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H.G. Wells | Time Machine | black in the pale light and there was the little lawn I looked at the lawn again A queer doubt chilled my complacency No said I stoutly to myself that was not the lawn But it _was_ the lawn For the white leprous face of the sphinx was towards it Can you imagine what I felt as this conviction came home to me But you cannot The Time Machine was gone At once like a lash across the face came the possibility of losing my own age of being left helpless in this strange new world The bare thought of |
Charles Dickens | Nicholas Nickleby | both very pretty things in their way and very much to be commended we confess to a desire to see them bred at the owner s proper cost rather than at the expense of low spirited people Nicholas therefore not being a high spirited young man according to common parlance and deeming it a greater degradation to borrow for the supply of his necessities from Newman Noggs than to teach French to the little Kenwigses for five shillings a week accepted the offer with the alacrity already described and betook himself to the first floor with all convenient speed Here |
Charles Dickens | Nicholas Nickleby | sir you did not give a voluntary pledge previous to your election that in event of your being returned you would immediately put down the practice of coughing and groaning in the House of Commons And whether you did not submit to be coughed and groaned down in the very first debate of the session and have since made no effort to effect a reform in this respect Whether you did not also pledge yourself to astonish the government and make them shrink in their shoes And whether you have astonished them and made them shrink in their shoes or |
Arthur Conan Doyle | The Lost World | Green sand since it was now seen that like penguins they lived in gregarious fashion Finally however Challenger bent upon proving some point which Summerlee had contested thrust his head over the rock and nearly brought destruction upon us all In an instant the nearest male gave a shrill whistling cry and flapped its twenty foot span of leathery wings as it soared up into the air The females and young ones huddled together beside the water while the whole circle of sentinels rose one after the other and sailed off into the sky It was a wonderful sight to |
Charles Dickens | Nicholas Nickleby | Pray sir what man was that with whom I saw you in the street last night I don t know replied Newman You had better refresh your memory sir said Ralph with a threatening look I tell you returned Newman boldly that I don t know He came here twice and asked for you You were out He came again You packed him off yourself He gave the name of Brooker I know he did said Ralph what then What then Why then he lurked about and dogged me in the street He follows me night after night and urges |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Tales and Fantasies | awake in his own bed in Randolph Crescent reconciled with all men and repeating the footprints of his youth and here he was alone pacing the alleys of a wintry garden and filled with penitential thoughts And that reminded him why was he alone and where was Alan The thought of the festal morning and the due salutations reawakened his desire for his friend and he began to call for him by name As the sound of his voice died away he was aware of the greatness of the silence that environed him But for the twittering of the sparrows |
H.G. Wells | The Sleeper Awakes | staircases into the blackness of a cross way Thereupon came some trivial adventures chief of these an ambiguous encounter with a gruff voiced invisible creature speaking in a strange dialect that seemed at first a strange tongue a thick flow of speech with the drifting corpses of English Words therein the dialect of the latter day vile Then another voice drew near a girl s voice singing tralala tralala She spoke to Graham her English touched with something of the same quality She professed to have lost her sister she blundered needlessly into him he thought caught hold of him |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Kidnapped | From such broken slumbers I would be aroused in the gloaming to sit up in the same puddle where I had slept and sup cold drammach the rain driving sharp in my face or running down my back in icy trickles the mist enfolding us like as in a gloomy chamber or perhaps if the wind blew falling suddenly apart and showing us the gulf of some dark valley where the streams were crying aloud The sound of an infinite number of rivers came up from all round In this steady rain the springs of the mountain were broken up |
H.G. Wells | The Island of Doctor Moreau | red Suddenly I heard a thud and a hissing behind me and looking round sprang to my feet with a cry of horror Against the warm dawn great tumultuous masses of black smoke were boiling up out of the enclosure and through their stormy darkness shot flickering threads of blood red flame Then the thatched roof caught I saw the curving charge of the flames across the sloping straw A spurt of fire jetted from the window of my room I knew at once what had happened I remembered the crash I had heard When I had rushed out to |
H.G. Wells | Invisible Man | went out again exasperated at my want of success with only the vaguest plans of action in my mind CHAPTER XXIII IN DRURY LANE But you begin now to realise said the Invisible Man the full disadvantage of my condition I had no shelter no covering to get clothing was to forego all my advantage to make myself a strange and terrible thing I was fasting for to eat to fill myself with unassimilated matter would be to become grotesquely visible again I never thought of that said Kemp Nor had I And the snow had warned me of other |
Arthur Conan Doyle | The Lost World | fitting subject no doubt for some future historical painting He had approached the bridge when Lord John laid his hand upon his coat My dear chap said he I really cannot allow it Cannot allow it sir The head went back and the beard forward When it is a matter of science don t you know I follow your lead because you are by way of bein a man of science But it s up to you to follow me when you come into my department Your department sir We all have our professions and soldierin is mine We are |
Charles Dickens | David Copperfield | I saw Uriah watch her while she greeted us and he reminded me of an ugly and rebellious genie watching a good spirit In the meanwhile some slight sign passed between Mr Micawber and Traddles and Traddles unobserved except by me went out Don t wait Micawber said Uriah Mr Micawber with his hand upon the ruler in his breast stood erect before the door most unmistakably contemplating one of his fellow men and that man his employer What are you waiting for said Uriah Micawber did you hear me tell you not to wait Yes replied the immovable Mr |
