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Charles Dickens | Oliver Twis | followed Mr Giles upstairs and while he is going upstairs the reader may be informed that Mr Losberne a surgeon in the neighbourhood known through a circuit of ten miles round as the doctor had grown fat more from good humour than from good living and was as kind and hearty and withal as eccentric an old bachelor as will be found in five times that space by any explorer alive The doctor was absent much longer than either he or the ladies had anticipated A large flat box was fetched out of the gig and a bedroom bell was |
Charles Dickens | Nicholas Nickleby | breaking an egg It is a pretty bewitching little demd countenance and it should not be out of humour for it spoils its loveliness and makes it cross and gloomy like a frightful naughty demd hobgoblin I am not to be brought round in that way always rejoined Madame sulkily It shall be brought round in any way it likes best and not brought round at all if it likes that better retorted Mr Mantalini with his egg spoon in his mouth It s very easy to talk said Mrs Mantalini Not so easy when one is eating a demnition |
Arthur Conan Doyle | Tales of Terror and Mystery | lamp lit Persian rugged hall and through the door at the farther end All was dark in the stone corridor but a stable lantern hung on a hook and my host took it down and lit it There was no grating visible in the passage so I knew that the beast was in its cage Come in said my relative and opened the door A deep growling as we entered showed that the storm had really excited the creature In the flickering light of the lantern we saw it a huge black mass coiled in the corner of its den |
Arthur Conan Doyle | Adventures of Sherlock Holmes | is one which is familiar to every man who goes much to the City He is a professional beggar though in order to avoid the police regulations he pretends to a small trade in wax vestas Some little distance down Threadneedle Street upon the left hand side there is as you may have remarked a small angle in the wall Here it is that this creature takes his daily seat cross legged with his tiny stock of matches on his lap and as he is a piteous spectacle a small rain of charity descends into the greasy leather cap which |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Jekyll and Hyde | use was that when I was unable to conceal the alteration in my stature And then with an overpowering sweetness of relief it came back upon my mind that the servants were already used to the coming and going of my second self I had soon dressed as well as I was able in clothes of my own size had soon passed through the house where Bradshaw stared and drew back at seeing Mr Hyde at such an hour and in such a strange array and ten minutes later Dr Jekyll had returned to his own shape and was sitting |
H.G. Wells | The Island of Doctor Moreau | it led me That is the only way I ever heard of true research going I asked a question devised some method of obtaining an answer and got a fresh question Was this possible or that possible You cannot imagine what this means to an investigator what an intellectual passion grows upon him You cannot imagine the strange colourless delight of these intellectual desires The thing before you is no longer an animal a fellow creature but a problem Sympathetic pain all I know of it I remember as a thing I used to suffer from years ago I wanted |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Kidnapped | me Once there I believed I could force on the visit to the lawyer even if my uncle were now insincere in proposing it and perhaps in the bottom of my heart I wished a nearer view of the sea and ships You are to remember I had lived all my life in the inland hills and just two days before had my first sight of the firth lying like a blue floor and the sailed ships moving on the face of it no bigger than toys One thing with another I made up my mind Very well says I |
Robert Louis Stevenson | The Black Arrow | our four hands so help us all the army of the saints shall bring that traitor low Two days later Sir Daniel s garrison had grown to such a strength that he ventured on a sally and at the head of some two score horsemen pushed without opposition as far as Tunstall hamlet Not an arrow flew not a man stirred in the thicket the bridge was no longer guarded but stood open to all comers and as Sir Daniel crossed it he saw the villagers looking timidly from their doors Presently one of them taking heart of grace came |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Kidnapped | at once and it was three hours before I had him clear of the house and then as you shall hear only for a worse disappointment As long as we went down a heathery valley that lay before Mr Maclean s house all went well only my guide looked constantly over his shoulder and when I asked him the cause only grinned at me No sooner however had we crossed the back of a hill and got out of sight of the house windows than he told me Torosay lay right in front and that a hill top which he |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Tales and Fantasies | right had you to ask cried the unhappy one Oh very well said the driver I know my place if you know yours if you know yours he repeated as one who should imply grave doubt and muttered inarticulate thunders in which the grand old name of gentleman was taken seemingly in vain Oh to have been able to discharge this monster whom John now perceived with tardy clear sightedness to have begun betimes the festivities of Christmas But far from any such ray of consolation visiting the lost he stood bare of help and helpers his portmanteau sequestered in |
