested by a group of bronzed
mariners, man-of-war's men or merchant-sailors in holiday attire
ashore on liberty. In certain instances they would flank, or, like a
body-guard quite surround some superior figure of their own class,
moving along with them like Aldebaran among the lesser lights of his
constellation. That signal object was the "Handsome Sailor" of the
less prosaic time alike of the military and merchant navies.
Typee
More than three years have elapsed since the occurrence of the events recorded in this volume. The interval, with the exception of
the last few months, has been chiefly spent by the author tossing
about on the wide ocean. 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.
Benito Cereno
The morning was one peculiar to that coast. Everything was mute and calm; everything grey. The sea, though undulated into long roods of swells, seemed fixed, and was sleeked at the surface like waved
lead that has cooled and set in the smelter's mould. The sky seemed
a grey mantle. Flights of troubled grey fowl, kith and kin with
flights of troubled grey vapours among which they were mixed
Redburn. His First Voyage
"since we are both short of money, and you want an outfit, and I Have none to give, you may as well take my
fowling-piece along, and sell it in New York for what you can get.--Nay,
take it; it's of no use to me now; I can't find it in powder any more."
Pierre, Or the Ambiguities
There are some strange summer mornings in the country, when he who is but a sojourner from the city shall early walk forth into the fields, and be wonder-smitten with the trance-like aspect of the green and golden world.
The Piazza
A very paradise of painters. The circle of the stars cut by the circle of the mountains. At least, so looks it from the house; though, once upon the mountains, no circle of them can you see. Had the site been chosen five rods off, this charmed ring would not have been.
Israel Potter
For nearly the whole of the distance, you have the continual sensation of being upon some terrace in the moon. The feeling of the plain or the valley is never yours; scarcely the feeling of the earth.
The Encantadas
But the special curse, as one may call it, of the Encantadas, that which exalts them in desolation above Idumea and the Pole, is that to them change never comes
I and My Chimney
From this habitual precedence of my chimney over me, some even think that I have got into a sad rearward way altogether; in
short, from standing behind my old-fashioned chimney so much, I
have got to be quite behind the age too
Mardi and a Voyage Thither
Omoos
White Jacket
Talbot Mundy
The Eye of Zeitoon
Through the partly open door we could smell everything that ever happened since the beginning of the world, and hear most of the
elemental music -- made, for instance, of the squeal of fighting stallions, and the bray of an amorous he-ass
Old Ugly-Face
Set in Tibet, the story concerns a group of men and women who are vitally involved in an exciting situation in that forbidden land of
towering mountain peaks and age-old secrets. The Dalai Lama had died,
and the choice of a successor to the most influential position in Tibet
is a matter of utmost concern to the agents of various foreign
governments and to Tom Grayne
Hookum Hai by Talbot Mundy
A coppersmith was about the only living thing that seemed to care whether the sun went down or not. He seemed in a hurry to get a job done, and his reiterated "Bong-bong-bong!"--that had never ceased
since sunrise, and had driven nearly mad the few humans who were
there to hear it--quickened and grew louder. At last Brown came out
of a square mud house, to see about the sunset.
The Soul of a Regiment
The First Egyptian Foot had colors -- and has them still, thanks to Billy Grogram; so the First Egyptian Foot is still a regiment. It was the very first of all the regiments raised in Egypt, and the colors
were lovely crimson things on a brand new polished pole, cased in the
regulation jacket of black waterproof and housed with all pomp and
ceremony in the mess-room at the barracks.
Rung Ho!
THAT was no time or place for any girl of twenty to be wandering unprotected. Rosemary McClean knew it; the old woman, of the sweeper caste, that is no caste at all, -- the hag with the flat breasts and
wrinkled skin, who followed her dogwise, and was no more protection
than a toothless dog, -- knew it well, and growled about it in
incessant undertones that met with neither comment nor response.
Om -- The Secret of Ahbor Valley
There used to be a cafe in Vienna, where a man might learn enough in fifty minutes to convince him that Europe was riding carelessly to ruin; but that was before 1914 when the riders, using rein and spur at
last, rode straight for it.
Machassan Ah by Talbot Mundy
From the moment that the lookout, lashed to the windlass drum up forward, had spied the little craft away to leeward and had bellowed
his report of it through hollowed hands between the thunder of the
waves, Joe Byng had had premonitory symptoms of uneasiness. He had
felt in his bones that the navy was about to be nose-led into shame.
The Lady and the Lord
An actress who is not exactly in the first flight is bound to be more or less of a nomad; so there was nothing particularly astonishing in not hearing from Mrs. Crothers for several months.
King--of the Khyber Rifles
The men who govern India -- more power to them and her! -- are few. Those who stand in their way and pretend to help them with a flood of words are a host. And from the host goes up an endless cry that India
is the home of thugs, and of three hundred million hungry ones.
Jimgrim and Allah's Peace
I had been there a couple of times before the World War, when the Turks were in full control. So I knew about the bedbugs and the stench of the citadel moat; the pre-war price of camels; enough Arabic to misunderstand it when spoken fluently, and enough of the Old Testament
and the Koran to guess at Arabian motives, which are important, whereas
words are usually such stuff as lies are made of.
The Ivory Trail by Talbot Mundy
To us -- even to Yerkes, familiar with United States merchant
kings -- he seemed with his thirty thousand dollars a year already a
gilded Croesus. He had ample to travel on, and finance prospecting
trips. We never lacked for working capital, but the quest (and,
including Yerkes, we were as keen as he) led us into strange places.
Hira Singh: When India Came To Fight In Flanders
Had Ranjoor Singh and his men been Muhammadans their accomplishment
would have been sufficiently wonderful. For Sikhs to attempt what
they carried through, even under such splendid leadership as Ranjoor
Singh's, was to defy the very nth degree of odds.