H.G. Wells | The Island of Doctor Moreau | there and we can t spare the time to build him a new shanty and we certainly can t take him into our confidence just yet I m in your hands said I I had no idea of what he meant by over there I ve been thinking of the same things Montgomery answered There s my room with the outer door That s it said the elder man promptly looking at Montgomery and all three of us went towards the enclosure I m sorry to make a mystery Mr Prendick but you ll remember you re uninvited Our little |
Charles Dickens | Great Expectations | morning and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my boots After that he fell to gardening and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged and nodding at him in a most devoted manner Our breakfast was as good as the supper and at half past eight precisely we started for Little Britain By degrees Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along and his mouth tightened into a post office again At last when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat collar he looked |
Arthur Conan Doyle | Adventures of Sherlock Holmes | I think and so too thinks my little Mary who has a woman s quick insight into character And now there is only she to be described She is my niece but when my brother died five years ago and left her alone in the world I adopted her and have looked upon her ever since as my daughter She is a sunbeam in my house sweet loving beautiful a wonderful manager and housekeeper yet as tender and quiet and gentle as a woman could be She is my right hand I do not know what I could do without |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Kidnapped | finding that the lad owned some decent folk and was your born nephew Mr Balfour they asked me to give ye a bit call and confer upon the matter And I may tell ye at the off go unless we can agree upon some terms ye are little likely to set eyes upon him For my friends added Alan simply are no very well off My uncle cleared his throat I m no very caring says he He wasnae a good lad at the best of it and I ve nae call to interfere Ay ay said Alan I see |
Jane Austen | Mansfield Park | did not know where I was The approach _now_ is one of the finest things in the country you see the house in the most surprising manner I declare when I got back to Sotherton yesterday it looked like a prison quite a dismal old prison Oh for shame cried Mrs Norris A prison indeed Sotherton Court is the noblest old place in the world It wants improvement ma am beyond anything I never saw a place that wanted so much improvement in my life and it is so forlorn that I do not know what can be done with |
Charles Dickens | Great Expectations | not in negativing the question but in altogether negativing the notion that he could anyhow be got to answer it and the two horrible casts of the twitched faces looked when my eyes strayed up to them as if they had come to a crisis in their suspended attention and were going to sneeze Come said Mr Jaggers warming the backs of his legs with the backs of his warmed hands I ll be plain with you my friend Pip That s a question I must not be asked You ll understand that better when I tell you it s |
Arthur Conan Doyle | Adventures of Sherlock Holmes | s death I determined to start in business for myself and took professional chambers in Victoria Street I suppose that everyone finds his first independent start in business a dreary experience To me it has been exceptionally so During two years I have had three consultations and one small job and that is absolutely all that my profession has brought me My gross takings amount to 27 10_s_ Every day from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon I waited in my little den until at last my heart began to sink and I came to believe that |
H.G. Wells | Time Machine | comfort in their twinkling All the old constellations had gone from the sky however that slow movement which is imperceptible in a hundred human lifetimes had long since rearranged them in unfamiliar groupings But the Milky Way it seemed to me was still the same tattered streamer of star dust as of yore Southward as I judged it was a very bright red star that was new to me it was even more splendid than our own green Sirius And amid all these scintillating points of light one bright planet shone kindly and steadily like the face of an old |
H.G. Wells | The Island of Doctor Moreau | saw I said And those yonder Hush said Moreau and held up his hand I will not said I They were men what are they now I at least will not be like them I looked past my interlocutors Up the beach were M ling Montgomery s attendant and one of the white swathed brutes from the boat Farther up in the shadow of the trees I saw my little Ape man and behind him some other dim figures Who are these creatures said I pointing to them and raising my voice more and more that it might reach them |
Jane Austen | Emma | been equal to playing with the children it would not have escaped her Emma s comforts and hopes were most agreeably carried on by Harriet s being to stay longer her fortnight was likely to be a month at least Mr and Mrs John Knightley were to come down in August and she was invited to remain till they could bring her back John does not even mention your friend said Mr Knightley Here is his answer if you like to see it It was the answer to the communication of his intended marriage Emma accepted it with a very |
Jane Austen | Pride and Prejudice | disappointment had in fact been the work of her nearest relations and reflected how materially the credit of both must be hurt by such impropriety of conduct she felt depressed beyond anything she had ever known before After wandering along the lane for two hours giving way to every variety of thought re considering events determining probabilities and reconciling herself as well as she could to a change so sudden and so important fatigue and a recollection of her long absence made her at length return home and she entered the house with the wish of appearing cheerful as usual |
Jane Austen | Emma | over directly and they would give them the meeting in Dublin and take them back to their country seat Baly craig a beautiful place I fancy Jane has heard a great deal of its beauty from Mr Dixon I mean I do not know that she ever heard about it from any body else but it was very natural you know that he should like to speak of his own place while he was paying his addresses and as Jane used to be very often walking out with them for Colonel and Mrs Campbell were very particular about their daughter |
H.G. Wells | Time Machine | actual thing itself incomplete in the workshop There it is now a little travel worn truly and one of the ivory bars is cracked and a brass rail bent but the rest of it s sound enough I expected to finish it on Friday but on Friday when the putting together was nearly done I found that one of the nickel bars was exactly one inch too short and this I had to get remade so that the thing was not complete until this morning It was at ten o clock today that the first of all Time Machines began |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Kidnapped | had long since suffered to go out and set his two hands upon his knees Ay said he ye ll never guess that For these same Stewarts and Maccolls and Macrobs that had two rents to pay one to King George by stark force and one to Ardshiel by natural kindness offered him a better price than any Campbell in all broad Scotland and far he sent seeking them as far as to the sides of Clyde and the cross of Edinburgh seeking and fleeching and begging them to come where there was a Stewart to be starved and a |