Jane Austen | Persuasion | they had been informed spoken most disrespectfully of them all most slightingly and contemptuously of the very blood he belonged to and the honours which were hereafter to be his own This could not be pardoned Such were Elizabeth Elliot s sentiments and sensations such the cares to alloy the agitations to vary the sameness and the elegance the prosperity and the nothingness of her scene of life such the feelings to give interest to a long uneventful residence in one country circle to fill the vacancies which there were no habits of utility abroad no talents or accomplishments for |
Arthur Conan Doyle | Hound of Baskervilles | one last word Watson Say nothing of the hound to Sir Henry Let him think that Selden s death was as Stapleton would have us believe He will have a better nerve for the ordeal which he will have to undergo tomorrow when he is engaged if I remember your report aright to dine with these people And so am I Then you must excuse yourself and he must go alone That will be easily arranged And now if we are too late for dinner I think that we are both ready for our suppers Chapter 13 Fixing the Nets |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Tales and Fantasies | wanted his experience of the morrow CHAPTER VII THE ELOPEMENT IT was probably on the stroke of ten and Dick had been half asleep for some time against the bank when Esther came up the road carrying a bundle Some kind of instinct or perhaps the distant light footfalls recalled him while she was still a good way off to the possession of his faculties and he half raised himself and blinked upon the world It took him some time to recollect his thoughts He had awakened with a certain blank and childish sense of pleasure like a man who |
Arthur Conan Doyle | Hound of Baskervilles | succession Exactly This chance of the picture has supplied us with one of our most obvious missing links We have him Watson we have him and I dare swear that before tomorrow night he will be fluttering in our net as helpless as one of his own butterflies A pin a cork and a card and we add him to the Baker Street collection He burst into one of his rare fits of laughter as he turned away from the picture I have not heard him laugh often and it has always boded ill to somebody I was up betimes |
Robert Louis Stevenson | The Black Arrow | Lord of Wensleydale Well I have writ a letter to my friend praying his good lordship and offering large satisfaction for the past and reasonable surety for the future Doubt not but he will lend a favourable ear A prayer without gifts is like a song without music I surfeit him with promises boys I spare not to promise What then is lacking Nay a great thing wherefore should I deceive you a great thing and a difficult a messenger to bear it The woods y are not ignorant of that lie thick with our ill willers Haste is most |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Tales and Fantasies | blazing the strips of cow browning and smoking on a skewer of wood how warm it was how savoury the steam of scorching meat And then again he remembered his manifold calamities and burrowed and wallowed in the sense of his disgrace and shame And next he was entering Frank s restaurant in Montgomery Street San Francisco he had ordered a pan stew and venison chops of which he was immoderately fond and as he sat waiting Munroe the good attendant brought him a whisky punch he saw the strawberries float on the delectable cup he heard the ice chink |
Jane Austen | Mansfield Park | her being after all less affluent than many of her acquaintance especially than her sister Lady Stornaway and is the determined supporter of everything mercenary and ambitious provided it be only mercenary and ambitious enough I look upon her intimacy with those two sisters as the greatest misfortune of her life and mine They have been leading her astray for years Could she be detached from them and sometimes I do not despair of it for the affection appears to me principally on their side They are very fond of her but I am sure she does not love them |
Arthur Conan Doyle | Hound of Baskervilles | It had struck me that it was possible that some love intrigue was on foot That would have accounted for his stealthy movements and also for the uneasiness of his wife The man is a striking looking fellow very well equipped to steal the heart of a country girl so that this theory seemed to have something to support it That opening of the door which I had heard after I had returned to my room might mean that he had gone out to keep some clandestine appointment So I reasoned with myself in the morning and I tell you |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Jekyll and Hyde | way to Dr Jekyll s door where he was at once admitted by Poole and carried down by the kitchen offices and across a yard which had once been a garden to the building which was indifferently known as the laboratory or dissecting rooms The doctor had bought the house from the heirs of a celebrated surgeon and his own tastes being rather chemical than anatomical had changed the destination of the block at the bottom of the garden It was the first time that the lawyer had been received in that part of his friend s quarters and he |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Kidnapped | magistrate came near me and there was no question put of whence I came or whither I was going and in that time of excitement I was as free of all inquiry as though I had lain in a desert Yet my presence was known before I left to all the people in Balquhidder and the adjacent parts many coming about the house on visits and these after the custom of the country spreading the news among their neighbours The bills too had now been printed There was one pinned near the foot of my bed where I could read |