Her Reputation
There is an hour of promise, and a zero hour; the promise first; and promises are sometimes even sweeter than fulfillment. Jacqueline Lanier was unconscious of her hour of blossoming, and so the outlines of young
loveliness had not been hardened by habitual self-assertion. Since she
came under Desmio's care her lot had been cast in very pleasant places,
and she was aware of it
Guns of the Gods by Talbot Mundy
There, amid an atmosphere of Indian scents and cigarette smoke, she talked and I made endless notes, while now and then, when she was
meditative, her maids sang to an accompaniment of rather melancholy
wooden flutes. But whenever I showed a tendency to muse she grew
indignant.
For The Salt He Had Eaten
But in the mud-walled cottages, where men were wont to doze through the long, hot days, there were murmurings and restless movement. Men lay on thong-strung beds, and talked instead of dreaming, and the
women listened and said nothing
Ceasar Dies
Golden Antioch lay like a jewel at a mountain's throat. Wide, intersecting streets, each nearly four miles long, granite-paved, and
marble-colonnaded, swarmed with fashionable loiterers. The gay Antiochenes, whom nothing except frequent earthquakes interrupted from
pursuit of pleasure
Affair in Araby
Whoever invented chess understood the world's works as some men know clocks and watches. He recognized a fact and based a game on it, with the result that his game endures.
O Henry
The Gift of the Magi
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two
at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and
the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent
imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied.
Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven
cents. And the next day would be Christmas.
Waifs and Strays
A trestle burned down on the International Railroad. The southbound from San Antonio was cut off for the next forty-eight hours. On that train was Tonia Weaver's Easter hat.
The Four Million
Tobin and me, the two of us, went down to Coney one day, for there
was four dollars between us, and Tobin had need of distractions.
For there was Katie Mahorner, his sweetheart, of County Sligo, lost
since she started for America three months before with two hundred
dollars, her own savings, and one hundred dollars from the sale of
Tobin's inherited estate, a fine cottage and pig on the Bog Shannaugh.
The Voice of the City
Twenty-five years ago the school children used to chant their lessons. The manner of their delivery
was a singsong recitative between the utterance of an
Episcopal minister and the drone of a tired sawmill.
I mean no disrespect. We must have lumber and sawdust.
Strictly Business More Stories of the Four Million
I suppose you know all about the stage and stage people. You've been touched with and by actors, and you read the newspaper
criticisms and the jokes in the weeklies about the Rialto and the
chorus girls and the long-haired tragedians. And I suppose that a
condensed list of your ideas about the mysterious stageland would
boil down to something like this:
Roads of Destiny
The song was over. The words were David's; the air, one of the countryside. The company about the inn table applauded heartily, for
the young poet paid for the wine. Only the notary, M. Papineau, shook
his head a little at the lines, for he was a man of books, and he had
not drunk with the rest.
Options
When The Rose of Dixie magazine was started by a stock company in Toombs City, Georgia, there was never but one candidate for its chief
editorial position in the minds of its owners. Col. Aquila Telfair
was the man for the place. By all the rights of learning, family,
reputation, and Southern traditions, he was its foreordained, fit, and
logical editor.
Cabbages And Kings
To the stranger or the guest the people of Coralio will relate the story of the tragic end of their former president; how he strove
to escape from the country with the publice funds and also with Dona
Isabel Guilbert, the young American opera singer; and how, being
apprehended by members of the opposing political party in Coralio,
he shot himself through the head rather than give up the funds, and,
in consequence, the Senorita Guilbert.
The Gentle Grafter
"You remember I told you that me and Andy Tucker was partners for some
years. That man was the most talented conniver at stratagems I ever
saw. Whenever he saw a dollar in another man's hands he took it as a
personal grudge, if he couldn't take it any other way.
Whirligigs
A favourite dodge to get your story read by the
public is to assert that it is true, and then add that Truth
is stranger than Fiction. I do not know if the yarn I
am anxious for you to read is true; but the Spanish purser
of the fruit steamer El Carrero swore to me by the shrine
of Santa Guadalupe that he had the facts from the U. S.
vice-consul at La Paz - a person who could not possibly
have been cognizant of half of them.
Heart of the West
Webb Yeager pushed back his flat-brimmed Stetson, and made further disorder in his straw-coloured hair. The tonsorial recourse being without avail, he followed the liquid example of the more resourceful Baldy.
Rolling Stones
Phillips Oppenheim
The Devil's Paw
"I understand that there is nothing whatever against him personally," Julian continued, "although as a politician he is of course beneath contempt. He started life as a village schoolmaster and has worked his way up most creditably.
Havoc
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. Bellamy's
face was dark with forebodings; Dorward was irritated and nervous.
Failure was a new thing to him - a thing which those behind the
great journals which he represented understood less, even, than he.
Bellamy loved his country, and fear was gnawing at his heart.
The Illustrious Prince by Phillips Oppenheim
There was a little murmur of regret amongst the five hundred and eighty-seven saloon passengers on board the steamship Lusitania,
mingled, perhaps, with a few expressions of a more violent
character. After several hours of doubt, the final verdict had at
last been pronounced. They had missed the tide, and no attempt
was to be made to land passengers that night. Already the engines
had ceased to throb, the period of unnatural quietness had
commenced. Slowly, and without noticeable motion, the great liner
swung round a little in the river.
The Yellow Crayon
It was late summer-time, and the perfume of flowers stole into the darkened room through the half-opened window. The sunlight forced its way through a chink in the blind, and stretched across the floor
in strange zigzag fashion.
The Vanished Messenger
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.
