Arthur's Classic Novels: Complete British Writers
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Jane Austen
Emma
The real evils, indeed, of Emma's situation were the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little
too well of herself; these were the disadvantages which threatened
alloy to her many enjoyments. The danger, however, was at present
so unperceived, that they did not by any means rank as misfortunes
with her.
Sense And Sensibility by Jane Austen
No sooner was his father's funeral over, than Mrs. John
Dashwood, without sending any notice of her intention to her
mother-in-law, arrived with her child and their attendants.
No one could dispute her right to come; the house was
her husband's from the moment of his father's decease;
but the indelicacy of her conduct was so much the greater,
and to a woman in Mrs. Dashwood's situation, with only
common feelings, must have been highly unpleasing
Persuasion
Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Elliot's character;
vanity of person and of situation. He had been remarkably handsome
in his youth; and, at fifty-four, was still a very fine man.
Few women could think more of their personal appearance than he did,
nor could the valet of any new made lord be more delighted with
the place he held in society. He considered the blessing of beauty
as inferior only to the blessing of a baronetcy; and the Sir Walter Elliot,
who united these gifts, was the constant object of his warmest respect
and devotion.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the
north of England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise
and four to see the place, and was so much delighted with it,
that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that he is to take
possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to
be in the house by the end of next week.
Northanger Abbey
No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine.
Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother,
her own person and disposition, were all equally against her.
Her father was a clergyman, without being neglected,
or poor, and a very respectable man, though his name
was Richard--and he had never been handsome.
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
About thirty years ago Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck
to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park,
in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised
to the rank of a baronet's lady, with all the comforts
and consequences of an handsome house and large income.
All Huntingdon exclaimed on the greatness of the match,
and her uncle, the lawyer, himself, allowed her to be at least
three thousand pounds short of any equitable claim to it.
She had two sisters to be benefited by her elevation;
and such of their acquaintance as thought Miss Ward and Miss
Frances quite as handsome as Miss Maria, did not scruple
to predict their marrying with almost equal advantage.
But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune
in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them.
Lady Susan
I take London in my way to that insupportable spot, a country village;
for I am really going to Churchhill. Forgive me, my dear friend, it is my
last resource. Were there another place in England open to me I would
prefer it. Charles Vernon is my aversion; and I am afraid of his wife. At
Churchhill, however, I must remain till I have something better in view.
The Watsons by Jane Austen
The Edwards were people of fortune, who lived in the town and kept their coach. The Watsons inhabited a village about three miles distant, were poor, and had no close carriage; and ever since there had been balls in the place, the former were accustomed to invite the latter to dress, dine, and sleep at their house on every monthly return throughout the winter.
Love And Friendship and Other Early Works
How often, in answer to my repeated intreaties that you would give my Daughter a regular detail of the Misfortunes and
Adventures of your Life, have you said "No, my freind never will
I comply with your request till I may be no longer in Danger of
again experiencing such dreadful ones."
Various British Writers
The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay by Maurice Hewlett
I like this good man's account of leopards, and find it more pertinent to my matter than you might think. Milo was a Carthusian
monk, abbot of the cloister of Saint Mary-of-the-Pine by Poictiers;
Rest Harrow by Maurice Hewlett
An observant traveller, homing to England by the Ostend-Dover packet in the April of some five years ago, relished the vagaries of a
curious couple who arrived by a later train, and proved to be both of
his acquaintance.
The Fool Errant by Maurice Hewlett
What money but a walking-stick? What are fine manners but a wig? If I professed, instead of abhorring, the Cynic school of philosophy
The Forest Lovers by Maurice Hewlett
It is related of Prosper le Gai, that when his brother Malise, Baron of Starning and Parrox, showed him the door of their father's house, and showed it with a meaning not to be mistaken, he stuck a sprig of green holly in his cap.
Earthwork Out Of Tuscany by Maurice Hewlett
I would spare you, if I might, the horrors of my night-long journey from Milan. There is little romance in a railway: the novelists have worked it dry.
Max by Katherine Cecil Thurston
A night journey is essentially a thing of possibilities. To those who count it as mere transit, mere linking of experiences, it is, of course, a commonplace; but to the imaginative, who by gift divine see a picture in every cloud, a story behind every shadow, it suggests romance—romance in the very making.
The Masquerader by Katherine Cecil Thurston
Two incidents, widely different in character yet bound together by results, marked the night of January the twenty-third. On that night the blackest fog within a four years' memory fell upon certain portions of London
Miss Mapp by E F (Edward Frederick) Benson
Miss Elizabeth Mapp might have been forty, and she had taken advantage of this opportunity by being just a year or two older. Her face was of high vivid colour and was corrugated by chronic rage and curiosity; but these vivifying emotions had preserved to her an astonishing activity of mind and body, which fully accounted for the comparative adolescence with which she would have been credited anywhere except in the charming little town which she had inhabited so long. Anger and the gravest suspicions about everybody had kept her young and on the boil.
Lucia in London by E F (Edward Frederick) Benson
Mapp And Lucia by E F (Edward Frederick) Benson
Lucia's Progress by E F (Edward Frederick) Benson
Trouble for Lucia by E F (Edward Frederick) Benson
Mrs Ames by E F (Edward Frederick) Benson
Paying Guests by E F (Edward Frederick) Benson
Collected Stories by E F (Edward Frederick) Benson
Crescent and Iron Cross by E F (Edward Frederick) Benson
The Blotting Book by E F (Edward Frederick) Benson
Michael by E F (Edward Frederick) Benson
Good-bye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton
Across the road behind a rampart of ancient elms lay Brookfield, russet under its autumn mantle of creeper. A group of eighteenth-century buildings centred upon a quadrangle, and there were acres of playing fields beyond; then came the small dependent village and the open fen country. Brookfield, as Wetherby had said, was an old foundation; established in the reign of Elizabeth, as a grammar school, it might, with better luck, have become as famous as Harrow.
Lost Horizon by James Hilton
Was It Murder? by James Hilton
Random Harvest by James Hilton
Morning Journey by James Hilton
So Well Remembered by James Hilton
Time and Time Again by James Hilton
The Mystics by Katherine Cecil Thurston
OF all the sensations to which the human mind is a prey, there is none so powerful in its finality, so chilling in its sense of
an impending event, as the knowledge that Death--grim, implacable Death
The Amateur Gentleman by Jeffrey Farnol
John Barty, ex-champion of England and landlord of the "Coursing Hound," sat screwed round in his chair with his eyes yet turned to the door that had closed after the departing lawyer fully five minutes ago, and his eyes were wide and blank
The Money Moon by Jeffrey Farnol
When Sylvia Marchmont went to Europe, George Bellew being, at the same time, desirous of testing his newest acquired yacht, followed her, and mutual friends in New York, Newport, and elsewhere, confidently awaited news of their engagement.
My Lady Caprice by Jeffrey Farnol
Precisely a week ago Lady Warburton had requested me to call upon her - had regarded me with a curious exactitude through her
lorgnette, and gently though firmly
The Broad Highway by Jeffrey Farnol
Here Mr. Grainger paused in his reading to glance up over the rim of his spectacles, while Sir Richard lay back in his chair and
laughed loudly. "Gad!" he exclaimed, still chuckling, "I'd give a hundred pounds if he could have been present to hear that
Beltane The Smith by Jeffrey Farnol
Alone he lived in the shadow of the great trees, happy when the piping of the birds was in his ears, and joying to listen to the plash
and murmur of the brook that ran merrily beside his hut
Black Bartlemy's Treasure by Jeffrey Farnol
thunder crashed and lightning
flamed athwart the muddy road that wound steeply up betwixt grassy banks topped by swaying trees. Broken twigs, whirling down the wind, smote me in the dark
The Geste of Duke Jocelyn by Jeffrey Farnol
Long, long ago when castles grim did frown,
When massy wall and gate did 'fend each town;
When mighty lords in armour bright were seen
Descent into Hell by Charles Williams
Many Dimensions by Charles Williams
All Hallows' Eve by Charles Williams
The Place of the Lion by Charles Williams
War in Heaven by Charles Williams
Martin Conisby's Vengeance by Jeffrey Farnol
Crouched upon my bed I fell vaguely a-wondering what should have roused me, hearkening to the distant roar of the surf that seemed to me now plaintive and despairing, now full of an ominous menace that banished gentle sleep.