Robert Louis Stevenson | The Black Arrow | somewhat coldly and the knight giving him a piercing glance hurriedly returned to the hall His first glance was for the arrow It was the first of these missiles he had seen and as he turned it to and fro the dark hue of it touched him with some fear Again there was some writing one word Earthed Ay he broke out they know I am home then Earthed Ay but there is not a dog among them fit to dig me out Sir Oliver had come to himself and now scrambled to his feet Alack Sir Daniel he moaned |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Jekyll and Hyde | to the abhorrence with which I looked back upon these hours A change had come over me It was no longer the fear of the gallows it was the horror of being Hyde that racked me I received Lanyon s condemnation partly in a dream it was partly in a dream that I came home to my own house and got into bed I slept after the prostration of the day with a stringent and profound slumber which not even the nightmares that wrung me could avail to break I awoke in the morning shaken weakened but refreshed I still |
H.G. Wells | The Island of Doctor Moreau | approaching It was low and covered with thick vegetation chiefly a kind of palm that was new to me From one point a thin white thread of vapour rose slantingly to an immense height and then frayed out like a down feather We were now within the embrace of a broad bay flanked on either hand by a low promontory The beach was of dull grey sand and sloped steeply up to a ridge perhaps sixty or seventy feet above the sea level and irregularly set with trees and undergrowth Half way up was a square enclosure of some greyish |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Tales and Fantasies | what he will to his hired vassals but as the Scotch say here He mauna think to domineer Liberalism continued the anonymous journalist is of too free and sound a growth etc Richard Naseby read the whole thing from beginning to end and a crushing shame fell upon his spirit His father had played the fool he had gone out noisily to war and come back with confusion The moment that his trumpets sounded he had been disgracefully unhorsed There was no question as to the facts they were one and all against the Squire Richard would have given his |
Robert Louis Stevenson | The Black Arrow | with that he had stationed horsemen in all the neighbouring lanes so that he might have instant word of any movement Meanwhile in the court of his mansion steeds stood saddled and the riders armed at every point awaited but the signal to ride The adventure of the night appeared more and more difficult of execution till suddenly Dick s countenance lightened Lawless he cried you that were a shipman can ye steal me a ship Master Dick replied Lawless if ye would back me I would agree to steal York Minster Presently after these two set forth and descended |
Jane Austen | Emma | as my aunt gets well I shall go abroad said he I shall never be easy till I have seen some of these places You will have my sketches some time or other to look at or my tour to read or my poem I shall do something to expose myself That may be but not by sketches in Swisserland You will never go to Swisserland Your uncle and aunt will never allow you to leave England They may be induced to go too A warm climate may be prescribed for her I have more than half an expectation of |
Arthur Conan Doyle | The Lost World | up you will find it harder to get down You cursed fools you are trapped every one of you We were too astounded to speak We could only stand there staring in amazement A great broken bough upon the grass showed whence he had gained his leverage to tilt over our bridge The face had vanished but presently it was up again more frantic than before We nearly killed you with a stone at the cave he cried but this is better It is slower and more terrible Your bones will whiten up there and none will know where you |
Charles Dickens | Great Expectations | to himself He wore a flapping broad brimmed traveller s hat and under it a handkerchief tied over his head in the manner of a cap so that he showed no hair As he looked at the fire I thought I saw a cunning expression followed by a half laugh come into his face I am not acquainted with this country gentlemen but it seems a solitary country towards the river Most marshes is solitary said Joe No doubt no doubt Do you find any gypsies now or tramps or vagrants of any sort out there No said Joe none |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Jekyll and Hyde | or will he find courage to release himself at the |
Jane Austen | Emma | the room before tea old John Abdy s son wanted to speak with him Poor old John I have a great regard for him he was clerk to my poor father twenty seven years and now poor old man he is bed ridden and very poorly with the rheumatic gout in his joints I must go and see him to day and so will Jane I am sure if she gets out at all And poor John s son came to talk to Mr Elton about relief from the parish he is very well to do himself you know being |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Jekyll and Hyde | deeply than it has ever yet been stated the trembling immateriality the mistlike transience of this seemingly so solid body in which we walk attired Certain agents I found to have the power to shake and pluck back that fleshly vestment even as a wind might toss the curtains of a pavilion For two good reasons I will not enter deeply into this scientific branch of my confession First because I have been made to learn that the doom and burthen of our life is bound for ever on man s shoulders and when the attempt is made to cast |
Robert Louis Stevenson | The Black Arrow | my repose Take the path by the windmill answered Dick in the same tone it will bring you to Till Ferry there inquire again And without turning his head he fell again to eating But with the tail of his eye he caught a glimpse of the young lad called Master John stealthily creeping from the room Why thought Dick he is as young as I Good boy doth he call me An I had known I should have seen the varlet hanged ere I had told him Well if he goes through the fen I may come up with |
Charles Dickens | Nicholas Nickleby | came within the law but was nothing to what you money makers daily practise just outside its bounds was sent away a convict for seven years I have returned what you see me Now Mr Nickleby said the man with a strange mixture of humility and sense of power what help and assistance will you give me what bribe to speak out plainly My expectations are not monstrous but I must live and to live I must eat and drink Money is on your side and hunger and thirst on mine You may drive an easy bargain Is that all |