The Evil Shepherd by Phillips Oppenheim
"It is necessary for me to speak to you now," she insisted. "There is a tea-shop across the way. Please accompany me there."
The Tempting of Tavernake
They stood upon the roof of a London boarding-house in the neighborhood of Russell Square--one of those grim shelters, the
refuge of Transatlantic curiosity and British penury.
Jeanne Of The Marshes
The maid illuminated the darkened room. The Princess gazed at herself in the mirror, and reaching out again took a small powder-
puff from its case and gently dabbed her face. Then she laid both mirror and powder-puff back in their places.
The Great Impersonation by Phillips Oppenheim
The trouble from which great events were to come began when Everard Dominey, who had been fighting his way through the scrub for the last three quarters of an hour towards those thin, spiral wisps of smoke
The Avenger
He threw his overcoat into a chair, and touched the brass knobs behind the door. Instantly the room was flooded with the soft radiance of the electric lights. They could see one another now distinctly.
The Pawns Count
"All the same," Lutchester continued, still studying the notice, "news does run over London like quicksilver. If you step down to the American bar here, for instance, you'll find that Charles is one of the best-informed men about the war in London.
The Mischief-Maker
"We will not talk of death, dear," she said. "Doctors are so wonderful, nowadays. There are so few diseases which they cannot cure. They seem to snatch one back even from the grave.
The Box With Broken Seals
"Of course they did," he replied brusquely. "There's scarcely likely to be a chief of police of any city in the United States who wouldn't get a move on when he knew that Sam Hobson was waiting for a word.
An Amiable Charlatan by Phillips Oppenheim
Mr. Cullen smiled, and from that moment I took a dislike to him--a dislike that did much toward determining the point of view from which I was inclined to consider various succeeding incidents.
The Cinema Murder
With a somewhat prolonged grinding of the brakes and an unnecessary amount of fuss in the way of letting off steam, the afternoon train from London came to a standstill in the station at Detton Magna.
The Double Traitor
"My friend," she said, "when we first met--I am ashamed, considering that I dine alone with you to-night, to reflect how short a time ago--you spoke of your removal here from Paris very much as though it were a
veritable exile.
The Governors
Very timidly, and with awed glances, she looked around her as she was conducted in leisurely manner to the sanctum of the great man at whose bidding she had come.
The Profiteers
"They may say what they like but who's to prove it?" his young companion argued. "They must have enormous backing, of course, but until they declare it, I'm not pushing the business.
The Lost Ambassador by Phillips Oppenheim
Towards the end there came out two people who were becoming almost familiar figures to me. The man was one of those whose nationality was not so easily surmised.
The Great Prince Shan
Upon the table was a little pile of closely written manuscript, and by their side several black-bound code books, upon which the "F.O.Private" still remained, though almost obliterated with time.
The Robbery In Phillimore Terrace
She nearly lost her balance--where in the world had he come from? She certainly had not heard the slightest sound, and yet there he sat, in the corner, like a veritable Jack-in-the-box, his mild blue eyes staring apologetically at her, his nervous fingers toying with the inevitable bit of string.
Peter Ruff and the Double Four
His habit of sitting without his coat when carving, although deprecated by his wife and daughter on account of
the genteel aspirations of the latter, was a not unusual one in the
neighbourhood; and coupled with the proximity of a cold joint of
beef, his seat at the head of the table, and a carving knife and
fork grasped in his hands, established clearly the fact of his
position in the household
A Millionaire of Yesterday
"Filth," grunted Trent - "ugh! I tell you what it is, my venerable
friend - I have seen some dirty cabins in the west of Ireland and
some vile holes in East London. I've been in some places which I
can't think of even now without feeling sick. I'm not a particular
chap, wasn't brought up to it - no, nor squeamish either, but this
is a bit thicker than anything I've ever knocked up against.
The Malefactor by Phillips Oppenheim
"Walter," he said, "you are talking rot. There is nothing very complex or
stimulating about the passion of war, when men kill one another unseen; where
you feel the sting in your heart which comes from God knows where, and you
crumple up, with never a chance to have a go at the chap who has potted you
from the trenches, or behind a rock, a thousand yards off. Mine is going to
be, except from a spectacular point of view, a very barren sort of year,
compared with what yours might be if the fire once touched your eyes. I go
where life is cruder and fiercer, perhaps, but you remain in the very city of
tragedies."
The Kingdom of the Blind
The young man, leaning upon his stick, greeted his aunt and murmured a word of apology. He was very fair, and with a slight, reddish moustache and the remains of freckles upon his face. His grey eyes were a little sunken, and there were lines about his mouth which one might have guessed had been brought out recently by pain or suffering of some sort. His left arm reclined
uselessly in a black silk sling. He glanced around the little assembly.
The Zeppelin's Passenger
Captain Griffiths shook his head. He was a man considerably older than his questioner, with long, nervous face, and thick black hair
streaked with grey. His fingers were bony, his complexion, for a
soldier, curiously sallow, and notwithstanding his height, which
was considerable, he was awkward, at times almost uncouth. His
voice was hard and unsympathetic, and his contributions to the
tea-table talk had been almost negligible.
Gilbert Parker
The Battle Of The Strong
In all the world there is no coast like the coast of Jersey; so treacherous, so snarling; serrated with rocks seen and unseen, tortured by currents maliciously whimsical, encircled by tides that sweep up from the Antarctic world with the devouring force of a monstrous serpent projecting itself towards its prey.