Jane Austen | Emma | which will be the day the precise day of the instrument s coming to hand Do you imagine Colonel Campbell knows the business to be going forward just at this time Do you imagine it to be the consequence of an immediate commission from him or that he may have sent only a general direction an order indefinite as to time to depend upon contingencies and conveniences He paused She could not but hear she could not avoid answering Till I have a letter from Colonel Campbell said she in a voice of forced calmness I can imagine nothing with |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Jekyll and Hyde | I knew it said Utterson He meant to murder you You had a fine escape I have had what is far more to the purpose returned the doctor solemnly I have had a lesson O God Utterson what a lesson I have had And he covered his face for a moment with his hands On his way out the lawyer stopped and had a word or two with Poole By the bye said he there was a letter handed in to day what was the messenger like But Poole was positive nothing had come except by post and only circulars |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Jekyll and Hyde | a marvelous number of degrees and hues of twilight for here it would be dark like the back end of evening and there would be a glow of a rich lurid brown like the light of some strange conflagration and here for a moment the fog would be quite broken up and a haggard shaft of daylight would glance in between the swirling wreaths The dismal quarter of Soho seen under these changing glimpses with its muddy ways and slatternly passengers and its lamps which had never been extinguished or had been kindled afresh to combat this mournful reinvasion of |
Charles Dickens | David Copperfield | said I If you had not assured us my dear Copperfield on the occasion of that agreeable afternoon we had the happiness of passing with you that D was your favourite letter said Mr Micawber I should unquestionably have supposed that A had been so We have all some experience of a feeling that comes over us occasionally of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before in a remote time of our having been surrounded dim ages ago by the same faces objects and circumstances of our knowing perfectly what will be said next as |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Kidnapped | my new clothes and my estate you could feel very well that we were nearer tears than laughter We came the by way over the hill of Corstorphine and when we got near to the place called Rest and be Thankful and looked down on Corstorphine bogs and over to the city and the castle on the hill we both stopped for we both knew without a word said that we had come to where our ways parted Here he repeated to me once again what had been agreed upon between us the address of the lawyer the daily hour |
H.G. Wells | Time Machine | padding sound of his footfall and standing up in my place I saw his feet as he went out He had nothing on them but a pair of tattered blood stained socks Then the door closed upon him I had half a mind to follow till I remembered how he detested any fuss about himself For a minute perhaps my mind was wool gathering Then Remarkable Behaviour of an Eminent Scientist I heard the Editor say thinking after his wont in headlines And this brought my attention back to the bright dinner table What s the game said the Journalist |
H.G. Wells | Time Machine | living I felt that this close resemblance of the sexes was after all what one would expect for the strength of a man and the softness of a woman the institution of the family and the differentiation of occupations are mere militant necessities of an age of physical force Where population is balanced and abundant much childbearing becomes an evil rather than a blessing to the State where violence comes but rarely and offspring are secure there is less necessity indeed there is no necessity for an efficient family and the specialisation of the sexes with reference to their children |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Kidnapped | s no very bad Mr Stewart said the rival but ye show a poor device in your warblers Me cried Alan the blood starting to his face I give ye the lie Do ye own yourself beaten at the pipes then said Robin that ye seek to change them for the sword And that s very well said Mr Macgregor returned Alan and in the meantime laying a strong accent on the word I take back the lie I appeal to Duncan Indeed ye need appeal to naebody said Robin Ye re a far better judge than any Maclaren in |
Arthur Conan Doyle | The Lost World | and toes to tiny ledges and crevices in the rock I could not have accomplished it nor could Summerlee if Challenger had not gained the summit it was extraordinary to see such activity in so unwieldy a creature and there fixed the rope round the trunk of the considerable tree which grew there With this as our support we were soon able to scramble up the jagged wall until we found ourselves upon the small grassy platform some twenty five feet each way which formed the summit The first impression which I received when I had recovered my breath was |
Jane Austen | Emma | one subject all her observations all her convictions all her prophecies for the last six weeks The confession completely renewed her first shame and the sight of Harriet s tears made her think that she should never be in charity with herself again Harriet bore the intelligence very well blaming nobody and in every thing testifying such an ingenuousness of disposition and lowly opinion of herself as must appear with particular advantage at that moment to her friend Emma was in the humour to value simplicity and modesty to the utmost and all that was amiable all that ought to |
Arthur Conan Doyle | The Lost World | heavy game heads the best of their sort from every quarter of the world with the rare white rhinoceros of the Lado Enclave drooping its supercilious lip above them all In the center of the rich red carpet was a black and gold Louis Quinze table a lovely antique now sacrilegiously desecrated with marks of glasses and the scars of cigar stumps On it stood a silver tray of smokables and a burnished spirit stand from which and an adjacent siphon my silent host proceeded to charge two high glasses Having indicated an arm chair to me and placed my |