Robert Louis Stevenson | The Black Arrow | struck him in the shoulder another grazed his head The pain of his wounds lent him wings and he had no sooner got upon the level than he took to his heels and ran straight before him in the dark without a thought for the direction of his flight For a few steps missiles followed him but these soon ceased and when at length he came to a halt and looked behind he was already a good way from the Moat House though he could still see the torches moving to and fro along its battlements He leaned against a |
H.G. Wells | Invisible Man | Just a drop more Janny said Hall Your nerves is all upset They sent Millie across the street through the golden five o clock sunshine to rouse up Mr Sandy Wadgers the blacksmith Mr Hall s compliments and the furniture upstairs was behaving most extraordinary Would Mr Wadgers come round He was a knowing man was Mr Wadgers and very resourceful He took quite a grave view of the case Arm darmed if thet ent witchcraft was the view of Mr Sandy Wadgers You warnt horseshoes for such gentry as he He came round greatly concerned They wanted him to |
Jane Austen | Pride and Prejudice | I thought it would never be over for by the bye you are to understand that my uncle and aunt were horrid unpleasant all the time I was with them If you ll believe me I did not once put my foot out of doors though I was there a fortnight Not one party or scheme or anything To be sure London was rather thin but however the Little Theatre was open Well and so just as the carriage came to the door my uncle was called away upon business to that horrid man Mr Stone And then you know |
Charles Dickens | Oliver Twis | said Mr Giles recovering his usual tone of patronage and sends his respectful duty sir That s well said the doctor Seeing you here reminds me Mr Giles that on the day before that on which I was called away so hurriedly I executed at the request of your good mistress a small commission in your favour Just step into this corner a moment will you Mr Giles walked into the corner with much importance and some wonder and was honoured with a short whispering conference with the doctor on the termination of which he made a great many bows |
Charles Dickens | Great Expectations | eagerness even in Estella s hearing But when we sat by her flickering fire at night she was most weird for then keeping Estella s hand drawn through her arm and clutched in her own hand she extorted from her by dint of referring back to what Estella had told her in her regular letters the names and conditions of the men whom she had fascinated and as Miss Havisham dwelt upon this roll with the intensity of a mind mortally hurt and diseased she sat with her other hand on her crutch stick and her chin on that and |
H.G. Wells | The Sleeper Awakes | of his first awakening And whenever he was not in the air and awake Lincoln was assiduous in the cause of his amusement all that was novel and curious in contemporary invention was brought to him until at last his appetite for novelty was well nigh glutted One might fill a dozen inconsecutive volumes with the strange things they exhibited Each afternoon he held his court for an hour or so He found his interest in his contemporaries becoming personal and intimate At first he had been alert chiefly for unfamiliarity and peculiarity any foppishness in their dress any discordance |
Arthur Conan Doyle | Hound of Baskervilles | grasp his arm the man was gone There was the sharp pinnacle of granite still cutting the lower edge of the moon but its peak bore no trace of that silent and motionless figure I wished to go in that direction and to search the tor but it was some distance away The baronet s nerves were still quivering from that cry which recalled the dark story of his family and he was not in the mood for fresh adventures He had not seen this lonely man upon the tor and could not feel the thrill which his strange presence |
Jane Austen | Mansfield Park | sir soon For the present the danger was over and Fanny s sick feelings subsided but when tea was soon afterwards brought in and Sir Thomas getting up said that he found that he could not be any longer in the house without just looking into his own dear room every agitation was returning He was gone before anything had been said to prepare him for the change he must find there and a pause of alarm followed his disappearance Edmund was the first to speak Something must be done said he It is time to think of our visitors |
Arthur Conan Doyle | Adventures of Sherlock Holmes | so before now if I could ha got out from the cellar If there s police court business over this you ll remember that I was the one that stood your friend and that I was Miss Alice s friend too She was never happy at home Miss Alice wasn t from the time that her father married again She was slighted like and had no say in anything but it never really became bad for her until after she met Mr Fowler at a friend s house As well as I could learn Miss Alice had rights of her |
H.G. Wells | Invisible Man | Can I take your hat and coat sir she said and give them a good dry in the kitchen No he said without turning She was not sure she had heard him and was about to repeat her question He turned his head and looked at her over his shoulder I prefer to keep them on he said with emphasis and she noticed that he wore big blue spectacles with sidelights and had a bush side whisker over his coat collar that completely hid his cheeks and face Very well sir she said _As_ you like In a bit the |