Cumner's Son and Other South Sea Folk
There was trouble at Mandakan. You could not have guessed it from anything the eye could see. In front of the Residency two soldiers marched up and down sleepily, mechanically, between two ten-pounders marking the limit of their patrol
Donovan Pasha
There is a town on the Nile which Fielding Bey called Hasha, meaning "Heaven Forbid!" He loathed inspecting it. Going up the Nile, he would put off visiting it till he came down;
Mrs. Falchion
The part I played in Mrs. Falchion's career was not very noble, but I shall set it forth plainly here, else I could not have the boldness to write of her faults or those of others.
The Judgment House
The music throbbed in a voice of singular and delicate power; the air was resonant with melody, love and pain. The meanest Italian in the gallery far up beneath the ceiling, the most exalted of the land in the boxes and the stalls, leaned indulgently forward
The Lane That Had No Turning
the English Governor of French Canada -- was come to Pontiac, accompanied by a goodly retinue; by private secretary, military secretary, aide-de-camp, cabinet minister, and all that. He was making a tour of the Province
Michel and Angle
Angele had gone through many phases of alternate hope and despair. She knew that Montgomery the Camisard was dead, and a rumour, carried by refugees, reached her that De la Foret had been with him to the end.
Northern Lights
It's got to be settled to-night, Nance. This game is up here, up for ever. The redcoat police from Ottawa are coming, and they'll soon be roostin' in this post
Pierre And His People
from the window he was watching Sergeant Fones as he rode towards the Big Divide. Presently he said: "He's going towards Humphrey's place. I -- " He stopped, bent his brows, caught one corner of his slight moustache between his teeth, and did not stir a muscle until the Sergeant had passed over the Divide.
The Pomp of the Lavilettes
You could not call the place a village, nor yet could it be called a town. Viewed from the bluff, on the English side of the river, it was a long stretch of small farmhouses
The Power And The Glory
there is proof that I love the Jesuit for his piety, fearlessness, and faith. In all spiritual matters I am his perfect friend.
The Right of Way
The judge looked up reprovingly at the gallery; the clerk of the court angrily called "Silence!" towards the offending corner, and seven or eight hundred eyes raced between three centres of interest -- the judge, the prisoner, and the prisoner's counsel.
Romany Of The Snows
Quicksands I've seen along the sayshore, and up to me half-ways I've been in wan, wid a double-and-twist in the rope to pull me out; but a suckin' sand in the open plain -- aw
Translation of A Savage
When Mrs. Frank Armour arrived at Montreal she still wore her Indian costume of clean, well-broidered buckskin, moccasins, and leggings, all surmounted by a blanket.
Seats Of The Mighty
When Monsieur Doltaire entered the salon, and, dropping lazily into a chair beside Madame Duvarney and her daughter, drawled out, "England's Braddock -- fool and general -- has gone to heaven
The Trail of The Sword
He attracted not a little attention, and he created as much astonishment when he came into the presence of the governor. He had been announced as an envoy from Quebec. "Some new insolence of the County Frontenac
The Trespasser
Why Gaston Belward left the wholesome North to journey afar, Jacques Brillon asked often in the brawling streets of New York, and oftener in the fog of London as they made ready to ride to Ridley Court.
The Weavers
The dead man had left instructions that his body should be buried in the Quaker graveyard, but Luke Claridge and the Elders prevented that -- he had no right to the privileges of a Friend
The March of The White Guard
Jeff Hyde shook his head at the others with a pleased I-told-you-so expression; Cloud-in-the-Sky grunted his deep approval; and Late Carscallen smacked his lips in a satisfied manner
Thomas Love Peacock
Headlong Hall by Thomas Love Peacock
Here the coach stopped, and the coachman, opening the door, vociferated -- "Breakfast, gentlemen;" a sound which so gladdened the ears of the divine, that the alacrity with which he sprang from the vehicle superinduced a distortion of his ankle
Calidore by Thomas Love Peacock
Then turning towards the rocks he spread open his arms and invoked the Nymphs, the mountains, the rivers, the lakes, the fields, the springs, the woods, and the sea-shore, by the several appellations of Oreads, and Naiads, and Limniads, and Limoniads,
Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock
"It is strange," thought the baron, "that the earl should come in this martial array to his wedding;" but he had not long to meditate on the phenomenon,
Crotchet Castle by Thomas Love Peacock
a venerable family mansion, in a highly picturesque state of semi-dilapidation, pleasantly situated on a strip of dry land between the sea and the fens, at the verge of the county of Lincoln
The Last Day of Windsor Forest by Thomas Love Peacock
A still more solitary spot, which had especial charms for me, was the deep forest dell already mentioned, on the borders of Winkfield
Plain. This dell, I think, had the name of the Bourne, but I always called it the Dingle.
The Misfortunes of Elphin by Thomas Love Peacock
when Uther Pendragon held the nominal sovereignty of Britain over a number of petty kings, Gwythno Garanhir was king of Caredigion. The most valuable portion of his dominions was the Great Plain of Gwaelod, an extensive tract of level land
Sir Walter Scott
Ivanhoe
In that pleasant district of merry England which is watered by the river Don, there extended in ancient times a large forest, covering the greater part of the beautiful hills and valleys which lie between Sheffield and the pleasant town of Doncaster. The remains of this extensive wood are still to be seen at the noble seats of Wentworth, of Warncliffe Park, and around Rotherham. Here haunted of yore the fabulous Dragon of Wantley; here were fought many of the most desperate battles during the Civil Wars of the Roses; and here also flourished in ancient times those bands of gallant outlaws, whose deeds have been rendered so popular in English song.
The Antiquary
It was early on a fine summer's day, near the end of the
eighteenth century, when a young man, of genteel appearance,
journeying towards the north-east of Scotland, provided himself
with a ticket in one of those public carriages which
travel between Edinburgh and the Queensferry, at which place,
as the name implies, and as is well known to all my northern
readers, there is a passage-boat for crossing the Firth of Forth.