Jane Austen | Mansfield Park | footsteps somebody was coming at a quick pace down the principal walk She expected Mr Rushworth but it was Julia who hot and out of breath and with a look of disappointment cried out on seeing her Heyday Where are the others I thought Maria and Mr Crawford were with you Fanny explained A pretty trick upon my word I cannot see them anywhere looking eagerly into the park But they cannot be very far off and I think I am equal to as much as Maria even without help But Julia Mr Rushworth will be here in a moment |
Jane Austen | Mansfield Park | convinced that she is not without a decided preference I have no jealousy of any individual It is the influence of the fashionable world altogether that I am jealous of It is the habits of wealth that I fear Her ideas are not higher than her own fortune may warrant but they are beyond what our incomes united could authorise There is comfort however even here I could better bear to lose her because not rich enough than because of my profession That would only prove her affection not equal to sacrifices which in fact I am scarcely justified in |
Charles Dickens | David Copperfield | head gravely Miss Lavinia looked consciously at Miss Clarissa and heaved a little sigh Sister Lavinia said Miss Clarissa take my smelling bottle Miss Lavinia revived herself with a few whiffs of aromatic vinegar Traddles and I looking on with great solicitude the while and then went on to say rather faintly My sister and myself have been in great doubt Mr Traddles what course we ought to take in reference to the likings or imaginary likings of such very young people as your friend Mr Copperfield and our niece Our brother Francis s child remarked Miss Clarissa If our |
Jane Austen | Persuasion | know the West Indies Mrs Musgrove had not a word to say in dissent she could not accuse herself of having ever called them anything in the whole course of her life And I do assure you ma am pursued Mrs Croft that nothing can exceed the accommodations of a man of war I speak you know of the higher rates When you come to a frigate of course you are more confined though any reasonable woman may be perfectly happy in one of them and I can safely say that the happiest part of my life has been spent |
H.G. Wells | The Island of Doctor Moreau | or dead matter are examples that will no doubt be familiar to you A similar operation is the transfusion of blood with which subject indeed I began These are all familiar cases Less so and probably far more extensive were the operations of those mediaeval practitioners who made dwarfs and beggar cripples show monsters some vestiges of whose art still remain in the preliminary manipulation of the young mountebank or contortionist Victor Hugo gives an account of them in L Homme qui Rit But perhaps my meaning grows plain now You begin to see that it is a possible thing |
Robert Louis Stevenson | The Black Arrow | report of you most vilely said the knight Seize me saith he that Tyndal of Shoreby Condall my good lord Condall is my poor name said the unfortunate Condall or Tyndal it is all one replied Sir Daniel coolly For by my sooth y are here and I do mightily suspect your honesty If ye would save your neck write me swiftly an obligation for twenty pound For twenty pound my good lord cried Condall Here is midsummer madness My whole estate amounteth not to seventy shillings Condall or Tyndal returned Sir Daniel grinning I will run my peril of |
Arthur Conan Doyle | Adventures of Sherlock Holmes | old fashioned shutters with broad iron bars which were secured every night The walls were carefully sounded and were shown to be quite solid all round and the flooring was also thoroughly examined with the same result The chimney is wide but is barred up by four large staples It is certain therefore that my sister was quite alone when she met her end Besides there were no marks of any violence upon her How about poison The doctors examined her for it but without success What do you think that this unfortunate lady died of then It is my |
Jane Austen | Mansfield Park | Dr Grant through an interest on which he had almost ceased to form hopes succeeded to a stall in Westminster which as affording an occasion for leaving Mansfield an excuse for residence in London and an increase of income to answer the expenses of the change was highly acceptable to those who went and those who staid Mrs Grant with a temper to love and be loved must have gone with some regret from the scenes and people she had been used to but the same happiness of disposition must in any place and any society secure her a great |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Tales and Fantasies | him Come now forgive him I was angry with him once myself and I found I was in the wrong This is only a misunderstanding like the other believe me and with one kind movement you may give happiness to him and to me and to yourself Esther made a movement towards the door but long before she reached it she had broken forth sobbing It is all right said the Admiral I understand the sex Let me make you my compliments Mr Naseby The Squire was too much relieved to be angry My dear said he to Esther you |
Charles Dickens | Great Expectations | with no one more than Drummle the development of whose inclination to gird in a grudging and suspicious way at the rest was screwed out of him before the fish was taken off It was not then but when we had got to the cheese that our conversation turned upon our rowing feats and that Drummle was rallied for coming up behind of a night in that slow amphibious way of his Drummle upon this informed our host that he much preferred our room to our company and that as to skill he was more than our master and that |
Robert Louis Stevenson | The Black Arrow | you for I have that matter on my conscience that shall drag me deep He groaned and Dick heard the grating of his teeth whether in pain or terror Just then Sir Daniel appeared upon the threshold of the hall He had a letter in one hand Lads he said we have had a shog we have had a tumble wherefore then deny it Rather it imputeth to get speedily again to saddle This old Harry the Sixt has had the undermost Wash we then our hands of him I have a good friend that rideth next the duke the |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Kidnapped | t know which of us did best This pleasant rivalry put us at once upon friendly terms and I sat up and drank punch with him or to be more correct sat up and watched him drink it until he was so tipsy that he wept upon my shoulder I tried him as if by accident with a sight of Alan s button but it was plain he had never seen or heard of it Indeed he bore some grudge against the family and friends of Ardshiel and before he was drunk he read me a lampoon in very good |
Jane Austen | Mansfield Park | rather deny myself the necessaries of life than do an ungenerous thing So if you are not against it I will write to my poor sister tomorrow and make the proposal and as soon as matters are settled _I_ will engage to get the child to Mansfield _you_ shall have no trouble about it My own trouble you know I never regard I will send Nanny to London on purpose and she may have a bed at her cousin the saddler s and the child be appointed to meet her there They may easily get her from Portsmouth to town |