Charles Dickens | Oliver Twis | He went through Islington strode up the hill at Highgate on which stands the stone in honour of Whittington turned down to Highgate Hill unsteady of purpose and uncertain where to go struck off to the right again almost as soon as he began to descend it and taking the foot path across the fields skirted Caen Wood and so came on Hampstead Heath Traversing the hollow by the Vale of Heath he mounted the opposite bank and crossing the road which joins the villages of Hampstead and Highgate made along the remaining portion of the heath to the fields |
Arthur Conan Doyle | Hound of Baskervilles | a lonely moorland path Her eyes were on her brother as I turned and then she quickened her pace towards me I had raised my hat and was about to make some explanatory remark when her own words turned all my thoughts into a new channel Go back she said Go straight back to London instantly I could only stare at her in stupid surprise Her eyes blazed at me and she tapped the ground impatiently with her foot Why should I go back I asked I cannot explain She spoke in a low eager voice with a curious lisp |
H.G. Wells | The Sleeper Awakes | trip in its folds In another he was scaling the barrier and had dropped into the blackness on the further side Then feeling his way he came to the lower end of an ascending gangway In the darkness the sound of firing ceased and the roar of feet and voices lulled Then suddenly he came to an unexpected step and tripped and fell As he did so pools and islands amidst the darkness about him leapt to vivid light again the uproar surged louder and the glare of the fifth white star shone through the vast fenestrations of the theatre |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Kidnapped | judged us out of ear shot of all our enemies for throughout the rest of our night march he beguiled the way with whistling of many tunes warlike merry plaintive reel tunes that made the foot go faster tunes of my own south country that made me fain to be home from my adventures and all these on the great dark desert mountains making company upon the way CHAPTER XXI THE FLIGHT IN THE HEATHER THE HEUGH OF CORRYNAKIEGH Early as day comes in the beginning of July it was still dark when we reached our destination a cleft in |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Tales and Fantasies | was already dense the snow was growing thicker and he moved like a blind man and with a blind man s terrors At last he climbed a fence thinking to drop into the road and found himself staggering instead among the iron furrows of a ploughland endless it seemed as a whole county And next he was in a wood beating among young trees and then he was aware of a house with many lighted windows Christmas carriages waiting at the doors and Christmas drivers for Christmas has a double edge becoming swiftly hooded with snow From this glimpse of |
Jane Austen | Emma | all the encumbrance of awkward feelings could have afforded A little curiosity Emma had and she made the most of it while her friend related Mrs Weston had set off to pay the visit in a good deal of agitation herself and in the first place had wished not to go at all at present to be allowed merely to write to Miss Fairfax instead and to defer this ceremonious call till a little time had passed and Mr Churchill could be reconciled to the engagement s becoming known as considering every thing she thought such a visit could not |
H.G. Wells | The Sleeper Awakes | to you and myself I give to you And as God wills to night I will live for you or I will die He ended He found the light of his present exaltation reflected in the face of the girl Their eyes met her eyes were swimming with tears of enthusiasm I knew she whispered Oh Father of the World _Sire_ I knew you would say these things I have said what I could he answered lamely and grasped and clung to her outstretched hands CHAPTER XXIV WHILE THE AEROPLANES WERE COMING The man in yellow was beside them Neither |
Arthur Conan Doyle | Adventures of Sherlock Holmes | paper of yesterday which I will read to you It is headed Singular Occurrence at a Fashionable Wedding The family of Lord Robert St Simon has been thrown into the greatest consternation by the strange and painful episodes which have taken place in connection with his wedding The ceremony as shortly announced in the papers of yesterday occurred on the previous morning but it is only now that it has been possible to confirm the strange rumours which have been so persistently floating about In spite of the attempts of the friends to hush the matter up so much public |
H.G. Wells | Time Machine | things The slowest snail that ever crawled dashed by too fast for me The twinkling succession of darkness and light was excessively painful to the eye Then in the intermittent darknesses I saw the moon spinning swiftly through her quarters from new to full and had a faint glimpse of the circling stars Presently as I went on still gaining velocity the palpitation of night and day merged into one continuous greyness the sky took on a wonderful deepness of blue a splendid luminous colour like that of early twilight the jerking sun became a streak of fire a brilliant |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Jekyll and Hyde | life screwed to the topmost peg I ran to the house in Soho and to make assurance doubly sure destroyed my papers thence I set out through the lamplit streets in the same divided ecstasy of mind gloating on my crime light headedly devising others in the future and yet still hastening and still hearkening in my wake for the steps of the avenger Hyde had a song upon his lips as he compounded the draught and as he drank it pledged the dead man The pangs of transformation had not done tearing him before Henry Jekyll with streaming tears |
Jane Austen | Pride and Prejudice | to know In another minute Mr Bingley but without seeming to have noticed what passed took leave and rode on with his friend Mr Denny and Mr Wickham walked with the young ladies to the door of Mr Phillip s house and then made their bows in spite of Miss Lydia s pressing entreaties that they should come in and even in spite of Mrs Phillips s throwing up the parlour window and loudly seconding the invitation Mrs Phillips was always glad to see her nieces and the two eldest from their recent absence were particularly welcome and she was |