Guy Mannering
and curiosity extended his tour into the
adjacent frontier of the sister country. He had visited, on the day
that opens our history, some monastic ruins in the county of
Dumfries, and spent much of the day in making drawings of them from
different points; so that, on mounting his horse to resume his
journey, the brief and gloomy twilight of the season had already
commenced. His way lay through a wide tract of black moss,
extending for miles on each side and before him. Little eminences
arose like islands on its surface, bearing here and there patches
of corn, which even at this season was green, and sometimes a but,
or farm-house, shaded by a willow or two, and surrounded by large
elder bushes.
Rob Roy
But it was too late. I had much of his own obduracy of resolution, and Heaven had decreed that my sin should be my
punishment, though not to the extent which my transgression
merited. Owen, when we were left alone, continued to look at me
with eyes which tears from time to time moistened
The Talisman
The besieged now offered to surrender, upon conditions of safety to the inhabitants; while all the public treasure, military
machines, and arms were delivered to the victors, together with
the further ransom of one hundred thousand bezants. After this
capitulation, the following extraordinary scene took place.
The Tapestried Chamber
Before ordering horses, to proceed on his journey, General Browne made inquiries concerning the proprietor of the chateau which had
so attracted his admiration, and was equally surprised and
pleased at hearing in reply a nobleman named, whom we shall call
Lord Woodville. How fortunate!
Waverley or 'tis Sixty Years Since
It is, then, sixty years since Edward Waverley, the hero of the
following pages, took leave of his family, to join the regiment
of dragoons in which he had lately obtained a commission. It was
a melancholy day at Waverley-Honour when the young officer parted
with Sir Everard, the affectionate old uncle to whose title and
estate he was presumptive heir.
Chronicles of the Canongate
"This is the path to heaven." Such is the ancient motto attached
to the armorial bearings of the Canongate, and which is
inscribed, with greater or less propriety, upon all the public
buildings, from the church to the pillory, in the ancient quarter
of Edinburgh which bears, or rather once bore, the same relation
to the Good Town that Westminster does to London, being still
possessed of the palace of the sovereign, as it formerly was
dignified by the residence of the principal nobility and gentry.
Bride of Lammermoor
He
particularly shone in painting horses, that being a favourite
sign in the Scottish villages; and, in tracing his progress, it
is beautiful to observe how by degrees he learned to shorten the
backs and prolong the legs of these noble animals, until they
came to look less like crocodiles, and more like nags.
The Black Dwarf
Tired at length of being the object of shouts, laughter, and derision, David Ritchie resolved, like a deer hunted from the
herd, to retreat to some wilderness, where he might have the
least possible communication with the world which scoffed at him.
He settled himself, with this view, upon a patch of wild moorland
at the bottom of a bank on the farm of Woodhouse, in the
sequestered vale of the small river Manor, in Peeblesshire.
Kenilworth
"Slit your throat, and spoil your Sunday's quavering, Sir Clerk," said Lambourne fiercely; "cudgel you, my worshipful dealer in
flimsy sarsenets, into one of your own bales."
The Fortunes of Nigel
"It is just as he says, sir," replied Jenkin; "only I heard nothing about pigs. -- The people said he had broke some crockery, and that -- I
beg pardon, sir -- nobody could thrive within the kenning of a Scot."
The Betrothed
A Legend of Montrose
It was towards the close of a summer's evening, during the anxious period which we have commemorated, that a young gentleman
of quality, well mounted and armed, and accompanied by two servants, one of whom led a sumpter horse, rode slowly up one of those steep passes, by which the Highlands are accessible from
the Lowlands of Perthshire.
My Aunt Margaret's Mirror
My Aunt Margaret was one of that respected sisterhood upon whom devolve all the trouble and solicitude incidental to the possession of children, excepting only that which attends their entrance into the world. We were a large family, of very different dispositions and constitutions.
The Keepsake Stories
Lady Bothwell listened to her sister without attempting to console her. Probably she might be of opinion, that even the worst intelligence which could be received from Flanders might not be without some touch of consolation
Miscellaneous Prose Works
I am old, sir, poor, and peevish, and, therefore, I may be wrong; but when I look back on the last fifteen or twenty years, and more especially on the last ten, I think I see my native country of Scotland, if it is yet to be called by a title so discriminative, falling, so far as its national, or rather, perhaps, I ought now to say its provincial, interests are concerned, daily into more absolute contempt.
Anne Of Geierstein
Two travellers, one considerably past the prime of life, the other probably two or three and twenty years old, had passed the night
at the little town of Lucerne, the capital of the Swiss state of the same name, and beautifully situated on the lake of the Four Cantons.
Quentin Durward
The latter part of the fifteenth century prepared a train of future events, that ended by raising France to that state of formidable power, which has ever since been, from time to time, the principal object of jealousy to the other European nations.
Woodstock or The Cavalier
There is a handsome parish church in the town of Woodstock,--I am told so, at least, for I never saw it, having scarce time, when at the place, to view the magnificence of Blenheim
The Abbot Being The Sequel To The Monastery
Glendinning had proved what Murray expected of him, a steady friend, strong in battle, and wise in counsel, adhering to him, from motives of gratitude, in situations where by his own unbiassed will he would either have stood neuter, or have joined the opposite party. Hence, when danger was near--and it was seldom far distant--Sir Halbert Glendinning
The Lady of the Lake
Harp of the North! that mouldering long hast hung
On the witch-elm that shades Saint Fillan's spring
And down the fitful breeze thy numbers flung,
Till envious ivy did around thee cling,
Muffling with verdant ringlet every string,--
O Minstrel Harp, still must thine accents sleep?
Mid rustling leaves and fountains murmuring,
Still must thy sweeter sounds their silence keep,
Nor bid a warrior smile, nor teach a maid to weep?