White Ladies of Worcester by Florence L. Barclay
Entering this passage from the crypt in their own cloisters, they walked in darkness below the sunny meadows, passed beneath the
Fore-gate, moving in silent procession under the busy streets, until they reached the crypt of the Cathedral.
The Rosary by Florence L. Barclay
A wag had once remarked that if you met her Grace of Meldrum returning from gardening or feeding her poultry, and were in a
charitable frame of mind, you would very likely give her sixpence.
The Scapegoat by Hall Caine
They were not altogether a happy household, and the chief apparent cause of discord was the child of the first wife
in the home of the second.
The Christian by Hall Caine
The captain carried off his compliment with a breezy laugh, and went along to the bridge. The girl had heard him only in a momentary flash of consciousness, and she replied merely with a side glance and a smile.
The Woman Thou Gavest Me by Hall Caine
In my father's room, on the ground floor, Father Dan sat by the fire, fingering his beads and listening to every sound that came
from my mother's room
The Shadow of a Crime A Cumbrian Romance A Cumbrian Romance by Hall Caine
They were rude sons and daughters of the hills who inhabited this mountain home two centuries ago
A Fountain Sealed by Anne Douglas Sedgwick
The girl who sat near the window, her furs thrown back from her shoulders, a huge muff dangling from her hand, was a few years younger and exceedingly pretty. Her skin was unusually white
The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and Crystal Palace by Anne Douglas Sedgwick
"You mean she will not let you break your neck, foolish boy. You know well, Tom, your mother refuses you no reasonable amusement. Hey, look there!"
The Keeper of the Door by Ethel M. Dell
everyone bullied him because he was small and possessed only one arm, having shed the other by inadvertence somewhere on the borders of the Indian Empire.
Charles Rex by Ethel M. Dell
Saltash turned and surveyed the sky-line over the yacht's rail with obvious discontent on his ugly face. His eyes were odd, one black, one grey, giving a curiously unstable appearance to a countenance
The Rocks of Valpre by Ethel M. Dell
Of a cheerful disposition was Cinders, deeply interested in all things living, despising nothing however trivial, constantly seeking, and very often finding, treasures of supreme value
Greatheart by Ethel M. Dell
Biddy Maloney stood at the window of her mistress's bedroom, and surveyed the world with eyes of stern disapproval. There was nothing of the smart lady's maid about Biddy.
Rosa Mundi and Other Stories by Ethel M. Dell
"Oh, thank you ever so much," she said. "I knew it was much nicer this side than the other. No one can see us here, either."
The Lamp in the Desert by Ethel M. Dell
The women of the community, like migratory birds, dwelt in them for barely four months in the year, flitting with the coming of
the pitiless heat to Bhulwana
The Tidal Wave and Other Stories by Ethel M. Dell
He whistled over the job cheerily and tunelessly, glancing now and again with a keen, birdlike intelligence towards the motionless figure twenty yards away that sat with bent head broiling in the sun.
The Way of an Eagle by Ethel M. Dell
The long clatter of an irregular volley of musketry rattled warningly from the naked mountain ridges; over a great grey shoulder of rock the sun sank in a splendid opal glow
The Knave of Diamonds by Ethel M. Dell
There came a sudden blare of music from the great ballroom below, and the woman who stood alone at an open window on the first floor shrugged her shoulders and shivered a little.
The Top of the World by Ethel M. Dell
Old Jeffcott surveyed her with loving admiration. There was no one in the world to compare with Miss Sylvia in his opinion.
The Obstacle Race by Ethel M. Dell
"If I were Lady Joanna Farringmore, I suppose I should say something rather naughty in French, Columbus, to relieve my feelings. But you and I don't talk French, do we?
The Bars of Iron by Ethel M. Dell
The man he faced was considerably his superior in height and build. He also was British, but he had none of the other's careless ease of bearing.
Mr. Waddington of Wyck by May Sinclair
Barbara Madden had not been two days at Lower Wyck Manor, and already she was at home there; she knew by heart Fanny's drawing-room with the low stretch of the Tudor windows at each end
Mary Olivier: A Life by May Sinclair
When old Jenny shook it the wooden rings rattled on the pole and grey men with pointed heads and squat, bulging bodies came out of the folds on to the flat green ground.
Life and Death of Harriett Frean by May Sinclair
Her mother said it three times. And each time the Baby Harriett laughed. The sound of her laugh was so funny that she laughed again at that; she kept on laughing, with shriller and shriller squeals.
The Belfry by May Sinclair
Of course this story can't be published as it stands just yet. Not--if I'm to be decent--for another generation, because, thank Heaven, they're still alive.
Superseded by May Sinclair
The school was filing out along the main corridor of St. Sidwell's. It came with a tramp and a rustle and a hiss and a tramp, urged to a trot by the excited teachers.
The Romantic by May Sinclair
She could stave off the worst by not looking at him, by looking at other things, impersonal, innocent things; the bright, yellow, sharp gabled station; the black girders of the bridge
The Three Sisters by May Sinclair
The three sisters, Mary, Gwendolen and Alice, daughters of James Cartaret, the Vicar of Garth, were sitting there in the dining-room
behind the yellow blind, doing nothing.
The Three Brontës by May Sinclair
It is the genius of the Brontës that made their place immortal; but it is the soul of the place that made their genius what it is.
Anne Severn and the Fieldings by May Sinclair
Anne wanted to get away from the quiet, serious men and play with Jerrold; but their idea seemed to be that it was too soon. Too soon after the funeral.
The Divine Fire by May Sinclair
Lucia herself, he noticed, had an ardent look, as if a particularly interesting idea had just occurred to her. He wished it hadn't.
The Tree of Heaven by May Sinclair
Michael's mother was Grannie's child. To see how she could be a child you had only to think of her in her nightgown with her long
brown hair plaited in a pigtail hanging down her back and tied with a blue ribbon.
The Nature of The Evidence by May Sinclair
This is the story Marston told me. He didn't want to tell it. I had to tear it from him bit by bit.
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.
The Token by May Sinclair
Sisters-in-law do not, I think, invariably adore each other, and I am aware that my chief merit in Cicely's eyes was that I am Donald's sister; but for me there was no question of extraneous quality -- it
was all pure Cicely.
Elizabeth and her German Garden by Elizabeth Von Arnim
I love my garden. I am writing in it now in the late afternoon loveliness, much interrupted by the mosquitoes and the temptation to look at all the glories of the new green leaves washed half an hour ago in a cold shower.
The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight by Elizabeth Von Arnim
Her Grand Ducal Highness the Princess Priscilla of Lothen-Kunitz was up to the age of twenty-one a most promising young lady. She was not only poetic in appearance beyond the habit of princesses but she was also of graceful and appropriate behaviour.
Christopher and Columbus by Elizabeth Von Arnim
It was Anna-Rosa who suggested their being Christopher and Columbus. She was the elder by twenty minutes. Both had had their
seventeenth birthday—and what a birthday
The Solitary Summer by Elizabeth Von Arnim
It was the evening of May Day, and the spring had taken hold of me body and soul. The sky was full of stars, and the garden of scents, and the borders of wallflowers and sweet, sly pansies.
The River War by Winston Churchill
The town of Khartoum, at the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, is the point on which the trade of the south must inevitably converge.
It is the great spout through which the merchandise collected from a
wide area streams northwards to the Mediterranean shore.
The Story Of The Malakand Field Force by Winston Churchill
The inhabitants of these wild but wealthy valleys are of many tribes, but of similar character and condition. The abundant crops which a warm
sun and copious rains raise from a fertile soil, support a numerous
population in a state of warlike leisure. Except at the times of sowing
and of harvest, a continual state of feud and strife prevails throughout
the land. Tribe wars with tribe.
Roper's Row by Warwick Deeping
The Secret Sanctuary by Warwick Deeping
Old Pybus by Warwick Deeping
Doomsday by Warwick Deeping
Sorrell and Son by Warwick Deeping
Dubliners by James Joyce
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Ulysses by James Joyce
Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
Bronte Sisters
Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
A
carriage and a lady's-maid were great conveniences; but, thank
heaven, she had feet to carry her, and hands to minister to her own
necessities. An elegant house and spacious grounds were not to be
despised; but she would rather live in a cottage with Richard Grey
than in a palace with any other man in the world.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
'Well! - an honest and industrious farmer is one of the most useful members of society; and if I devote my talents to the cultivation
of my farm, and the improvement of agriculture in general, I shall
thereby benefit, not only my own immediate connections and
dependants, but, in some degree, mankind at large:
The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1
For a right understanding of the life of my dear friend, Charlotte Bronte, it appears to me more necessary in her case than in most
others, that the reader should be made acquainted with the peculiar forms of population and society amidst which her earliest years were passed,
The Life of Charlotte Bronte Volume 2
While the minds of the three sisters were in this state of suspense, their long-expected friend came to pay her promised visit. She was with them at the beginning of the glowing August of that year.