H.G. Wells | Invisible Man | at the door of a sweetstuff shop and then made for the mouth of an alley that ran back into the main Hill Street again Two or three little children were playing here and shrieked and scattered at his apparition and forthwith doors and windows opened and excited mothers revealed their hearts Out he shot into Hill Street again three hundred yards from the tram line end and immediately he became aware of a tumultuous vociferation and running people He glanced up the street towards the hill Hardly a dozen yards off ran a huge navvy cursing in fragments and |
Arthur Conan Doyle | Tales of Terror and Mystery | value of the prize Those famous and antique stones of the Jewish priest were a challenge to my daring and my ingenuity I determined to get them I guessed as much There was only one thing that you did not guess And what is that That I got them They are in this box He opened the box and tilted out the contents upon the corner of my desk My hair rose and my flesh grew cold as I looked There were twelve magnificent square stones engraved with mystical characters There could be no doubt that they were the jewels |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Kidnapped | figure standing in the rain quite still like a man hearkening And then there came a blinding flash which showed me my uncle plainly just where I had fancied him to stand and hard upon the heels of it a great tow row of thunder Now whether my uncle thought the crash to be the sound of my fall or whether he heard in it God s voice denouncing murder I will leave you to guess Certain it is at least that he was seized on by a kind of panic fear and that he ran into the house and |
Charles Dickens | David Copperfield | that says I d crowns resign to call her mine I hope to do it one of these days Dear Agnes So much too loving and too good for anyone that I could think of was it possible that she was reserved to be the wife of such a wretch as this There s no hurry at present you know Master Copperfield Uriah proceeded in his slimy way as I sat gazing at him with this thought in my mind My Agnes is very young still and mother and me will have to work our way upwards and make a |
H.G. Wells | Time Machine | argument said Filby but you will never convince me Possibly not said the Time Traveller But now you begin to see the object of my investigations into the geometry of Four Dimensions Long ago I had a vague inkling of a machine To travel through Time exclaimed the Very Young Man That shall travel indifferently in any direction of Space and Time as the driver determines Filby contented himself with laughter But I have experimental verification said the Time Traveller It would be remarkably convenient for the historian the Psychologist suggested One might travel back and verify the accepted account |
Charles Dickens | Great Expectations | wall had been the most precious flowers that ever blew it could not have been more cherished in my remembrance There was no discrepancy of years between us to remove her far from me we were of nearly the same age though of course the age told for more in her case than in mine but the air of inaccessibility which her beauty and her manner gave her tormented me in the midst of my delight and at the height of the assurance I felt that our patroness had chosen us for one another Wretched boy At last we went |
Arthur Conan Doyle | Adventures of Sherlock Holmes | promise then said he at last Yes I promise Absolute and complete silence before during and after No reference to the matter at all either in word or writing I have already given you my word Very good He suddenly sprang up and darting like lightning across the room he flung open the door The passage outside was empty That s all right said he coming back I know that clerks are sometimes curious as to their master s affairs Now we can talk in safety He drew up his chair very close to mine and began to stare at |
Arthur Conan Doyle | The Lost World | as Lord John said the glade of the iguanodons will remain with us as a dream then surely the swamp of the pterodactyls will forever be our nightmare Let me set down exactly what occurred We passed very slowly through the woods partly because Lord Roxton acted as scout before he would let us advance and partly because at every second step one or other of our professors would fall with a cry of wonder before some flower or insect which presented him with a new type We may have traveled two or three miles in all keeping to the |
Jane Austen | Pride and Prejudice | interval of waiting appeared very long It was over at last however The gentlemen did approach and when Mr Wickham walked into the room Elizabeth felt that she had neither been seeing him before nor thinking of him since with the smallest degree of unreasonable admiration The officers of the shire were in general a very creditable gentlemanlike set and the best of them were of the present party but Mr Wickham was as far beyond them all in person countenance air and walk as _they_ were superior to the broad faced stuffy uncle Phillips breathing port wine who followed |