Marmion A Tale Of Flodden Field
November's sky is chill and drear,
November's leaf is red and sear:
Late, gazing down the steepy linn
That hems our little garden in,
Low in its dark and narrow glen
You scarce the rivulet might ken,
Peveril Of The Peak
Such was Sir Geoffrey, who might have passed to his grave without further distinction than a brass-plate in the chancel, had he not lived in times which forced the most inactive spirits into exertion, as a tempest influences the sluggish waters of the deadest mere.
The Surgeon's Daughter
The exquisitely beautiful portrait which the Rambler has painted of his friend Levett, well describes Gideon Gray, and many other village doctors, from whom Scotland reaps more benefit, and to whom she is perhaps more ungrateful than to any other class of men, excepting her schoolmasters.
The Journal of Sir Walter Scott
The Fair Maid of Perth
Every quarter of Edinburgh has its own peculiar boast, so that the city together combines within its precincts, if you take the word of the inhabitants on the subject, as much of historical interest as of natural beauty.
Old Mortality
Under the reign of the last Stewarts, there was an anxious wish on the part of government to counteract, by every means in their power, the strict or puritanical spirit which had been the chief characteristic of the republican government
Redgauntlet
I am alone in the world; my only guardian writes to me of a large fortune which will be mine when I reach the age of twenty-five
complete; my present income is, thou knowest, more than sufficient for all my wants; and yet thou -- traitor as thou art to the cause of friendship
The Heart Of Mid-Lothian
And in our village alone, three post-coaches, and four coaches with men armed, and in scarlet cassocks, thunder through the streets each day, and rival in brilliancy and noise the invention of the celebrated tyrant:
St. Ronan's Well
Seated on the threshold of this ancient pile, where the "proud porter" had in former days "rear'd himself," a stranger had a complete and commanding view of the decayed village
The Works Of John Dryden Vol. II by Walter Scott
The Life Of Scott by J. G. Lockhart
Walter Scott, my father, was born in 1729, and educated to the profession of a Writer to the Signet. He was the eldest of a large family, several of whom I shall have occasion to mention with a tribute of sincere gratitude. My
father was a singular instance of a man rising to eminence in a profession for which nature had in some degree unfitted him.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Kidnapped Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balbour in the Year 1751
I will begin the story of my adventures with a certain morning early in the month of June, the year of grace 1751, when I took
the key for the last time out of the door of my father's house.
The sun began to shine upon the summit of the hills as I went
down the road; and by the time I had come as far as the manse,
the blackbirds were whistling in the garden lilacs, and the mist
that hung around the valley in the time of the dawn was beginning
to arise and die away.
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door, his sea-chest following
behind him in a hand-barrow--a tall, strong, heavy,
nut-brown man, his tarry pigtail falling over the
shoulder of his soiled blue coat, his hands ragged and
scarred, with black, broken nails, and the sabre cut
across one cheek, a dirty, livid white.
In the South Seas
FOR nearly ten years my health had been declining; and for some while before I set forth upon my voyage, I believed I was come to the afterpiece of life, and had only the nurse and undertaker to expect. It was suggested that I should try the South Seas; and I was not unwilling to visit like a ghost, and be carried like a bale, among scenes that had attracted me in youth and health.
The Art of Writing
THERE is nothing more disenchanting to man than to be shown the springs and mechanism of
any art. All our arts and occupations lie wholly on the surface; it is on the surface that we
perceive their beauty, fitness, and significance; and to pry below is to be appalled by their
emptiness and shocked by the coarseness of the strings and pulleys.
Across The Plains
It was, if I remember rightly, five o'clock when we were all signalled to be present at the Ferry Depot of the railroad. An emigrant ship had arrived at New York on the Saturday night, another on the Sunday morning, our own on Sunday afternoon, a fourth early on Monday; and as there is no emigrant train on Sunday a great part of the passengers from these four ships was concentrated on the train by which I was to travel.
The Black Arrow
Sir Daniel and his men lay in and about Kettley that night, warmly
quartered and well patrolled. But the Knight of Tunstall was one
who never rested from money-getting; and even now, when he was on
the brink of an adventure which should make or mar him, he was up
an hour after midnight to squeeze poor neighbours.
An Inland Voyage
The canal was busy enough. Every now and then we met or overtook a long string of boats, with great green tillers; high sterns with a window on either side of the rudder, and perhaps a jug or a flower-
pot in one of the windows; a dinghy following behind; a woman busied about the day's dinner, and a handful of children.
Stories by English Authors in Germany
The lady bending over the fire looked up at the little girl, and
forgot that she had brought neither friends nor luggage with her. She
hesitated for one moment, and then she took the childish face between
her hands and kissed it.
New Arabian Nights
During his residence in London, the accomplished Prince Florizel of
Bohemia gained the affection of all classes by the seduction of his
manner and by a well-considered generosity. He was a remarkable
man even by what was known of him; and that was but a small part of
what he actually did.
A Footnote to History
To us, with our feudal ideas, Samoa has the first appearance of a land of despotism. An elaborate courtliness marks the race alone
among Polynesians; terms of ceremony fly thick as oaths on board a
ship; commoners my-lord each other when they meet - and urchins as
they play marbles.
Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin
On the declaration of peace, Charles, because he had suffered from
scurvy, received his mother's orders to retire; and he was not the
man to refuse a request, far less to disobey a command. Thereupon
he turned farmer, a trade he was to practice on a large scale; and
we find him married to a Miss Schirr, a woman of some fortune, the
daughter of a London merchant.
Fables
But at this the travellers, with one accord, would put him off; until Jack began to suppose there was no land entirely happy. Or,
if there were, it must be one that kept its folk at home; which was
natural enough.