Jane Austen | Pride and Prejudice | occasion for making it a general concern when Kitty left them she went boldly on with him alone Now was the moment for her resolution to be executed and while her courage was high she immediately said Mr Darcy I am a very selfish creature and for the sake of giving relief to my own feelings care not how much I may be wounding yours I can no longer help thanking you for your unexampled kindness to my poor sister Ever since I have known it I have been most anxious to acknowledge to you how gratefully I feel it |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Kidnapped | my jacket and knocked once Then I stood and waited The house had fallen into a dead silence a whole minute passed away and nothing stirred but the bats overhead I knocked again and hearkened again By this time my ears had grown so accustomed to the quiet that I could hear the ticking of the clock inside as it slowly counted out the seconds but whoever was in that house kept deadly still and must have held his breath I was in two minds whether to run away but anger got the upper hand and I began instead to |
H.G. Wells | Invisible Man | a prompt attention to any evidence of his movements And so swift and decided was the action of the authorities so prompt and universal was the belief in this strange being that before nightfall an area of several hundred square miles was in a stringent state of siege And before nightfall too a thrill of horror went through the whole watching nervous countryside Going from whispering mouth to mouth swift and certain over the length and breadth of the country passed the story of the murder of Mr Wicksteed If our supposition that the Invisible Man s refuge was the |
Jane Austen | Pride and Prejudice | all the perplexity about Elizabeth and her Derbyshire friend that had attended her from that part of the world His name had never been voluntarily mentioned before them by her niece and the kind of half expectation which Mrs Gardiner had formed of their being followed by a letter from him had ended in nothing Elizabeth had received none since her return that could come from Pemberley The present unhappy state of the family rendered any other excuse for the lowness of her spirits unnecessary nothing therefore could be fairly conjectured from _that_ though Elizabeth who was by this time |
Charles Dickens | Great Expectations | fellow that ever lived but he is rather backward in some things For instance Biddy in his learning and his manners Although I was looking at Biddy as I spoke and although she opened her eyes very wide when I had spoken she did not look at me O his manners won t his manners do then asked Biddy plucking a black currant leaf My dear Biddy they do very well here O they _do_ very well here interrupted Biddy looking closely at the leaf in her hand Hear me out but if I were to remove Joe into a |
Robert Louis Stevenson | The Black Arrow | mind He saw he had been put upon his trial that he had once more betrayed his suspicions and that short of some miracle he was lost If I cannot get me forth out of this house he thought I am dead man And this poor Matcham too to what a cockatrice s nest have I not led him He was still so thinking when there came one in haste to bid him help in changing his arms his clothing and his two or three books to a new chamber A new chamber he repeated Wherefore so What chamber Tis |
Jane Austen | Emma | any confidence It must be all conjecture Conjecture aye sometimes one conjectures right and sometimes one conjectures wrong I wish I could conjecture how soon I shall make this rivet quite firm What nonsense one talks Miss Woodhouse when hard at work if one talks at all your real workmen I suppose hold their tongues but we gentlemen labourers if we get hold of a word Miss Fairfax said something about conjecturing There it is done I have the pleasure madam to Mrs Bates of restoring your spectacles healed for the present He was very warmly thanked both by mother |
Robert Louis Stevenson | The Black Arrow | Master John I will break no bread Since ye force me to this sin I will fast for my soul s interest But good mine host I pray you of courtesy give me a cup of fair water I shall be much beholden to your courtesy indeed Ye shall have a dispensation go to cried the knight Shalt be well shriven by my faith Content you then and eat But the lad was obstinate drank a cup of water and once more wrapping himself closely in his mantle sat in a far corner brooding In an hour or two there |
Charles Dickens | David Copperfield | his Oxford friends As she pressed me to stay to dinner I remained and I believe we talked about nothing but him all day I told her how much the people liked him at Yarmouth and what a delightful companion he had been Miss Dartle was full of hints and mysterious questions but took a great interest in all our proceedings there and said Was it really though and so forth so often that she got everything out of me she wanted to know Her appearance was exactly what I have described it when I first saw her but the |
H.G. Wells | The Island of Doctor Moreau | the aperture I heard the yelp of a staghound In another moment I was standing outside the hovel my chair rail in my hand every muscle of me quivering Before me were the clumsy backs of perhaps a score of these Beast People their misshapen heads half hidden by their shoulder blades They were gesticulating excitedly Other half animal faces glared interrogation out of the hovels Looking in the direction in which they faced I saw coming through the haze under the trees beyond the end of the passage of dens the dark figure and awful white face of Moreau |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Jekyll and Hyde | after two hour s work the door stood open The press marked E was unlocked and I took out the drawer had it filled up with straw and tied in a sheet and returned with it to Cavendish Square Here I proceeded to examine its contents The powders were neatly enough made up but not with the nicety of the dispensing chemist so that it was plain they were of Jekyll s private manufacture and when I opened one of the wrappers I found what seemed to me a simple crystalline salt of a white colour The phial to which |
H.G. Wells | The Island of Doctor Moreau | whole crowd seemed to swing round in the direction of the glint of fire and I too was swung round by the magnetism of the movement In another second I was running one of a tumultuous shouting crowd in pursuit of the escaping Leopard man That is all I can tell definitely I saw the Leopard man strike Moreau and then everything spun about me until I was running headlong M ling was ahead close in pursuit of the fugitive Behind their tongues already lolling out ran the Wolf women in great leaping strides The Swine folk followed squealing with |