H.G. Wells | Time Machine | sea The material of the Palace proved on examination to be indeed porcelain and along the face of it I saw an inscription in some unknown character I thought rather foolishly that Weena might help me to interpret this but I only learnt that the bare idea of writing had never entered her head She always seemed to me I fancy more human than she was perhaps because her affection was so human Within the big valves of the door which were open and broken we found instead of the customary hall a long gallery lit by many side windows |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Jekyll and Hyde | was genuine Tut tut said Mr Utterson I see you feel as I do said Mr Enfield Yes it s a bad story For my man was a fellow that nobody could have to do with a really damnable man and the person that drew the cheque is the very pink of the proprieties celebrated too and what makes it worse one of your fellows who do what they call good Blackmail I suppose an honest man paying through the nose for some of the capers of his youth Black Mail House is what I call the place with the |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Kidnapped | helpful to friends of his I will not stumble at the risk I thought it best to put a fair face on my consent for I saw Alan troubled and besides thinks I to myself as soon as my back is turned they will paper me as they call it whether I consent or not But in this I saw I was wrong for I had no sooner said the words than Mrs Stewart leaped out of her chair came running over to us and wept first upon my neck and then on Alan s blessing God for our goodness |
Charles Dickens | Nicholas Nickleby | when I call to mind her greatness and her glory We wish sir remarked Mr Pugstyles calmly to ask you a few questions If you please gentlemen my time is yours and my country s and my country s said Mr Gregsbury This permission being conceded Mr Pugstyles put on his spectacles and referred to a written paper which he drew from his pocket whereupon nearly every other member of the deputation pulled a written paper from HIS pocket to check Mr Pugstyles off as he read the questions This done Mr Pugstyles proceeded to business Question number one Whether |
H.G. Wells | The Sleeper Awakes | the villages had disappeared Here and there only he understood some gigantic hotel like edifice stood amid square miles of some single cultivation and preserved the name of a town as Bournemouth Wareham or Swanage Yet the officer had speedily convinced him how inevitable such a change had been The old order had dotted the country with farmhouses and every two or three miles was the ruling landlord s estate and the place of the inn and cobbler the grocer s shop and church the village Every eight miles or so was the country town where lawyer corn merchant wool |
Charles Dickens | Great Expectations | forget what he owed to the best interests of society as to employ a boy who excited Loathing in every respectable mind The coach with Mr Jaggers inside came up in due time and I took my box seat again and arrived in London safe but not sound for my heart was gone As soon as I arrived I sent a penitential codfish and barrel of oysters to Joe as reparation for not having gone myself and then went on to Barnard s Inn I found Herbert dining on cold meat and delighted to welcome me back Having despatched The |
Charles Dickens | Great Expectations | one to the Crown itself For several days and nights after he was sentenced I took no rest except when I fell asleep in my chair but was wholly absorbed in these appeals And after I had sent them in I could not keep away from the places where they were but felt as if they were more hopeful and less desperate when I was near them In this unreasonable restlessness and pain of mind I would roam the streets of an evening wandering by those offices and houses where I had left the petitions To the present hour the |
Charles Dickens | Nicholas Nickleby | do except waiting in the lobby every night in case I forgot anything and should want fresh cramming and now and then during great debates sitting in the front row of the gallery and saying to the people about You see that gentleman with his hand to his face and his arm twisted round the pillar that s Mr Gregsbury the celebrated Mr Gregsbury with any other little eulogium that might strike you at the moment And for salary said Mr Gregsbury winding up with great rapidity for he was out of breath and for salary I don t mind |
Jane Austen | Emma | and my brother asked him to dine with them the next day which he did and in the course of that visit as I understand he found an opportunity of speaking to Harriet and certainly did not speak in vain She made him by her acceptance as happy even as he is deserving He came down by yesterday s coach and was with me this morning immediately after breakfast to report his proceedings first on my affairs and then on his own This is all that I can relate of the how where and when Your friend Harriet will make |
H.G. Wells | Time Machine | firmly upon the machine Looking round me again I saw that quite near what I had taken to be a reddish mass of rock was moving slowly towards me Then I saw the thing was really a monstrous crab like creature Can you imagine a crab as large as yonder table with its many legs moving slowly and uncertainly its big claws swaying its long antennæ like carters whips waving and feeling and its stalked eyes gleaming at you on either side of its metallic front Its back was corrugated and ornamented with ungainly bosses and a greenish incrustation blotched |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Jekyll and Hyde | napery elegant a good picture hung upon the walls a gift as Utterson supposed from Henry Jekyll who was much of a connoisseur and the carpets were of many plies and agreeable in colour At this moment however the rooms bore every mark of having been recently and hurriedly ransacked clothes lay about the floor with their pockets inside out lock fast drawers stood open and on the hearth there lay a pile of grey ashes as though many papers had been burned From these embers the inspector disinterred the butt end of a green cheque book which had resisted |
Arthur Conan Doyle | The Lost World | his end of the rope to the package of supplies which had been carried up and we were able to drag it across This gave us the means of life for at least a week even if we found nothing else Finally he descended and carried up two other packets of mixed goods a box of ammunition and a number of other things all of which we got across by throwing our rope to him and hauling it back It was evening when he at last climbed down with a final assurance that he would keep the Indians till next |
