The Way of All Fleshby Samuel ButlerCHAPTER IWhen I was a small boy at the beginning of the century I remember anold man who wore knee-breeches and worsted stockings, and who usedto hobble about the street of our village with the help of a stick.He must have been getting on for eighty in the year 1807, earlierthan which date I suppose I can hardly remember him, for I was bornin 1802. A few white locks hung about his ears, his shoulders werebent and his knees feeble, but he was still hale, and was muchrespected in our little world of Paleham. His name was Pontifex.His wife was said to be his master; I have been told she brought hima little money, but it cannot have been much. She was a ta
The Danger in Dreams Thomas Covenant was talking in his sleep. At times he knew what he was doing; the broken pieces of his voice penetrated his stupor dimly, like flickers of innocence. But he could not rouse himself-the weight of his exhaustion was too great. He babbled like millions of people before him, whole or ill, true or false. But in his case there was no one to hear. He would not have been more alone if he had been the last dreamer left alive. When the shrill demand of the phone cut through him, he woke up wailing. For a moment after he threw himself upright in bed, he could not distinguish between the phone and his own flat terror; both echoed like torment through the
SUDDENLY THE child began to scream, piercing shrieks of terror that died down to shaking sobs, clutching at his mother so that his tiny ringers pinched her skin agonisingly through her flimsy summer dress. Veronica Jones grimaced in the deep green gloom of the reptile house, had to check herself from giving her five-year-old son one of her habitual cuffs across his head. She held him to her, closed her eyes momentarily, a human ostrich trying to hide her embarrassment from the ghostly white faces that turned in her direction. Trust the little sod to start playing up. You squandered a sizeable chunk of the weekly family allowance to give him a treat and this was how he repaid you. Out
Shelley : AN ESSAYby Francis ThompsonThe Church, which was once the mother of poets no less than ofsaints, during the last two centuries has relinquished to aliens thechief glories of poetry, if the chief glories of holiness she haspreserved for her own. The palm and the laurel, Dominic and Dante,sanctity and song, grew together in her soil: she has retained thepalm, but forgone the laurel. Poetry in its widest sense, {1} andwhen not professedly irreligious, has been too much and too longamong many Catholics either misprised or distrusted; too much andtoo generally the feeling has been that it is at best superfluous,at worst pernicious, most often dangerous. Once poetry was, as she...
Queen Victoriaby Lytton StracheyCONTENTSCHAPTERI. ANTECEDENTSII. CHILDHOODIII. LORD MELBOURNEIV. MARRIAGEV. LORD PALMERSTONVI. LAST YEARS OF THE PRINCE CONSORTVII. WIDOWHOODVIII. MR. GLADSTONE AND LORD BEACONSFIELDIX. OLD AGEX. THE ENDBIBLIOGRAPHYQUEEN VICTORIACHAPTER I. ANTECEDENTSIOn November 6, 1817, died the Princess Charlotte, only child of the Prince Regent, and heir to the crown of England. Her short life had hardly been a happy one. By nature impulsive, capricious, and vehement, she had always longed for liberty; and she had never possessed it. She had been brought up among violent family quarrels, had been early separated from her disreputable and eccentric mothe
Mary Stuartby Alexandre Dumas, PereCHAPTER ISome royal names are predestined to misfortune: in France, there isthe name "Henry". Henry I was poisoned, Henry II was killed in atournament, Henry III and Henry IV were assassinated. As to Henry V,for whom the past is so fatal already, God alone knows what thefuture has in store for him.In Scotland, the unlucky name is "Stuart". Robert I, founder of therace, died at twenty-eight of a lingering illness. Robert II, themost fortunate of the family, was obliged to pass a part of his life,not merely in retirement, but also in the dark, on account ofinflammation of the eyes, which made them blood-red. Robert III...
North AmericaVolume 2by Anthony TrollopeCONTENTS OF VOL. II.CHAPTER I.WashingtonCHAPTER II.CongressCHAPTER III.The Causes of the WarCHAPTER IV.Washington to St. LouisCHAPTER V.MissouriCHAPTER VI.Cairo and Camp WoodCHAPTER VII.The Army of the NorthCHAPTER VIII.Back to BostonCHAPTER IX.The Constitution of the United StatesCHAPTER X.The GovernmentCHAPTER XI.The Law Courts and Lawyers of the United StatesCHAPTER XII.The Financial PositionCHAPTER XIII.The Post-officeCHAPTER XIV.American HotelsCHAPTER XV.LiteratureCHAPTER XVI.ConclusionNORTH AMERICA.CHAPTER 1. WASHINGTON.The site of the present City of Washington was chosen with three special views: firstly, that being on the Potomac it might hav
CYMBELINECYMBELINEWilliam Shakespeare16091- Page 2-CYMBELINEDramatis PersonaeCYMBELINE, King of Britain CLOTEN, son to the Queen by aformer husband POSTHUMUS LEONATUS, a gentleman, husband toImogen BELARIUS, a banished lord, disguised under the name of MorganGUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS, sons to Cymbeline, disguised underthe names of POLYDORE and CADWAL, supposed sons to BelariusPHILARIO, Italian, friend to Posthumus IACHIMO, Italian, friend to...
On Horsemanshipby XenophonTranslation by H. G. DakynsXenophon the Athenian was born 431 B.C. He was apupil of Socrates. He marched with the Spartans,and was exiled from Athens. Sparta gave him landand property in Scillus, where he lived for manyyears before having to move once more, to settlein Corinth. He died in 354 B.C.On Horsemanship advises the reader on how to buya good horse, and how to raise it to be either awar horse or show horse. Xenophon ends with somewords on military equipment for a cavalryman....
MY KINSMAN, MAJOR MOLINEUXAfter the kings of Great Britain had assumed the right ofappointing the colonial governors, the measures of the latterseldom met with the ready and generous approbation which had beenpaid to those of their predecessors, under the original charters.The people looked with most jealous scrutiny to the exercise ofpower which did not emanate from themselves, and they usuallyrewarded their rulers with slender gratitude for the compliancesby which, in softening their instructions from beyond the sea,they had incurred the reprehension of those who gave them. Theannals of Massachusetts Bay will inform us, that of six governors...
THE RED CROSS GIRLTHE RED CROSS GIRLBY RICHARD HARDING DAVISWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY GOUVERNEUR MORRIS1- Page 2-THE RED CROSS GIRLINTRODUCTION"And they rise to their feet as he passes, gentlemen unafraid."He was almost too good to be true. In addition, the gods loved him,and so he had to die young. Some people think that a man of fifty-two ismiddle-aged. But if R. H. D. had lived to be a hundred, he would neverhave grown old. It is not generally known that the name of his other...
THE SOUL OF NICHOLAS SNYDERS, OR THE MISER OF ZANDAMBy JEROME K. JEROMEOnce upon a time in Zandam, which is by the Zuider Zee, there lived awicked man named Nicholas Snyders. He was mean and hard and cruel,and loved but one thing in the world, and that was gold. And eventhat not for its own sake. He loved the power gold gave himthepower to tyrannize and to oppress, the power to cause suffering at hiswill. They said he had no soul, but there they were wrong. All menownor, to speak more correctly, are owned bya soul; and the soulof Nicholas Snyders was an evil soul. He lived in the old windmillwhich still is standing on the quay, with only little Christina to...