Jane Austen | Mansfield Park | listening sympathy It is not worth complaining about but to be sure the poor old dowager could not have died at a worse time and it is impossible to help wishing that the news could have been suppressed for just the three days we wanted It was but three days and being only a grandmother and all happening two hundred miles off I think there would have been no great harm and it was suggested I know but Lord Ravenshaw who I suppose is one of the most correct men in England would not hear of it An afterpiece instead |
Robert Louis Stevenson | The Black Arrow | Dick still upon the top of him and the next wave speedily succeeding to the last buried him below a rush of water While he was still submerged Dick forced his dagger from his grasp and rose to his feet victorious Yield ye he said I give you life I yield me said the other getting to his knees Ye fight like a young man ignorantly and foolhardily but by the array of the saints ye fight bravely Dick turned to the beach The combat was still raging doubtfully in the night over the hoarse roar of the breakers steel |
Charles Dickens | Oliver Twis | Mrs Maylie Wery likely not ma am replied Blathers but they might have been in it for all that More likely on that wery account said Duff We find it was a town hand said Blathers continuing his report for the style of work is first rate Wery pretty indeed it is remarked Duff in an undertone There was two of em in it continued Blathers and they had a boy with em that s plain from the size of the window That s all to be said at present We ll see this lad that you ve got upstairs |
Arthur Conan Doyle | Tales of Terror and Mystery | upon me never entered my excited brain I have already explained that the passage down which I was racing opened into a great central cave Into this I rushed fearful lest I should lose all trace of the beast But he had turned upon his own traces and in a moment we were face to face That picture seen in the brilliant white light of the lantern is etched for ever upon my brain He had reared up on his hind legs as a bear would do and stood above me enormous menacing such a creature as no nightmare had |
Jane Austen | Emma | for that Yes yes but I am amused that he should have seen so far into my feelings What has he been judging by I am not conscious of any difference in my spirits or conversation that could prepare him at this time for my marrying any more than at another But it was so I suppose I dare say there was a difference when I was staying with them the other day I believe I did not play with the children quite so much as usual I remember one evening the poor boys saying Uncle seems always tired now |
Robert Louis Stevenson | The Black Arrow | of provender and fully breathed from their fatigues At Dick s command the fire was smothered in snow and while his men got once more wearily to saddle he himself remembering somewhat late true woodland caution chose a tall oak and nimbly clambered to the topmost fork Hence he could look far abroad on the moonlit and snow paven forest On the south west dark against the horizon stood those upland heathy quarters where he and Joanna had met with the terrifying misadventure of the leper And there his eye was caught by a spot of ruddy brightness no bigger |
Jane Austen | Pride and Prejudice | almost every line of each there was a want of that cheerfulness which had been used to characterise her style and which proceeding from the serenity of a mind at ease with itself and kindly disposed towards everyone had been scarcely ever clouded Elizabeth noticed every sentence conveying the idea of uneasiness with an attention which it had hardly received on the first perusal Mr Darcy s shameful boast of what misery he had been able to inflict gave her a keener sense of her sister s sufferings It was some consolation to think that his visit to Rosings was |
Jane Austen | Emma | little likeness between us He bowed If not in our dispositions she presently added with a look of true sensibility there is a likeness in our destiny the destiny which bids fair to connect us with two characters so much superior to our own True true he answered warmly No not true on your side You can have no superior but most true on mine She is a complete angel Look at her Is not she an angel in every gesture Observe the turn of her throat Observe her eyes as she is looking up at my father You will |
Charles Dickens | David Copperfield | Ever so fur she run and there was fire afore her eyes and roarings in her ears Of a sudden or so she thowt you unnerstand the day broke wet and windy and she was lying b low a heap of stone upon the shore and a woman was a speaking to her saying in the language of that country what was it as had gone so much amiss He saw everything he related It passed before him as he spoke so vividly that in the intensity of his earnestness he presented what he described to me with greater distinctness |
Jane Austen | Pride and Prejudice | has been talking to me about him and asking me a thousand questions and I find that the young man quite forgot to tell you among his other communication that he was the son of old Wickham the late Mr Darcy s steward Let me recommend you however as a friend not to give implicit confidence to all his assertions for as to Mr Darcy s using him ill it is perfectly false for on the contrary he has always been remarkably kind to him though George Wickham has treated Mr Darcy in a most infamous manner I do not |
H.G. Wells | The Sleeper Awakes | among their streets and roads queer islands amidst the levelled expanses of green and brown abandoned indeed by the inhabitants years since but too substantial it seemed to be cleared out of the way of the wholesale horticultural mechanisms of the time The vegetation of this waste undulated and frothed amidst the countless cells of crumbling house walls and broke along the foot of the city wall in a surf of bramble and holly and ivy and teazle and tall grasses Here and there gaudy pleasure palaces towered amidst the puny remains of Victorian times and cable ways slanted to |
Charles Dickens | Great Expectations | wilderness beyond the churchyard intersected with dikes and mounds and gates with scattered cattle feeding on it was the marshes and that the low leaden line beyond was the river and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing was the sea and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry was Pip Hold your noise cried a terrible voice as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch Keep still you little devil or I ll cut your throat A fearful man |
H.G. Wells | Invisible Man | Mrs Hall was about to leave the room she made no conversational advances this time because she did not want to be snubbed in front of Mr Henfrey when her visitor asked her if she had made any arrangements about his boxes at Bramblehurst She told him she had mentioned the matter to the postman and that the carrier could bring them over on the morrow You are certain that is the earliest he said She was certain with a marked coldness I should explain he added what I was really too cold and fatigued to do before that I |