The Professor by Charlotte Bronte
"I think when you and I were at Eton together, we were neither of
us what could be called popular characters: you were a
sarcastic, observant, shrewd, cold-blooded creature; my own
portrait I will not attempt to draw, but I cannot recollect that
it was a strikingly attractive one--can you?
Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
If you think, from this prelude, that anything like a romance is preparing for you, reader, you never were more mistaken. Do you anticipate sentiment, and poetry, and reverie? Do you expect passion, and stimulus, and melodrama? Calm your expectations; reduce them to a lowly standard. Something real, cool and solid lies before you
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early)
the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a
rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of
the question.
Two Short Pieces by Charlotte Bronte
I feel myself that it is time the obscurity attending those two names - Ellis and Acton - was done away. The little mystery,
which formerly yielded some harmless pleasure, has lost its
interest; circumstances are changed. It becomes, then, my duty to
explain briefly the origin and authorship of the books written by
Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell.
Villette by Charlotte Bronte
A little before ten the doorbell announced Warren's return. No sooner was the door opened than I ran down into the hall: there lay a trunk and some band-boxes, beside them stood a person like a nurse-girl, and at the foot of the staircase was Warren with a shawled bundle in his arms.
Their Mariposa Legend A Romance of Santa Catalina by Charlotte Bronte
It began to happen a long time ago, centuries ago, when, in a fragrant rush of rain, spring came one day to Punagwandah, fairest of the Channel Islands. Beneath the golden mists of sunrise danced a radiant sea. On steeply sloping hillsides where thickets of wild lilac bloomed, the lark shook from his tiny throat a tumult of glad music.
Napoleon and the Spectre by Charlotte Bronte
Scarcely had he settled into a peaceful attitude of repose, when he was disturbed by a sensation of thirst. Lifting himself on his elbow, he took a glass of lemonade from the small stand which was placed beside him. He refreshed himself by a deep draught.
Napoleon and the Spectre by Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
I have just returned from a visit to my landlord - the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. This is
certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not believe
that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from
the stir of society. A perfect misanthropist's heaven: and Mr.
Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation
between us. A capital fellow! He little imagined how my heart
warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes withdraw so
suspiciously under their brows, as I rode up, and when his fingers
sheltered themselves, with a jealous resolution, still further in
his waistcoat, as I announced my name.
Richard Burton
The Vatsayayana Kama Sutra
MAN, the period of whose life is one hundred years, should practise Dharma, Artha and Kama at different times and in such a manner that they may harmonize together and not clash in any way. He should acquire learning in his childhood, in his youth and middle age he should attend to Artha and Kama, and in his old age he should perform Dharma, and thus seek to gain Moksha, i.e. release from further transmigration.
The Arabian Nights by Richard Burton
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 by Richard Burton
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".
Sheikh Nefzaoui: The Perfumed Garden
If one looks at a woman with those qualities in front, one is fascinated; if from behind, one
dies with pleasure. Looked at sitting, she is a rounded dome; lying, a soft-bed; standing, the
staff of a standard. When she is walking, her natural parts appear as set off under her
clothing.
Goa, and the Blue Mountains Six Months of Sick Leave
First Footsteps in East Africa an Exploration of Harar
The Guide-book to Mecca A Pictorial Pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina
The Land of Midian, Vol. 1
The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 by Richard Burton
Masters of the English Novel
A New System of Sword Exercise for Infantry
Priapeia Sportive Epigrams On Priapus
Before the War by Richard Burton
The Jew, the Gypsy and El Islam by Richard Burton
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.
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
"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 by Marie Corelli
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
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 by Marie Corelli
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 by Marie Corelli
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
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,
George Eliot
Adam Bede
"There's reason in what thee say'st, Adam," observed Seth, gravely. "But thee know'st thyself as it's hearing the preachers thee find'st so much fault with has turned many an idle fellow
into an industrious un. It's the preacher as empties th'
alehouse; and if a man gets religion, he'll do his work none the
worse for that."
The Lifted Veil by George Eliot
Suddenly I was conscious That my father was in the room, but not alone: there were two persons with him. Strange! I had heard no footstep, I had not seen the door open; but I saw my father, and at his right hand our neighbour Mrs. Filmore, whom I remembered very well, though I had not seen her for five years. She was a commonplace middle-aged woman, in silk and cashmere; but the lady on the left of my father was not more than twenty, a tall, slim, willowy figure, with luxuriant blond hair, arranged in cunning braids and folds That looked almost too massive for the slight figure and the small-featured, thin-lipped face they crowned.
Silas Marner
It was fifteen years since Silas Marner had first come to Raveloe; he was then simply a pallid young man, with prominent short-sighted brown eyes, whose appearance would have had nothing strange for people of average culture and experience, but for the villagers near whom he had come to settle it had mysterious peculiarities which corresponded with the exceptional nature of his occupation, and his advent from an unknown region called "North'ard".
Middlemarch
Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. Her hand and wrist were so finely formed that she could wear sleeves not less bare of style than those in which the Blessed Virgin appeared to Italian painters; and her profile as well as her stature and bearing seemed to gain the more dignity from her plain garments, which by the side of provincial fashion gave her the impressiveness of a fine quotation from the Bible,--or from one of our elder poets
Brother Jacob by George Eliot
Among the many fatalities attending the bloom of young desire, that of blindly taking to the confectionery line has not, perhaps, been sufficiently considered. How is the son of a British yeoman, who has been fed principally on salt pork and yeast dumplings, to know that there is satiety for the human stomach even in a paradise of glass jars full of sugared almonds and pink lozenges, and that the tedium of life can reach a pitch where plum-buns at discretion cease to offer the slightest excitement? Or how, at the tender age when a confectioner seems to him a very prince whom all the world must envy--who breakfasts on macaroons, dines on meringues, sups on twelfth-cake, and fills up the intermediate hours with sugar-candy or peppermint
Scenes of Clerical Life
Impressions of Theophrastus Such by George Eliot
Felix Holt, The Radical by George Eliot
How Lisa Loved the King by George Eliot
Impressions of Theophrastus Such by George Eliot
Janet's Repentance by George Eliot
Mr. Gilfil's Love Story by George Eliot
O May I Join the Choir Invisible by George Eliot
The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton by George Eliot
Scenes of Clerical Life by George Eliot
Henry Fielding
Tom Jones
This gentleman had in his youth married a very worthy and beautiful woman, of whom he had been extremely fond: by her he had three children, all of whom died in their infancy. He had likewise had the misfortune of burying this beloved wife herself, about five years before the time in which this history chuses to set out.
Amelia
A genteel young man and woman were then set forward, and a very grave-looking person swore he caught them in a situation which we cannot as particularly describe here as he did before the magistrate; who,
having received a wink from his clerk, declared with much warmth that
the fact was incredible and impossible.
The Governess
It was on a fine summer's evening when the school-hours were at an
end, and the young ladies were admitted to divert themselves for
some time, as they thought proper, in a pleasant garden adjoining
to the house, that their governess, who delighted in pleasing
them, brought out a little basket of apples, which were intended
to be divided equally amongst them; but Mrs. Teachum being hastily
called away (one of her poor neighhours having had an accident
which wanted her assistance), she left the fruit in the hands of
Miss Jenny Peace, the eldest of her scholars, with a strict charge
to see that every one had an equal share of her gift.
From This World to the Next
On the first day of December 1741 I departed this life at my lodgings in Cheapside. My body had been some time dead before I
was at liberty to quit it, lest it should by any accident return
to life: this is an injunction imposed on all souls by the
eternal law of fate, to prevent the inconveniences which would
follow. As soon as the destined period was expired (being no
longer than till the body is become perfectly cold and stiff) I
began to move; but found myself under a difficulty of making my
escape, for the mouth or door was shut, so that it was impossible
for me to go out at it; and the windows, vulgarly called the
eyes, were so closely pulled down by the fingers of a nurse, that
I could by no means open them. At last I perceived a beam of
light glimmering at the top of the house (for such I may call the
body I had been inclosed in), whither ascending, I gently let
myself down through a kind of chimney, and issued out at the nostrils.