The Ebb-Tide
Long ago the band had broken up and marched
musically home, a motley troop of men and women, merchant
clerks and navy officers, dancing in its wake, arms about waist
and crowned with garlands. Long ago darkness and silence had
gone from house to house about the tiny pagan city. Only the
street lamps shone on, making a glow-worm halo in the umbrageous
alleys or drawing a tremulous image on the waters of the
port.
The Dynamiter
And taking the arm of his companion, he led him in silence
and at a brisk pace to the door of a quiet establishment in
Rupert Street, Soho. The entrance was adorned with one of
those gigantic Highlanders of wood which have almost risen to
the standing of antiquities;
Catriona
Here I was in this
old, black city, which was for all the world like a rabbit-warren, not
only by the number of its indwellers, but the complication of its
passages and holes. It was, indeed, a place where no stranger had a
chance to find a friend, let be another stranger.
A Child's Garden of Verses
All night long and every night,
When my mama puts out the light,
I see the people marching by,
As plain as day before my eye.
Armies and emperor and kings,
All carrying different kinds of things,
And marching in so grand a way,
You never saw the like by day.
The Master of Ballantrae
I made the last of my journey in the cold end of December, in a mighty dry day of frost, and who should be my guide but Patey
Macmorland, brother of Tam! For a tow-headed, bare-legged brat of
ten, he had more ill tales upon his tongue than ever I heard the
match of; having drunken betimes in his brother's cup.
Other Sources
The Beach of Falesa
The Bottle Imp
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson
On the whole, the Stevensons may be described as decent, reputable folk, following honest trades - millers, maltsters, and doctors, playing the character parts in the Waverley Novels with propriety, if without distinction; and to an orphan looking about him in the world for a potential ancestry, offering a plain and quite unadorned refuge, equally free from shame and glory. John, the land-labourer, is the one living and memorable figure, and he, alas! cannot possibly be more near than a collateral.
Tales and Fantasies
Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never looked Through them for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," not service -- she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well. She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear:
"Well, I lay if I get hold of you I'll --"
The Adventures of Hucklebeery Finn
YOU don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.
Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain
a novel of further adventures of Tom Sawyer
Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain.
It is a remarkable river in this: that instead of widening toward its mouth,
it grows narrower; grows narrower and deeper. From the junction of the Ohio
to a point half way down to the sea, the width averages a mile in high water:
thence to the sea the width steadily diminishes
The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain.
In the ancient city of London, on a certain autumn day in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, a boy was born to a poor
family of the name of Canty, who did not want him. On the same
day another English child was born to a rich family of the name of
Tudor, who did want him.
The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain.
There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless.
Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about perfect,
he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals,
yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of feeling
complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt.
Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain.
Strange as the incidents of this story are, they are not inventions, but facts--even to the public
confession of the accused. I take them from an old-time
Swedish criminal trial, change the actors, and transfer
the scenes to America. I have added some details,
but only a couple of them are important ones. -- M. T.
A Tramp Abroad By Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens)
In Frankfort everybody wears clean clothes, and I think we
noticed that this strange thing was the case in Hamburg, too,
and in the villages along the road. Even in the narrowest
and poorest and most ancient quarters of Frankfort neat
and clean clothes were the rule.
What Is Man?and Other Essays of Mark Twain
There are gold men, and tin men, and copper men, and leaden mean, and steel men, and so on--and each has the
limitations of his nature, his heredities, his training, and his
environment.
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Vol I by Mark Twain.
When we reflect that her century was the brutalest, the wickedest, the rottenest in history since the darkest ages, we are lost in
wonder at the miracle of such a product from such a soil. The
contrast between her and her century is the contrast between day
and night. She was truthful when lying was the common speech of
men; she was honest when honesty was become a lost virtue; she
was a keeper of promises when the keeping of a promise was expected of no one;
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Vol II by Mark Twain.
It was horribly dangerous, and it could not be necessary to stay in such a place. And you led an assault again. Joan, it is tempting
Providence. I want you to make me a promise. I want you to
promise me that you will let others lead the assaults, if there must
be assaults, and that you will take better care of yourself in those
dreadful battles. Will you?
Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain.
Been examining the great waterfall. It is the finest thing on the estate, I think. The new creature calls it Niagara Falls--why,
I am sure I do not know. Says it looks like Niagara Falls. That
is not a reason; it is mere waywardness and imbecility. I get no
chance to name anything myself.
Breaking Up General Grant by Mark Twain.
Probably the main emphasis of the Tribune's account was the "Stag" nature of the banquet. It took the reader into the dinner with a long description of "the amusing feature" of "the singular contrast" between "the stern masculinity of the line of banqueters and the almost exclusively feminine character of the groups of spectators who enclosed them on both sides" as they marched into the dining room, from which all women were excluded.
Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven by Mark Twain.
Well, when I had been dead about thirty years I begun to get a little anxious. Mind you, had been whizzing through space all that
time, like a comet. Like a comet! Why, Peters, I laid over the
lot of them! Of course there warn't any of them going my way, as a
steady thing, you know, because they travel in a long circle like
the loop of a lasso, whereas I was pointed as straight as a dart
for the Hereafter; but I happened on one every now and then that
was going my way for an hour or so, and then we had a bit of a
brush together. But it was generally pretty one-sided, because I
sailed by them the same as if they were standing still.
A Double-Barreled Detective Story by Mark Twain.
Jacob Fuller, the bridegroom, is twenty-six years old, is of an old but unconsidered family which had by compulsion emigrated from Sedgemoor, and for King James's purse's profit, so everybody said -- some maliciously the rest merely because they believed it. The bride is nineteen and beautiful. She is intense, high-strung, romantic, immeasurably proud of her Cavalier blood, and passionate in her love for her young husband.