Jane Austen | Emma | exertion it could not be an equal conviction Oh the difference of situation and habit I wish you would try to understand what an amiable young man may be likely to feel in directly opposing those whom as child and boy he has been looking up to all his life Our amiable young man is a very weak young man if this be the first occasion of his carrying through a resolution to do right against the will of others It ought to have been a habit with him by this time of following his duty instead of consulting expediency |
Jane Austen | Mansfield Park | of before My stupidity was abominable for here we have all the advantage of what I saw at Ecclesford and it is so useful to have anything of a model We have cast almost every part But what do you do for women said Edmund gravely and looking at Maria Maria blushed in spite of herself as she answered I take the part which Lady Ravenshaw was to have done and with a bolder eye Miss Crawford is to be Amelia I should not have thought it the sort of play to be so easily filled up with _us_ replied |
H.G. Wells | The Sleeper Awakes | remained motionless his every sense intent upon the flickering patch of darkness He became aware of some faint remote dark specks floating lightly through the outer air They came down towards him fitfully eddyingly and passed aside out of the uprush from the fan A gleam of light flickered the specks flashed white and then the darkness came again Warmed and lit as he was he perceived that it was snowing within a few feet of him Graham walked across the room and came back to the ventilator again He saw the head of a man pass near There was |
Arthur Conan Doyle | The Lost World | worth it Truth is truth and the noise of a number of foolish young men and I fear I must add of their equally foolish seniors cannot affect the matter I claim that I have opened a new field of science You dispute it Cheers Then I put you to the test Will you accredit one or more of your own number to go out as your representatives and test my statement in your name Mr Summerlee the veteran Professor of Comparative Anatomy rose among the audience a tall thin bitter man with the withered aspect of a theologian He |
Jane Austen | Emma | This will be complete enjoyment and I do not know Mrs Elton whether the uncertainty of our meetings the sort of constant expectation there will be of his coming in to day or to morrow and at any hour may not be more friendly to happiness than having him actually in the house I think it is so I think it is the state of mind which gives most spirit and delight I hope you will be pleased with my son but you must not expect a prodigy He is generally thought a fine young man but do not expect |
Charles Dickens | Great Expectations | what a blessed fortune it was that he had found another name for me than Pip It is impossible to express with what acuteness I felt the convict s breathing not only on the back of my head but all along my spine The sensation was like being touched in the marrow with some pungent and searching acid it set my very teeth on edge He seemed to have more breathing business to do than another man and to make more noise in doing it and I was conscious of growing high shouldered on one side in my shrinking endeavors |
H.G. Wells | Invisible Man | but curious people increased Mrs Huxter came over some gay young fellows resplendent in black ready made jackets and _pique_ paper ties for it was Whit Monday joined the group with confused interrogations Young Archie Harker distinguished himself by going up the yard and trying to peep under the window blinds He could see nothing but gave reason for supposing that he did and others of the Iping youth presently joined him It was the finest of all possible Whit Mondays and down the village street stood a row of nearly a dozen booths a shooting gallery and on the |
H.G. Wells | The Sleeper Awakes | the cloudy grey disc had taken depth and colour had assumed the appearance of an oval window looking out upon a strange unfamiliar scene At the first glance he was unable to guess what this scene might be It was a daylight scene the daylight of a wintry day grey and clear Across the picture and halfway as it seemed between him and the remoter view a stout cable of twisted white wire stretched vertically Then he perceived that the rows of great wind wheels he saw the wide intervals the occasional gulfs of darkness were akin to those through |
H.G. Wells | Time Machine | Psychologist Nor having only length breadth and thickness can a cube have a real existence There I object said Filby Of course a solid body may exist All real things So most people think But wait a moment Can an _instantaneous_ cube exist Don t follow you said Filby Can a cube that does not last for any time at all have a real existence Filby became pensive Clearly the Time Traveller proceeded any real body must have extension in _four_ directions it must have Length Breadth Thickness and Duration But through a natural infirmity of the flesh which I |
Charles Dickens | Oliver Twis | some very minute inscription on it for the Jew laid it flat upon the table and shading it with his hand pored over it long and earnestly At length he put it down as if despairing of success and leaning back in his chair muttered What a fine thing capital punishment is Dead men never repent dead men never bring awkward stories to light Ah it s a fine thing for the trade Five of em strung up in a row and none left to play booty or turn white livered As the Jew uttered these words his bright dark |
Charles Dickens | David Copperfield | and could it be Tommy I thought who used to draw the skeletons I looked for Mr Traddles with unusual interest He was a sober steady looking young man of retiring manners with a comic head of hair and eyes that were rather wide open and he got into an obscure corner so soon that I had some difficulty in making him out At length I had a good view of him and either my vision deceived me or it was the old unfortunate Tommy I made my way to Mr Waterbrook and said that I believed I had the |
Arthur Conan Doyle | Tales of Terror and Mystery | an interesting case and he brushed aside as irrelevant the feeble objections of the husband It appears to be that or nothing said he brusquely It is better to lose a lip than a life Ah yes I know that you are right Well well it is kismet and it must be faced I have the cab and you will come with me and do this thing Douglas Stone took his case of bistouries from a drawer and placed it with a roll of bandage and a compress of lint in his pocket He must waste no more time if |
Jane Austen | Emma | great deal in the summer and in winter dressed their chilblains with her own hands It was no wonder that a train of twenty young couple now walked after her to church She was a plain motherly kind of woman who had worked hard in her youth and now thought herself entitled to the occasional holiday of a tea visit and having formerly owed much to Mr Woodhouse s kindness felt his particular claim on her to leave her neat parlour hung round with fancy work whenever she could and win or lose a few sixpences by his fireside These |