The Journal Of A Voyage To Lisbon
To make a traveler an agreeable companion to a man of sense, it
is necessary, not only that he should have seen much, but that he
should have overlooked much of what he hath seen. Nature is not,
any more than a great genius, always admirable in her
productions, and therefore the traveler, who may be called her
commentator, should not expect to find everywhere subjects worthy
of his notice. It is certain, indeed, that one may be guilty of
omission, as well as of the opposite extreme;
The True Patriot
The Covent-Garden Tragedy
The Fathers
The Mock Doctor: Or The Dumb Lady Cur'd
Fielding
The Intriguing Chambermaid by Henry Fielding
Love in Several Masques by Henry Fielding
The Miser by Henry Fielding
Miss Lucy in Town by Henry Fielding
The Modern Husband by Henry Fielding
The Old Debauchees by Henry Fielding
An Old Man Taught Wisdom by Henry Fielding
Plutus by Henry Fielding
Pasquin by Henry Fielding
Rape Upon Rape by Henry Fielding
Shamela by Henry Fielding
The Temple Beau by Henry Fielding
Tumble-down Dick by Henry Fielding
The Wedding Day by Henry Fielding
The Welsh Opera by Henry Fielding
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 by E. M. Forster
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 by E. M. Forster
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.
John Galsworthy
Five Tales by John Galsworthy
His thoughts went off at a tangent to a certain issue troubling his legal conscience. He had not wavered in the usual assumption of
omniscience, but he was by no means sure that he had given right advice.
The Forsyte Saga Volume III
In that Summer of 1909 the simple souls who even then desired to simplify the English tongue, had, of course, no cognizance of little Jon, or they would have claimed him for a disciple. But one can be
too simple in this life, for his real name was Jolyon, and his living
father and dead half-brother had usurped of old the other
shortenings, Jo and Jolly.
The Freelands
One early April afternoon, in a Worcestershire field, the only field in that immediate landscape which was not down in grass, a
man moved slowly athwart the furrows, sowing--a big man of heavy
build, swinging his hairy brown arm with the grace of strength.
The Dark Flower
He was on his way to his tutor's to read an essay on Oliver Cromwell; and under the old wall, which had once hedged in the
town, he took out of his pocket a beast. It was a small tortoise,
and, with an extreme absorption, he watched it move its little
inquiring head, feeling it all the time with his short, broad fingers,
The Country House
Mr. Horace Pendyce's mansion, white and long and low, standing well
within its acres, had come into the possession of his great-great-
great-grandfather through an alliance with the last of the Worsteds.
Originally a fine property let in smallish holdings to tenants who,
having no attention bestowed on them, did very well and paid
excellent rents
Beyond
At the door of St. George's registry office, Charles Clare Winton strolled forward in the wake of the taxi-cab that was bearing his daughter away with "the fiddler fellow" she had married.
The Burning Spear
there dwelt on Hampstead Heath a small thin gentleman of fifty-eight, gentle disposition, and independent means, whose wits had
become somewhat addled from reading the writings and speeches of public
men. The castle which, like every Englishman, he inhabited was embedded
in lilac bushes and laburnums
The Complete Forsyte Saga
Those privileged to be present at a family festival of the Forsytes have seen that charming and instructive sight -- an upper
middle-class family in full plumage. But whosoever of these favoured persons has possessed the gift of psychological analysis (a talent without monetary value and properly ignored by the
Forsytes), has witnessed a spectacle, not only delightful in itself, but illustrative of an obscure human problem.
Villa Rubein And Other Stories
Walking along the river wall at Botzen, Edmund Dawney said to Alois Harz: "Would you care to know the family at that pink house, Villa Rubein?"
The Island Pharisees
The carriage was almost full, and, putting his bag, up in the rack, he took his seat. At the moment of starting yet another passenger, a girl with a pale face, scrambled in.
The Man Of Property
Those privileged to be present at a family festival of the Forsytes have seen that charming and instructive sight -- an upper
middle-class family in full plumage. But whosoever of these favoured persons has possessed the gift of psychological analysis
The Patrician
And there was
apparent about all his movements that peculiar unconsciousness of his surroundings which comes to those who live a great deal in the public eye, have the material machinery of existence placed exactly to their hands, and never need to consider what others think of them.
The White Monkey
The captains and the kings had departed from 'Snooks' before he entered it, for he was not of 'that catch-penny crew, now paid off, no sir; fellows who turned their tails on the land the moment the war was over.
Swan Song
Soames rose abruptly and left the alcove. Though not recognised, he was flustered. A ridiculous, even a dangerous encounter. He had travelled for six months to restore Fleur's peace of mind
The Silver Spoon
At noon then, in riding kit, Jon came out to the five horses, for more than one of the Blair girls had elected to ride. He started between them, Francis Wilmot going ahead with his sister.
Flowering Wilderness (End of the Chapter- Part 2)
Maid in Waiting (End of the Chapter- Part 1)
On Forsyte 'Change
Over the River (End of the Chapter- Part 3)
Awakening & To Let
A Bit O'Love
The Eldest Son
Fraternity
see Munsey's for more.
Elizabeth Gaskell
The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1
For a right understanding of the life of my dear friend, Charlotte Bronte, it appears to me more necessary in her case than in most
others, that the reader should be made acquainted with the
peculiar forms of population and society amidst which her earliest
years were passed,
The Life of Charlotte Bronte Volume 2
While the minds of the three sisters were in this state of suspense, their long-expected friend came to pay her promised
visit. She was with them at the beginning of the glowing August of that year.
Sylvia's Lovers
Monkshaven was a name not unknown in the history of England, and traditions of its having been the landing-place of a throneless queen were current in the town. At that time there had been a fortified castle on the heights above it,
Ruth
Up such a stair--past such a window (through which the moonlight fell on her with a glory of many colours)--Ruth Hilton passed wearily one January night, now many years ago. I call it night; but, strictly speaking, it was morning.
North And South
But, as Margaret half suspected, Edith had fallen asleep. She lay curled up on the sofa in the back drawing-room in Harley Street, looking very lovely in her white muslin and blue ribbons.
The Moorland Cottage by Elizabeth Gaskell
Poor little Maggie's eyes filled with tears; and she never spoke again to Edward, or indeed to any one, about her dead father. As she grew older, her life became more actively busy. The cottage and small outbuildings, and the garden and field, were their own; and on the produce they depended for much of their support.
Mary Barton
Close by it is a deep, clear pond,
reflecting in its dark green depths the shadowy trees that bend over
it to exclude the sun. The only place where its banks are shelving
is on the side next to a rambling farmyard, belonging to one of
those old world, gabled, black and white houses I named above,
overlooking the field through which the public footpath leads.
Lois the Witch
In the year 1691, Lois Barclay stood on a little wooden pier, steadying herself on the stable land, in much the same manner as, eight or nine weeks ago, she had tried to steady herself on the deck of the rocking ship which had carried her across from Old to New England.
A Dark Night's Work
The young man had perhaps received many a slight and mortification pretty quietly during these years, which yet told upon his character in after life. Even at this very time they were having their effect. He was of too sweet a disposition to show resentment, as many men would have done.
Cranford
Miss Betsy Barker dried her eyes, and thanked the Captain heartily;
she set to work, and by-and-by all the town turned out to see the
Alderney meekly going to her pasture, clad in dark grey flannel. I
have watched her myself many a time. Do you ever see cows dressed
in grey flannel in London?
Cousin Phillis
It is a great thing for a lad when he is first turned into the independence of lodgings. I do not think I ever was so satisfied and proud in my life as when, at seventeen, I sate down in a little three-cornered room above a pastry-cook's shop in the county town of Eltham.
Wives And Daughters
For the first time in her life, Molly Gibson was to be included among the guests at the Towers. She was much too young to be a visitor at the school, so it was not on that account that she was to go; but it had so happened that one day when Lord Cumnor was on a 'pottering' expedition, he had met Mr. Gibson, the doctor of the neighbourhood, coming out of the farm-house my lord was entering;
http://www.munseys.com/diskone/accrace.htm by Elizabeth Gaskell
Bessy's Troubles at Home by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Cage at Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
Christmas Storms and Sunshine by Elizabeth Gaskell
Clopton House by Elizabeth Gaskell
Company Manners by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Crooked Branch by Elizabeth Gaskell
Crowley Castle by Elizabeth Gaskell
Cumberland Sheep-Shearers by Elizabeth Gaskell
Curious, If True by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Deserted Mansion by Elizabeth Gaskell
Disappearances by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Doom of the Griffiths by Elizabeth Gaskell
A Dark Night's Work by Elizabeth Gaskell
Fear for the Future by Elizabeth Gaskell
French Life by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Grey Woman by Elizabeth Gaskell
Half a Life-Time Ago by Elizabeth Gaskell
Hand and Heart by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Heart of John Middleton by Elizabeth Gaskell
An Italian Institution by Elizabeth Gaskell
see Munsey's for more. by Elizabeth Gaskell
George Gissing
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft by George Gissing
The name of Henry Ryecroft never became familiar to what is called the reading public. A year ago obituary paragraphs in the literary papers gave such account of him as was thought needful: the date
and place of his birth, the names of certain books he had written,
an allusion to his work in the periodicals, the manner of his death.