Following The Equator by Mark Twain.
We started westward from New York in midsummer, with Major Pond to manage the platform-business as far as the Pacific. It was warm work, all the way, and the last fortnight of it was suffocatingly smoky, for in Oregon
and Columbia the forest fires were raging.
The Story of the Good Little Boy by Mark Twain.
This good little boy read all the Sunday-school books; they were his greatest delight. This was the whole secret of it. He believed in the good little boys they put in the Sunday-school books; he had every confidence in them. He longed to come across one of them alive once; but he never did. They all died before his time, maybe.
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain.
But at last, in the drift of time, Hadleyburg had the ill luck to offend a passing stranger--possibly without knowing it, certainly
without caring, for Hadleyburg was sufficient unto itself, and cared
not a rap for strangers or their opinions. Still, it would have
been well to make an exception in this one's case, for he was a bitter man, and revengeful.
Some Learned Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls by Mark Twain.
But these expeditions were trifles compared with the present one; for this one comprised among its servants the very greatest among the learned; and besides it was to go to the utterly unvisited regions believed to lie beyond the mighty forest--as we have remarked before. How the members were banqueted, and glorified, and talked about! Everywhere that one of them showed himself, straightway there was a crowd to gape and stare at him.
On the Decay of the Art of Lying by Mark Twain.
No fact is more firmly established than that lying is a necessity of our circumstances--the deduction that it is then a Virtue goes without saying. No virtue can reach its highest usefulness without careful and diligent
cultivation--therefore, it goes without saying that this one ought to be
taught in the public schools
The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories by Mark Twain.
Yes, Austria was far from the world, and asleep, and our village was in the middle of that sleep, being in the middle of Austria. It drowsed in peace in the deep privacy of a hilly and woodsy solitude where news from the world hardly ever came to disturb its dreams, and was infinitely content. At its front flowed the tranquil river
Mark Twain, A Biography Vol I Part 1 by Albert Bigelow Paine
He returned to school, but he never learned to like it. Each morning he went with reluctance and remained with loathing--the loathing which he always had for anything resembling bondage and tyranny or even the
smallest curtailment of liberty.
Mark Twain, A Biography Vol I Part 2 by Albert Bigelow Paine
Expecting to find the house empty, he found it packed from the footlights to the walls. Sidling out from the wings--wobbly-kneed and dry of tongue--he was greeted by a murmur, a roar, a very crash of applause that
frightened away his remaining vestiges of courage.
My Watch, An Instructive Tale by Mark Twain.
My beautiful new watch had run eighteen months without losing or gaining, and without breaking any part of its machinery or stopping. I had come to believe it infallible in its judgments about the time of day, and to consider its constitution and its anatomy imperishable.
Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses by Mark Twain.
It seems to me that it was far from right for the Professor of English Literature in Yale, the Professor of English Literature in Columbia, and Wilkie Collins to deliver opinions on Cooper's literature without having read some of it. It would have been much more decorous to keep silent and let persons talk who have read Cooper.
Christian Science
1601
Mark Twain's Autobiography Vol I
Mark Twain's Autobiography Vol II
A Dog's Tale
My father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie, but I am a Presbyterian. This is what my mother told me, I do not know these nice
distinctions myself.
Roughing It
My brother had just been appointed Secretary of Nevada Territory—an office of such majesty that it concentrated in itself the duties and dignities of Treasurer, Comptroller, Secretary of State, and Acting Governor in the Governor's absence.
Henry Van Dyke
The Americanism of Washington
Hard is the task of the man who at this late day attempts to say anything new about Washington. But perhaps it may be possible to unsay some of the things which have been said, and which, though they were at one time new, have never at any time been strictly true.
Ships And Havens
OF all the things that man has made none is so full of interest and charm, none possesses so distinct a life and character of its own, as a ship.
The Ruling Passion by Henry Van Dyke
He entered the backwoods village of Bytown literally on the wings of the wind. It whirled him along like a big snowflake, and dropped
him at the door of Moody's "Sportsmen's Retreat," as if he were a
New Year's gift from the North Pole. His coming seemed a mere
chance; but perhaps there was something more in it, after all. At
all events, you shall hear, if you will, the time and the manner of his arrival.
Little Rivers
A river is the most human and companionable of all inanimate things. It has a life, a character, a voice of its own, and is as
full of good fellowship as a sugar-maple is of sap. It can talk in
various tones, loud or low, and of many subjects, grave and gay.
Under favourable circumstances it will even make a shift to sing,
not in a fashion that can be reduced to notes and set down in black
and white on a sheet of paper
Fisherman's Luck
How salty and stimulating, for example, is the sailorman's hail of "Ship ahoy!" It is like a breeze laden with briny odours and a pleasant dash of spray. The miners in some parts of Germany have a
good greeting for their dusky trade. They cry to one who is going
down the shaft, "Gluck auf!" All the perils of an underground
adventure and all the joys of seeing the sun again are compressed
into a word.
The Blue Flower by Henry Van Dyke
The parents were abed and sleeping. The clock on the wall ticked loudly and lazily, as if it had time to spare. Outside
the rattling windows there was a restless, whispering wind.
The room grew light, and dark, and wondrous light again, as
the moon played hide-and-seek through the clouds. The boy,
wide-awake and quiet in his bed, was thinking of the Stranger and his stories.
The Mansion
There was an air of calm and reserved opulence about the Weightman mansion that spoke not of money squandered,
but of wealth prudently applied. Standing on a corner of
the Avenue no longer fashionable for residence, it looked upon
the swelling tide of business with an expression of complacency and half-disdain.
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