The Crystal Stopperby Maurice LeBlancCHAPTER ITHE ARRESTSThe two boats fastened to the little pier that jutted out from the garden lay rocking in its shadow. Here and there lighted windows showed through the thick mist on the margins of the lake. The Enghien Casino opposite blazed with light, though it was late in the season, the end of September. A few stars appeared through the clouds. A light breeze ruffled the surface of the water.Arsene Lupin left the summer-house where he was smoking a cigar and, bending forward at the end of the pier:"Growler?" he asked. "Masher?... Are you there?"A man rose from each of the boats, and one of them answered:...
A LAW BEYOND THE CONSTITUTION_To John B. Colvin__Monticello, September 20, 1810_SIR, Your favor of the 14th has been duly received, and Ihave to thank you for the many obliging things respecting myselfwhich are said in it. If I have left in the breasts of my fellowcitizens a sentiment of satisfaction with my conduct in thetransaction of their business, it will soften the pillow of my reposethrough the residue of life.The question you propose, whether circumstances do notsometimes occur, which make it a duty in officers of high trust, toassume authorities beyond the law, is easy of solution in principle,...
THE VOICE OF DEATHONCE upon a time there lived a man whose one wish and prayerwas to get rich. Day and night he thought of nothing else,and at last his prayers were granted, and he became very wealthy.Now being so rich, and having so much to lose, he felt that it wouldbe a terrible thing to die and leave all his possessions behind; so hemade up his mind to set out in search of a land where there was nodeath. He got ready for his journey, took leave of his wife, andstarted. Whenever he came to a new country the first questionthat he asked was whether people died in that land, and when heheard that they did, he set out again on his quest. At last he...
410 BCLYSISTRATAby Aristophanesanonymous translatorCHARACTERS IN THE PLAYLYSISTRATACLEONICEMYRRHINELAMPITOMAGISTRATESCINESIASCHILD OF CINESIASHERALD OF THE LACEDAEMONIANSENVOYS OF THE LACEDAEMONIANSAN ATHENIAN CITIZENCHORUS OF OLD MENCHORUS OF WOMENLYSISTRATALYSISTRATA(SCENE:-At the base of the Orchestra are two buildings, the houseof LYSISTRATA and the entrance to the Acropolis; a winding and...
A Thief in the Nightby E. W. HornungOut of ParadiseIf I must tell more tales of Raffles, I can but back to our earliest days together, and fill in the blanks left by discretion in existing annals. In so doing I may indeed fill some small part of an infinitely greater blank, across which you may conceive me to have stretched my canvas for the first frank portrait of my friend. The whole truth cannot harm him now. I shall paint in every wart. Raffles was a villain, when all is written; it is no service to his memory to glaze the fact; yet I have done so myself before to-day. I have omitted whole heinous episodes. I have dwelt unduly on the redeeming side. And this I may do again, blind
The Metal Monsterby A. MerrittPROLOGUEBefore the narrative which follows was placed in my hands, I had never seen Dr. Walter T. Goodwin, its author.When the manuscript revealing his adventures among the pre-historic ruins of the Nan-Matal in the Carolines (The Moon Pool) had been given me by the International Association of Science for editing and revision to meet the requirements of a popular presentation, Dr. Goodwin had left America. He had explained that he was still too shaken, too depressed, to be able to recall experiences that must inevitably carry with them freshened memories of those whom he loved so well and from whom, he felt, he was separated in all probability forever....
The Essays of Montaigne, V3by Michel de MontaigneTranslated by Charles CottonEdited by William Carew Hazilitt1877CONTENTS OF VOLUME 3.XIII. The ceremony of the interview of princes.XIV. That men are justly punished for being obstinate in the defenceof a fort that is not in reason to be defendedXV. Of the punishment of cowardice.XVI. A proceeding of some ambassadors.XVII. Of fear.XVIII. That men are not to judge of our happiness till after death.XIX. That to study philosophy is to learn to die.XX. Of the force of imagination.XXI. That the profit of one man is the damage of another....
The Jerusalem Sinner Savedor, GOOD NEWS FOR THE VILEST OF MENby John BunyanBEGINNING AT JERUSALEM.Luke xxiv. 47.The whole verse runs thus: "And that repentance and remission ofsins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning atJerusalem."The words were spoken by Christ, after he rose from the dead, andthey are here rehearsed after an historical manner, but do contain inthem a formal commission, with a special clause therein. Thecommission is, as you see, for the preaching of the gospel, and isvery distinctly inserted in the holy record by Matthew and Mark. "Goteach all nations," &c. "Go ye into all the world, and preach the...
THE PROCESSION OF LIFELife figures itself to me as a festal or funereal procession. Allof us have our places, and are to move onward under the directionof the Chief Marshal. The grand difficulty results from theinvariably mistaken principles on which the deputy marshals seekto arrange this immense concourse of people, so much morenumerous than those that train their interminable length throughstreets and highways in times of political excitement. Theirscheme is ancient, far beyond the memory of man or even therecord of history, and has hitherto been very little modified bythe innate sense of something wrong, and the dim perception ofbetter methods, that have disquieted all the ages through
The Black Tulipby Alexandre Dumas, PereChapter 1A Grateful PeopleOn the 20th of August, 1672, the city of the Hague, alwaysso lively, so neat, and so trim that one might believe everyday to be Sunday, with its shady park, with its tall trees,spreading over its Gothic houses, with its canals like largemirrors, in which its steeples and its almost Easterncupolas are reflected, the city of the Hague, the capitalof the Seven United Provinces, was swelling in all itsarteries with a black and red stream of hurried, panting,and restless citizens, who, with their knives in theirgirdles, muskets on their shoulders, or sticks in their...
A Wagner MatineeI received one morning a letter, written in pale ink onglassy, blue-lined notepaper, and bearing the postmark of alittle Nebraska village. This communication, worn and rubbed,looking as though it had been carried for some days in a coatpocket that was none too clean, was from my Uncle Howard andinformed me that his wife had been left a small legacy by abachelor relative who had recently died, and that it would benecessary for her to go to Boston to attend to the settling ofthe estate. He requested me to meet her at the station andrender her whatever services might be necessary. On examining...
FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSENTHE LAST PEARLby Hans Christian AndersenWE are in a rich, happy house, where the master, the servants, thefriends of the family are full of joy and felicity. For on this daya son and heir has been born, and mother and child are doing well. Thelamp in the bed-chamber had been partly shaded, and the windows werecovered with heavy curtains of some costly silken material. The carpetwas thick and soft, like a covering of moss. Everything invited toslumber, everything had a charming look of repose; and so the nursehad discovered, for she slept; and well she might sleep, while...