At the time it sufficed.
New Grub Street by George Gissing
Yet the face was not of distinctly feminine type; with short hair and appropriate clothing, she would have passed
unquestioned as a handsome boy of seventeen, a spirited boy too,
and one much in the habit of giving orders to inferiors.
The Crown Of Life
A window hung with engravings, mostly after pictures of the day; some of them very large, and attractive to a passing glance. One or two admirable landscapes offered solace to the street-wearied imagination, but upon these Piers Otway did not fix his eye; it was drawn irresistibly to the faces and forms of beautiful women set forth with varied allurement.
Demos by George Gissing
At its foot lies the village of Wanley. The opposite side of the hollow is clad with native wood, skirting for more than a mile the bank of a shallow stream, a tributary of the Severn. Wanley consists in the main of one long street; the houses are stone-built, with mullioned windows, here and there showing a picturesque gable or a quaint old chimney.
Denzil Quarrier
A sound from the lower part of the house checked her returning steps; some one was rapping at the door down in the area. It happened that she was to-day without a servant; she must needs descend into the kitchen herself and answer the summons. When the nether regions were illumined and the door thrown open, Lilian beheld a familiar figure, that of a scraggy and wretchedly clad woman with a moaning infant in her arms.
Eve's Ransom by George Gissing
Of the waiting travellers, two kept apart from the rest, pacing this way and that, but independently of each other. They were men of dissimilar appearance; the one comfortably and expensively dressed, his age about fifty, his visage bearing the stamp of commerce; the other, younger by more than twenty years, habited in a way which made it; difficult to as certain his social standing, and looking about him with eyes suggestive of anything but prudence or content.
Our Friend the Charlatan
In the afternoon, he had to visit a dying man, an intelligent shopkeeper, who, while accepting the visit as a proof of kindness, altogether refused spiritual comfort, and would speak of nothing but the future of his children. Straightway Mr. Lashmar became the practical consoler, lavish of kindly forethought. Only when he came forth did he ask himself whether he could possibly fulfil half of what he had undertaken.
The Nether World by George Gissing
In the troubled twilight of a March evening ten years ago, an old man, whose equipment and bearing suggested that he was fresh from travel, walked slowly across Clerkenwell Green, and by the graveyard of St. James's Church stood for a moment looking about him.
The Odd Women
It was the outcome of a long and intimate conversation. Alice Madden, aged nineteen, a plain, shy, gentle-mannered girl, short of stature, and in movement something less than graceful, wore a pleased look as she glanced at her father's face and then turned her eyes across the blue channel to the Welsh hills.
The Paying Guest by George Gissing
Emmeline took the matter seriously, but, being a young woman of some discretion, did not voice all her thoughts. The rent was heavy: so was the cost of Clarence's season-ticket. Against this they had set the advantage of the fine air of Sutton, so good for the child and for the mother, both vastly better in health since they quitted London.
At High Pressure by George Gissing
The Beggar's Nurse by George Gissing
Born in Exile by George Gissing
By the Ionian Sea by George Gissing
A Capitalist by George Gissing
Charles Dickens: A Critical Study by George Gissing
A Charming Family by George Gissing
Christopherson by George Gissing
Comrades in Arms by George Gissing
A Conversion by George Gissing
A Daughter of the Lodge by George Gissing
The Day of Silence by George Gissing
The Elixir by George Gissing
The Emancipated by George Gissing
Fate and the Apothecary by George Gissing
The Fate of Humphrey Snell by George Gissing
The Firebrand by George Gissing
Fleet-Footed Hester by George Gissing
The Foolish Virgin by George Gissing
A Freak of Nature by George Gissing
The House of Cobwebs by George Gissing
Humplebee by George Gissing
The Immortal Dickens by George Gissing
In Honour Bound by George Gissing
In No-Man's Land by George Gissing
In the Year of Jubilee by George Gissing
An Inspiration by George Gissing
The Invincible Curate by George Gissing
The Justice and the Vagabond by George Gissing
The Last Half-Crown by George Gissing
A Life's Morning by George Gissing
The Light on the Tower by George Gissing
The Little Woman from Lancashire by George Gissing
Lord Dunfield by George Gissing
Lou and Liz by George Gissing
The Medicine Man by George Gissing
Miss Rodney's Leisure by George Gissing
The Nether World by George Gissing
New Grub Street by George Gissing
The Odd Women by George Gissing
An Old Maid's Triumph by George Gissing
see Munsey's for more. George Gissing
Henry James
The Ambassadors
After the young woman in the glass cage had held up to him across
her counter the pale-pink leaflet bearing his friend's name, which
she neatly pronounced, he turned away to find himself, in the hall,
facing a lady who met his eyes as with an intention suddenly
determined, and whose features--not freshly young, not markedly
fine, but on happy terms with each other--came back to him as from
a recent vision.
A Little Tour In France
I have mentioned the church of Saint Martin,
which was for many years the sacred spot, the shrine
of pilgrimage, of Tours. Originally the simple burialplace of the great apostle who in the fourth century Christianized Gaul, and who, in his day a brilliant
missionary and worker of miracles, is chiefly known
to modem fame as the worthy that cut his cloak in
two at the gate of Amiens to share it with a beggar
(tradition fails to say, I believe, what he did with the
other half), the abbey of Saint Martin, through the
Middle Ages, waxed rich and powerful, till it was
known at last as one of the most luxurious religious
houses in Christendom, with kings for its titular abbots
The Aspern Papers
Mrs. Prest knew nothing about the papers, but she was interested
in my curiosity, as she was always interested in the joys and
sorrows of her friends. As we went, however, in her gondola,
gliding there under the sociable hood with the bright Venetian
picture framed on either side by the movable window, I could
see that she was amused by my infatuation, the way my interest
in the papers had become a fixed idea.
The Altar of the Dead
HE had this year, on the eve of his anniversary, as happened, an emotion not unconnected with that range of feeling. Walking home at the close of a busy day he was arrested in the London street by the particular effect of a shop-front that lighted the dull brown air with its mercenary grin and before which several persons were gathered. It was the window of a jeweller whose diamonds and sapphires seemed to laugh, in flashes like high notes of sound, with the mere joy of knowing how much more they were "worth" than most of the dingy pedestrians staring at them from the other side of the pane.
The American 1877
On a brilliant day in May, in the year 1868, a gentleman was reclining
at his ease on the great circular divan which at that period occupied
the centre of the Salon Carre, in the Museum of the Louvre.
This commodious ottoman has since been removed, to the extreme regret
of all weak-kneed lovers of the fine arts, but the gentleman in question
had taken serene possession of its softest spot, and, with his head
thrown back and his legs outstretched, was staring at Murillo's
beautiful moon-borne Madonna in profound enjoyment of his posture.
The Europeans
A narrow grave-yard in the heart of a bustling, indifferent city, seen from the windows of a gloomy-looking inn, is at no
time an object of enlivening suggestion; and the spectacle
is not at its best when the mouldy tombstones and funereal
umbrage have received the ineffectual refreshment of a dull,
moist snow-fall.
The Beldonald Holbein
rs. Munden had not yet been to my studio on so good a pretext as when she
first intimated that it would be quite open to me--should I only care, as
she called it, to throw the handkerchief--to paint her beautiful sister-in-
law. I needn't go here more than is essential into the question of Mrs.
Munden, who would really, by the way, be a story in herself. She has a
manner of her own of putting things, and some of those she has put to me--!
A Bundle Of Letters
ince I last wrote to you I have left that hotel, and come to live in a French family. It's a kind of boarding-house combined with a kind of school; only it's not like an American boarding-house, nor like an
American school either. There are four or five people here that have
come to learn the language--not to take lessons, but to have an
opportunity for conversation.