Jane Austen | Persuasion | Walter talked of his youngest daughter Mr Elliot must give him leave to present him to his youngest daughter there was no occasion for remembering Mary and Anne smiling and blushing very becomingly shewed to Mr Elliot the pretty features which he had by no means forgotten and instantly saw with amusement at his little start of surprise that he had not been at all aware of who she was He looked completely astonished but not more astonished than pleased his eyes brightened and with the most perfect alacrity he welcomed the relationship alluded to the past and entreated to |
Jane Austen | Mansfield Park | was left to sit down and stir the fire in thoughtful vexation Fanny who had heard it all and borne Edmund company in every feeling throughout the whole now ventured to say in her anxiety to suggest some comfort Perhaps they may not be able to find any play to suit them Your brother s taste and your sisters seem very different I have no hope there Fanny If they persist in the scheme they will find something I shall speak to my sisters and try to dissuade _them_ and that is all I can do I should think my |
Charles Dickens | David Copperfield | exalt and strengthen it She was sure that in my every purpose I should gain a firmer and a higher tendency through the grief I had undergone She who so gloried in my fame and so looked forward to its augmentation well knew that I would labour on She knew that in me sorrow could not be weakness but must be strength As the endurance of my childish days had done its part to make me what I was so greater calamities would nerve me on to be yet better than I was and so as they had taught me |
Arthur Conan Doyle | Hound of Baskervilles | Holmes shaking his head and looking very grave I beg Sir Henry that you will not go about alone Some great misfortune will befall you if you do Did you get your other boot No sir it is gone forever Indeed That is very interesting Well good bye he added as the train began to glide down the platform Bear in mind Sir Henry one of the phrases in that queer old legend which Dr Mortimer has read to us and avoid the moor in those hours of darkness when the powers of evil are exalted I looked back at |
H.G. Wells | The Sleeper Awakes | depression He felt the featureless misery of one who wakes towards the hour of dawn He had an uncertain sense of whispers and footsteps hastily receding The movement of his head involved a perception of extreme physical weakness He supposed he was in bed in the hotel at the place in the valley but he could not recall that white edge He must have slept He remembered now that he had wanted to sleep He recalled the cliff and Waterfall again and then recollected something about talking to a passer by How long had he slept What was that sound |
Charles Dickens | Great Expectations | and have obliged her to go on or to make her purpose evident But we held our own without any appearance of molestation He had his boat cloak on him and looked as I have said a natural part of the scene It was remarkable but perhaps the wretched life he had led accounted for it that he was the least anxious of any of us He was not indifferent for he told me that he hoped to live to see his gentleman one of the best of gentlemen in a foreign country he was not disposed to be passive |
Arthur Conan Doyle | The Lost World | perhaps as Sussex has been lifted up en bloc with all its living contents and cut off by perpendicular precipices of a hardness which defies erosion from all the rest of the continent What is the result Why the ordinary laws of Nature are suspended The various checks which influence the struggle for existence in the world at large are all neutralized or altered Creatures survive which would otherwise disappear You will observe that both the pterodactyl and the stegosaurus are Jurassic and therefore of a great age in the order of life They have been artificially conserved by those |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Kidnapped | and giddily through a long cresting swell She was on the starboard tack and on the left hand under the arched foot of the foresail I could see the sunset still quite bright This at such an hour of the night surprised me greatly but I was too ignorant to draw the true conclusion that we were going north about round Scotland and were now on the high sea between the Orkney and Shetland Islands having avoided the dangerous currents of the Pentland Firth For my part who had been so long shut in the dark and knew nothing of |
Charles Dickens | Oliver Twis | avoided both by the old gentleman and Mrs Bedwin in the conversation that ensued which indeed bore no reference to Oliver s history or prospects but was confined to such topics as might amuse without exciting him He was still too weak to get up to breakfast but when he came down into the housekeeper s room next day his first act was to cast an eager glance at the wall in the hope of again looking on the face of the beautiful lady His expectations were disappointed however for the picture had been removed Ah said the housekeeper watching |
Charles Dickens | Great Expectations | to me You must have been under lock and key dear boy to know it equal to me but I ain t a going to be low It occurred to me as inconsistent that for any mastering idea he should have endangered his freedom and even his life But I reflected that perhaps freedom without danger was too much apart from all the habit of his existence to be to him what it would be to another man I was not far out since he said after smoking a little You see dear boy when I was over yonder t |
Charles Dickens | Nicholas Nickleby | is indeed sir replied Mrs Nickleby she is the sweetest tempered kindest hearted creature and so clever She looks clayver said Lord Verisopht with the air of a judge of cleverness I assure you she is my lord returned Mrs Nickleby When she was at school in Devonshire she was universally allowed to be beyond all exception the very cleverest girl there and there were a great many very clever ones too and that s the truth twenty five young ladies fifty guineas a year without the et ceteras both the Miss Dowdles the most accomplished elegant fascinating creatures Oh |
Arthur Conan Doyle | Adventures of Sherlock Holmes | been very kind said he but I must have this money or else I can never show my face inside the club again And a very good thing too I cried Yes but you would not have me leave it a dishonoured man said he I could not bear the disgrace I must raise the money in some way and if you will not let me have it then I must try other means I was very angry for this was the third demand during the month You shall not have a farthing from me I cried on which he |
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