The Beast in the Jungle
By the time they at last thus came to speech they were alone in one
of the rooms--remarkable for a fine portrait over the chimney-
place--out of which their friends had passed, and the charm of it
was that even before they had spoken they had practically arranged
with each other to stay behind for talk. The charm, happily, was
in other things too--partly in there being scarce a spot at
Weatherend without something to stay behind for.
Confidence
It was in the early days of April; Bernard Longueville had been spending the winter in Rome. He had travelled northward with
the consciousness of several social duties that appealed to him
from the further side of the Alps, but he was under the charm
of the Italian spring, and he made a pretext for lingering.
He had spent five days at Siena, where he had intended to spend
but two, and still it was impossible to continue his journey.
The Coxon Fund
They had sent for me from Wimbledon to come out and dine, and there had been an implication in Adelaide's note--judged by her notes
alone she might have been thought silly--that it was a case in
which something momentous was to be determined or done.
Daisy Miller A Study In Two Parts
At the little town of Vevey, in Switzerland, there is a particularly comfortable hotel. There are, indeed, many hotels,
for the entertainment of tourists is the business of the place,
which, as many travelers will remember, is seated upon the edge
of a remarkably blue lake--a lake that it behooves every tourist
to visit.
The Death of the Lion
Young as I was I had been in a manner taken over from Mr. Deedy, who had been owner as well as editor; forming part of a promiscuous lot, mainly plant and office-furniture, which poor Mrs. Deedy, in her bereavement and depression, parted with at a rough valuation.
The Figure in the Carpet
Six months after our friend had left England George Corvick, who made his living by his pen, contracted for a piece of work which imposed on him an absence of some length and a journey of some difficulty, and his undertaking of which was much of a surprise to me.
Glasses
es indeed, I say to myself, pen in hand, I can keep hold of the thread and let it lead me back to the first impression. The little
story is all there, I can touch it from point to point; for the
thread, as I call it, is a row of coloured beads on a string. None
of the beads are missing--at least I think they're not: that's
exactly what I shall amuse myself with finding out.
In the Cage
The barrier that divided the little post-and-telegraph-office from the grocery was a frail structure of wood and wire; but the social,
the professional separation was a gulf that fortune, by a stroke
quite remarkable, had spared her the necessity of contributing at
all publicly to bridge.
An International Episode
our years ago--in 1874--two young Englishmen had occasion to go to the United States. They crossed the ocean at midsummer,
and, arriving in New York on the first day of August,
were much struck with the fervid temperature of that city.
Disembarking upon the wharf, they climbed into one of those huge
high-hung coaches which convey passengers to the hotels,
and with a great deal of bouncing and bumping, took their
course through Broadway.
Henry James, Jr. by William Dean Howells
He was born in New York city in the year 1843, and his first lessons in life and letters were the best which the
metropolis--so small in the perspective diminishing to that date--could afford. In his twelfth year his family went abroad, and after some stay in England made a long sojourn in France and
Switzerland.
The Jolly Corner
"Every one asks me what I 'think' of everything," said Spencer Brydon; "and I make answer as I can - begging or dodging the
question, putting them off with any nonsense. It wouldn't matter
to any of them really," he went on, "for, even were it possible to
meet in that stand-and-deliver way so silly a demand on so big a
subject, my 'thoughts' would still be almost altogether about
something that concerns only myself."
The Pupil
The poor young man hesitated and procrastinated: it cost him such an effort to broach the subject of terms, to speak of money to a
person who spoke only of feelings and, as it were, of the
aristocracy. Yet he was unwilling to take leave, treating his
engagement as settled, without some more conventional glance in
that direction than he could find an opening for in the manner of
the large affable lady who sat there drawing a pair of soiled gants
de Suede through a fat jewelled hand
Roderick Hudson
Mallet had made his arrangements to sail for Europe on the first of September, and having in the interval a fortnight to spare,
he determined to spend it with his cousin Cecilia, the widow
of a nephew of his father. He was urged by the reflection
that an affectionate farewell might help to exonerate him
from the charge of neglect frequently preferred by this lady.
It was not that the young man disliked her;
Some Short Stories
We are scattered now, the friends of the late Mr. Oliver Offord; but whenever we chance to meet I think we are conscious of a
certain esoteric respect for each other. "Yes, you too have been
in Arcadia," we seem not too grumpily to allow. When I pass the
house in Mansfield Street I remember that Arcadia was there. I
don't know who has it now, and don't want to know; it's enough to
be so sure that if I should ring the bell there would be no such
luck for me as that Brooksmith should open the door.
The Lesson of the Master
Our young man stared - he was so struck with the lady's phraseology. Her "Write a few" seemed to him almost as good as her
"That's all." Didn't she, as the wife of a rare artist, know what
it was to produce one perfect work of art? How in the world did
she think they were turned on? His private conviction was that,
admirably as Henry St. George wrote, he had written for the last
ten years, and especially for the last five, only too much, and
there was an instant during which he felt inwardly solicited to
make this public.
The Turn Of The Screw
The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be,
I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it
was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen
on a child. The case, I may mention, was that of an apparition
in just such an old house as had gathered us for the occasion--
an appearance, of a dreadful kind, to a little boy sleeping
in the room with his mother and waking her up in the terror of it;
Jerome K. Jerome
The Cost Of Kindness by Jerome K. Jerome
Mrs. Pennycoop, gentlest of little women, laid her plump and still pretty hands upon her husband's shoulders. "Don't think, dear, I haven't sympathized with you. You have borne it nobly. I have marvelled sometimes that you have been able to control yourself as you
have done, most times; the things that he has said to you
Tommy and Co. by Jerome K. Jerome
"I'm a poor old thing," it seemed to say.
"I don't shine -- or, rather, I shine too much among these up-to-date young modes. I only hamper you. You would be much more comfortable without me."
Passing of the Third Floor Back by Jerome K. Jerome
The constable at the corner, trying to seem busy doing nothing, noticed the stranger's approach with gathering interest. "That's an
odd sort of a walk of yours, young man," thought the constable.
Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K. Jerome
He said that if we were mean and cowardly and false-hearted enough to stoop to such a shabby trick, he supposed he couldn't help it; and that if I didn't intend to finish the whole bottle of claret myself
Told After Supper by Jerome K. Jerome
Christmas Eve is the ghosts' great gala night. On Christmas Eve they hold their annual fete.
They and I by Jerome K. Jerome
A good round-dozen oaths the Captain must have let fly before Dick and I succeeded in rolling her out of the room. She had only heard them once, yet, so far as I could judge, she had got them letter perfect.
Sketches In Lavender, Blue And Green by Jerome K. Jerome
The girl's face wrinkled with a laugh that aged her. In that moment it was a hard, evil face, and with a pang the elder woman thought of that other face, so like, yet so unlike
The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow by Jerome K. Jerome
What a good time our ancestors must have had was borne in upon me when, on one occasion, I appeared in character at a fancy dress ball. What I represented I am unable to say, and I don't particularly care.
Paul Kelver by Jerome K. Jerome
I awake to find myself hurrying through noisy, crowded thoroughfares, where flaring naphtha lamps illumine fierce, patient, leaden-coloured faces; through dim-lit, empty streets, where monstrous shadows come and go upon the close-drawn blinds
Novel Notes by Jerome K. Jerome
I felt hurt at the implied sneer. I pointed out to her that there already existed a numerous body of specially-trained men employed to do nothing else but make disagreeable observations upon authors and their works
Tea-Table Talk by Jerome K. Jerome
It seems to me," said the Philosopher, "that, if anything, Love is being exposed to too much light. The subject is becoming vulgarised. Every year a thousand problem plays and novels, poems and essays, tear the curtain from Love's Temple
The Philosopher's Joke by Jerome K. Jerome
She supposed it was her
husband who had been my informant: he was just that sort of ass. She did not say it unkindly. She said when she was first married, ten years ago, few people had a more irritating effect upon her than had Camelford;
The Soul Of Nicholas Snyders by Jerome K. Jerome
They said he had no soul, but there they were wrong. All men own--or, to speak more correctly, are owned by--a soul; and the soul of Nicholas Snyders was an evil soul.
The Love Of Ulrich Nebendahl by Jerome K. Jerome
Perhaps of all, it troubled most the Herr Pfarrer. Was he not the father of the village? And as such did it not fall to him to see his children marry well and suitably? marry in any case.
Malvina Of Brittany by Jerome K. Jerome
The Doctor never did believe this story, but claims for it that, to a great extent, it has altered his whole outlook on life.
Idle Ideas in 1905 by Jerome K. Jerome
"Charmed. Very hot weather we've been having of late--I mean cold. Let me see, I did not quite catch your name just now. Thank you so much. Yes, it is a bit close." And a silence falls, neither of us being able to think what next to say.
Mrs. Korner Sins Her Mercies by Jerome K. Jerome
It was a point with Mr. Korner always to be cheerful in the morning. "Greet the day with a smile and it will leave you with a blessing,"
was the motto Mrs. Korner, this day a married woman of six months and three weeks standing had heard her husband murmur before getting out of bed on precisely two hundred and two occasions.
Evergreens by Jerome K. Jerome
They are not the showy folk; they are not
the clever, attractive folk. (Nature is an old-fashioned shopkeeper; she never puts her best goods in the window.) They are only the quiet, strong folk; they are stronger than the world
Dreams by Jerome K. Jerome
The most extraordinary dream I ever had was one in which I fancied that, as I was going into a theater, the cloak-room attendant stopped me in the lobby and insisted on my leaving my legs behind me.
John Ingerfield etc by Jerome K. Jerome
If you take the Underground Railway to Whitechapel Road (the East station), and from there take one of the yellow tramcars that start
from that point, and go down the Commercial Road, past the George, in front of which starts -- or used to stand -- a high flagstaff
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 by Phillips Oppenheim
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
"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 by Phillips Oppenheim
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
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 by Phillips Oppenheim
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 by Phillips Oppenheim
"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
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 by Phillips Oppenheim
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 by Phillips Oppenheim
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
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 by Phillips Oppenheim
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 by Phillips Oppenheim
"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
"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 by Phillips Oppenheim
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.
George B. Shaw
Misalliance
Of course not. Thats why one loves her for doing it. Look here: chuck away your silly week-end novel, and talk to a chap. After a week in that filthy office my brain is simply blue-mouldy. Lets argue about something intellectual.
The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring
First, The Ring, with all its gods and giants and dwarfs, its water-maidens and Valkyries, its wishing-cap, magic ring,
enchanted sword, and miraculous treasure, is a drama of today,
and not of a remote and fabulous antiquity.
You Never Can Tell
In a dentist's operating room on a fine August morning in 1896. Not
the usual tiny London den, but the best sitting room of a furnished
lodging in a terrace on the sea front at a fashionable watering place.
The operating chair, with a gas pump and cylinder beside it, is half way
between the centre of the room and one of the corners.
Mrs. Warren's Profession by George B. Shaw
Hm! My mother has rather a
trick of taking me by surprise--to see how I behave myself while
she's away, I suppose. I fancy I shall take my mother very much
by surprise one of these days, if she makes arrangements that
concern me without consulting me beforehand. She hasnt come.
An Unsocial Socialist
n the dusk of an October evening, a sensible looking woman of
forty came out through an oaken door to a broad landing on the
first floor of an old English country-house. A braid of her hair
had fallen forward as if she had been stooping over book or pen;
and she stood for a moment to smooth it, and to gaze
contemplatively--not in the least sentimentally--through the
tall, narrow window.
A Treatise On Parents And Children
Childhood is a stage in the process of that continual remanufacture of the Life Stuff by which the human race is perpetuated. The Life Force either will not or cannot achieve immortality except in very low organisms: indeed it is by no means ascertained that even the amoeba is immortal. Human beings visibly wear out, though they last longer than their friends the dogs.
The Dark Lady Of The Sonnets by George B. Shaw
The Dark Lady of The Sonnets was first performed at the Haymarket Theatre, on the afternoon of Thursday, the 24th November 1910, by Mona Limerick as the Dark Lady, Suzanne Sheldon as Queen Elizabeth, Granville Barker as Shakespear, and Hugh Tabberer as the Warder.
Annajanska the Bolshevik Empress
The Arms and the Man
Augustus Does His Bit by George B. Shaw
Caesar and Cleopatra
Captain Brassbound's Conversion
Candida
Cashel Byron's Profession by George B. Shaw
The Devil's Disciple
Fanny's First Play
Getting Married by George B. Shaw
Great Catherine Whom Glory Still Adores
Heartbreak House: A Fantasia in the Russian Manner on English Themes
How He Lied to Her Husband by George B. Shaw
The Inca of Perusalem An Almost Historical Comedietta
John Bull's Other Island
Man and SupermanA Comedy and a Philosophy
The Man of Destiny
O'Flaherty V. C. A Recruiting Pamphlet
Overruled by George B. Shaw
The Philanderer
Press Cuttings
Pygmalion by George B. Shaw
The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet
You Never Can Tell
The Doctor's Dilemma
Fabian Essays in Socialism
Saint Joan by George B. Shaw
The Millionairess
Buoyant Billions: A Comedy of No Manners
The Apple Cart
"In Good King Charles's Golden Days" by George B. Shaw
The Fascinating Foundling
The Glimpse of Reality
The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles by George B. Shaw
Village Wooing
The Six of Calais
Geneva
On the Rocks by George B. Shaw
Too True to be Good
Cymbeline Refinished: A Variation on Shakespear's Ending by George B. Shaw
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 by Robert Louis Stevenson
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 by Robert Louis Stevenson
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 by Robert Louis Stevenson
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 by Robert Louis Stevenson
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 by Robert Louis Stevenson
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 by Robert Louis Stevenson
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
William Makepeace Thackeray
The Virginians
"Gracious powers, Mr. Warrington! This is a delight, indeed! What a
crowning mercy that your voyage should have been so prosperous! You must have my boat to go on shore. Let me cordially and respectfully welcome you to England: let me shake your hand as the son of my benefactress and patroness, Mrs. Esmond Warrington, whose name is known and honoured on Bristol 'Change, I warrant you. Isn't it, Franks?"
The Rose and the Ring
He is so absorbed in the perusal of the King of Crim Tartary's letter, that he allows his eggs to get cold, and leaves his august muffins untasted.
Vanity Fair
By the time the young ladies reached Kensington turnpike, Amelia had not forgotten her companions, but had dried her tears, and had blushed very much and been
delighted at a young officer of the Life Guards, who spied her as he was riding by, and said, "A dem fine gal,
egad!" and before the carriage arrived in Russell Square
Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush by William Makepeace Thackeray
The less I say about my parint the better, for the dear old creatur was very good to me, and, I fear, had very little other goodness in her.
The Book of Snobs
There are relative and positive Snobs. I mean by
positive, such persons as are Snobs everywhere, in all companies, from morning till night, from youth to the
grave, being by Nature endowed with Snobbishness--and others who are Snobs only in certain circumstances and
relations of life.
Some Roundabout Papers
you can't of course remember, but that little gentleman for whom you mother was laundress in the Temple was the ingenious Mr Goldsmith, author of a "History of England," the "Vicar of Wakefield," and many diverting pieces.
Men's Wives
There was not an
article in his shop but came to him through his Israelite providers; and in the very front shop itself sat a gentleman who was the nominee of one of them, and who was called Mr. Mossrose.
The Tremendous Adventures of Major Gahagan by William Makepeace Thackeray
. . . the world will avoid
any of those awkward mistakes as to my person, which have been so
frequent of late. There has been no end to the blunders regarding
this humble title of mine, and the confusion thereby created.
Little Travels and Roadside Sketches
If I were a great prince and rode outside of coaches (as I should if I were a great prince), I would, whether I smoked or not, have a case of the best Havanas in my pocket--not for my own smoking, but to give them to the snobs on the coach
The Second Funeral of Napoleon
It is no easy task in this world to distinguish
between what is great in it, and what is mean; and many and many is the puzzle that I have had in reading History
The History of Henry Esmond by William Makepeace Thackeray
What spectacle is more august than that of a great king in exile? Who is more worthy of respect than a brave man in misfortune? Mr. Addison has painted such a figure in his noble piece of Cato.
The History of Samuel Titmarsh and The Great Hoggarty Diamond
My aunt, I need not say, is rich; and I thought I might be her heir as well as another. During my month's holiday, she was particularly pleased with me; made me drink tea with her often (though there was a certain person in the village with whom on those golden summer evenings I should have liked to have taken a stroll in the hayfields)
The Fitz-Boodle Papers
Try again to speak to a young lady while you are dancing--what we call in this country--a quadrille. What nonsense do you invariably give and receive in return!
The Fatal Boots by William Makepeace Thackeray
I have in the course of my existence been so eaten up by the slugs and harrows of outrageous fortune, and have been the object of such continual and
extraordinary ill-luck, that I believe it would melt the heart of a milestone to read of it
Catherine: A Story
The little horse-boy, who was leading the two black Flanders horses up and down the green, might have put them in the stable for any good that the horses got by the gentle exercise which they were now taking in the cool evening air
George Cruikshank
a man in such straits has hardly time to think of
anything but himself, and, as in a sinking ship, must make his own rush for the boats, and fight, struggle, and trample for safety.
Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo by William Makepeace Thackeray
The sun brought all the sick people out of their berths this morning, and the indescribable moans and noises which had been issuing from behind the fine painted doors on each side of the cabin happily ceased.
Barry Lyndon
you will wonder how a country boy, as I was, educated amongst Irish squires, and their dependants of the stable and farm, should arrive at possessing such elegant manners as I was indisputably allowed to have.
Burlesques
He and Time were children together. Chronos shall die, too; but Love is imperishable. Brightest of the Divinities, where hast thou not been sung?
The Bedford-Row Conspiracy by William Makepeace Thackeray
The little General had been present at about a hundred and twenty pitched battles on Hounslow Heath and Wormwood Scrubs, but had never drawn his sword against an enemy.
A Little Dinner at Timmins's
People who are offended if you ask them to tea at all; and cry out furiously, "Good heavens! Jane my love, why do these Timminses suppose that I am to leave my dinner-table to attend their -- soiree?"
The Paris Sketch Book
The decks have a strange, look; the people on them, that is. Wives, elderly stout husbands, nurse-maids, and children predominate, of course, in English steamboats.
John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character by William Makepeace Thackeray
there was little Prince Arthur (Northcote)
crying, in white satin, and bidding good Hubert not put out his eyes; there was Hubert crying; there was little Rutland being run through the poor little body by bloody Clifford; there was Cardinal Beaufort (Reynolds) gnashing his teeth, and grinning and howling demoniacally on his death-bed
Hugh Seymour Walpole
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
Matilda made signs to Isabella to prevent Hippolita's rising; and both those lovely young women were using their gentle violence to stop and calm the Princess, when a servant, on the part of Manfred, arrived and
told Isabella that his Lord demanded to speak with her.
Jeremy and Hamlet
Jeremy at Crale
Captain Nicholas
Hans Frost
Harmer John
Portrait of a Man with Red Hair
Above the Dark Tumult: An Adventure also published as Above the Dark Circus
The Inquisitor
The Old Ladies
Oscar Wilde
The Young King by Oscar Wilde
It was the night before the day fixed for his coronation, and the young King was sitting alone in his beautiful chamber. His courtiers had all taken their leave of him, bowing their heads to the ground
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Too much of yourself in it! Upon my word, Basil, I didn't know you were so vain; and I really can't see any resemblance
between you, with your rugged strong face and your coal-black hair,
and this young Adonis, who looks as if he was made out of ivory and rose-leaves.
Shorter Prose Pieces
I do not think that the sovereignty and empire of women's beauty has at all passed away, though we may no longer go to war for them as the Greeks did for the daughter of Leda.
The Truth of Masks by Oscar Wilde
Knowing how the artistic temperament is always fascinated by beauty of costume, he constantly introduces into his plays masques and dances, purely for the sake of the pleasure which they give the eye; and we have still his stage-directions for the three great processions in Henry the Eighth
The Star-Child
It was winter, and a night of bitter cold. The snow lay thick upon the ground, and upon the branches of the trees: the frost kept snapping the little twigs on either side of them, as they passed: and when they came to the Mountain-Torrent she was hanging motionless in air, for the Ice-King had kissed her.
Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde
There is such a thing as robbing a story of its reality by trying to make it too true, and The Black Arrow is so inartistic as not to
contain a single anachronism to boast of, while the transformation
of Dr. Jekyll reads dangerously like an experiment out of the Lancet.
The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde
The chief advantage that would result from the establishment of Socialism is, undoubtedly, the fact that Socialism would relieve us from that sordid necessity of living for others which, in the
present condition of things, presses so hardly upon almost
everybody. In fact, scarcely anyone at all escapes.
The Selfish Giant
It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass. Here and there over the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there were twelve peach-trees that in the springtime broke out into delicate blossoms of pink and pearl, and in the autumn bore rich fruit.
The Rise of Historical Criticism
The Chinese annals, ascending as they do to the barbarous forest life of the nation, are marked with a soberness of judgment, a freedom from invention, which is almost unparalleled in the writings of any people
The Remarkable Rocket by Oscar Wilde
At the gate of the Castle the Prince was waiting to receive her. He had dreamy violet eyes, and his hair was like fine gold. When he saw her he sank upon one knee, and kissed her hand.
A House of Pomegranates
The lad - for he was only a lad, being but sixteen years of age - was not sorry at their departure, and had flung himself back with a deep sigh of relief on the soft cushions of his embroidered couch, lying there, wild-eyed and open-mouthed, like a brown woodland Faun, or some young animal of the forest newly snared by the hunters.
The Portrait of Mr. W. H.
Erskine, who was a good deal older than I was, and had been listening to me with the amused deference of a man of forty, suddenly put his hand upon my shoulder and said to me 'What would you say about a young man who had a strange theory about a certain work of art, believed in his theory, and committed a forgery in order to prove it?'
Pen, Pencil and Poison by Oscar Wilde
It has constantly been made a subject of reproach against artists and men of letters that they are lacking in wholeness and completeness of nature. As a rule this must necessarily be so. That very concentration of vision and intensity of purpose which is the characteristic of the artistic temperament is in itself a mode of limitation.
The Model Millionaire
To make matters worse, he was in love. The girl he loved was Laura Merton, the daughter of a retired Colonel who had lost his temper and his digestion in India, and had never found either of them again.
Lord Arthur Savile's Crime
As soon as she had gone, Lady Windermere returned to the picture-gallery, where a celebrated political economist was solemnly explaining the scientific theory of music to an indignant virtuoso from Hungary, and began to talk to the Duchess of Paisley. She looked wonderfully beautiful with her grand ivory throat
The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde
He was very much admired indeed. "He is as beautiful as a weathercock," remarked one of the town councillors who wished to gain a reputation for having artistic tastes; "only not quite so useful," he added, fearing lest people should think him unpractical, which he really was not.
Art and the Handicraftsman
That the beauty of life is a thing of no moment, I suppose few people would venture to assert. And yet most civilised people act as if it were of none, and in so doing are wronging both themselves and those that are to come after them.
The English Renaissance of Art
I call it our English Renaissance because it is indeed a sort of new birth of the spirit of man, like the great Italian Renaissance of the fifteenth century, in its desire for a more gracious and comely way of life, its passion for physical beauty, its exclusive attention to form, its seeking for new subjects for poetry
De Profundis
For us there is only one season, the season of sorrow. The very sun and moon seem taken from us. Outside, the day may be blue and gold, but the light that creeps down through the thickly-muffled glass of the small iron-barred window beneath which one sits is grey and niggard. It is always twilight in one's cell, as it is always twilight in one's heart.
The Devoted Friend by Oscar Wilde
'You will never be in the best society unless you can stand on your heads,' she kept saying to them; and every now and there she showed them how it was done. But the little ducks paid no attention to her. They were so young that they did not know what an advantage it is to be in society at all.
The Fisherman and his Soul
When the wind blew from the land he caught nothing, or but little at best, for it was a bitter and black-winged wind, and rough waves rose up to meet it. But when the wind blew to the shore, the fish came in from the deep, and swam into the meshes of his nets, and he took them to the market-place and sold them.
The Canterville Ghost
'We have not cared to live in the place ourselves,' said Lord Canterville, 'since my grand-aunt, the Dowager Duchess of Bolton, was frightened into a fit, from which she never really recovered, by two skeleton hands being placed on her shoulders as she was dressing for dinner, and I feel bound to tell you, Mr. Otis, that the ghost has been seen by several living members of my family
The Birthday of the Infanta by Oscar Wilde
Although she was a real Princess and the Infanta of Spain, she had only one birthday every year, just like the children of quite poor people, so it was naturally a matter of great importance to the whole country that she should have a really fine day for the occasion.
Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions Volume 1 by Frank Harris
Oscar Wilde was greater as a talker, in my opinion, than as a writer, and no fame is more quickly evanescent. If I do not tell his story and paint his portrait, it seems unlikely that anyone else will do it.
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