Charles Dickens | Nicholas Nickleby | Kenwigs Oh dear yes Ah Mrs Kenwigs will be glad to hear from her Henrietta Petowker eh How odd things come about now That you should have met her in the country Well Hearing this mention of their old friend s name the four Miss Kenwigses gathered round Nicholas open eyed and mouthed to hear more Mr Kenwigs looked a little curious too but quite comfortable and unsuspecting The message relates to family matters said Nicholas hesitating Oh never mind said Kenwigs glancing at Mr Lumbey who having rashly taken charge of little Lillyvick found nobody disposed to relieve him |
Charles Dickens | Great Expectations | I saw that Mr and Mrs Pocket s children were not growing up or being brought up but were tumbling up Mrs Pocket was sitting on a garden chair under a tree reading with her legs upon another garden chair and Mrs Pocket s two nurse maids were looking about them while the children played Mamma said Herbert this is young Mr Pip Upon which Mrs Pocket received me with an appearance of amiable dignity Master Alick and Miss Jane cried one of the nurses to two of the children if you go a bouncing up against them bushes you |
H.G. Wells | The Island of Doctor Moreau | a muzzle and the huge half open mouth showed as big white teeth as I had ever seen in a human mouth His eyes were blood shot at the edges with scarcely a rim of white round the hazel pupils There was a curious glow of excitement in his face Confound you said Montgomery Why the devil don t you get out of the way The black faced man started aside without a word I went on up the companion staring at him instinctively as I did so Montgomery stayed at the foot for a moment You have no business |
Charles Dickens | Nicholas Nickleby | great agility from a beer barrel on which he had been seated astride and to exclaim abruptly and with a face of ashy paleness Bobster by the Lord The young lady shrieked the attendant wrung her hands Nicholas gazed from one to the other in apparent stupefaction and Newman hurried to and fro thrusting his hands into all his pockets successively and drawing out the linings of every one in the excess of his irresolution It was but a moment but the confusion crowded into that one moment no imagination can exaggerate Leave the house for Heaven s sake We |
Jane Austen | Pride and Prejudice | I am resigned Perhaps not the less so from feeling a doubt of my positive happiness had my fair cousin honoured me with her hand for I have often observed that resignation is never so perfect as when the blessing denied begins to lose somewhat of its value in our estimation You will not I hope consider me as showing any disrespect to your family my dear madam by thus withdrawing my pretensions to your daughter s favour without having paid yourself and Mr Bennet the compliment of requesting you to interpose your authority in my behalf My conduct may |
Arthur Conan Doyle | Adventures of Sherlock Holmes | your room and if you would be so good as to put it on we should both be extremely obliged The dress which I found waiting for me was of a peculiar shade of blue It was of excellent material a sort of beige but it bore unmistakable signs of having been worn before It could not have been a better fit if I had been measured for it Both Mr and Mrs Rucastle expressed a delight at the look of it which seemed quite exaggerated in its vehemence They were waiting for me in the drawing room which is |
Jane Austen | Pride and Prejudice | her Mr Darcy corroborated it with a bow and was beginning to determine not to fix his eyes on Elizabeth when they were suddenly arrested by the sight of the stranger and Elizabeth happening to see the countenance of both as they looked at each other was all astonishment at the effect of the meeting Both changed colour one looked white the other red Mr Wickham after a few moments touched his hat a salutation which Mr Darcy just deigned to return What could be the meaning of it It was impossible to imagine it was impossible not to long |
Jane Austen | Mansfield Park | looked fearfully towards her father and mother She need not have been uneasy There was no sign of displeasure or even of hearing her They were perfectly free from any jealousy of Mansfield She was as welcome to wish herself there as to be there It was sad to Fanny to lose all the pleasures of spring She had not known before what pleasures she _had_ to lose in passing March and April in a town She had not known before how much the beginnings and progress of vegetation had delighted her What animation both of body and mind she |
Robert Louis Stevenson | The Black Arrow | psalms now with a note or two upon the bell Rutter the spy was nobly waked There he lay meanwhile as they had arranged him his dead hands crossed upon his bosom his dead eyes staring on the roof and hard by in the stall the lad who had slain him waited in sore disquietude the coming of the morning Once only in the course of the hours Sir Oliver leaned across to his captive Richard he whispered my son if ye mean me evil I will certify on my soul s welfare ye design upon an innocent man Sinful |
Robert Louis Stevenson | The Black Arrow | the seamen had discovered the loss of their skiffs But it was now too late whether for recovery or revenge Out of some forty fighting men now mustered in the stolen ship eight had been to sea and could play the part of mariners With the aid of these a slice of sail was got upon her The cable was cut Lawless vacillating on his feet and still shouting the chorus of sea ballads took the long tiller in his hands and the _Good Hope_ began to flit forward into the darkness of the night and to face the great |
Jane Austen | Mansfield Park | marrying Mary Had he done as he intended and as he knew he ought by going down to Everingham after his return from Portsmouth he might have been deciding his own happy destiny But he was pressed to stay for Mrs Fraser s party his staying was made of flattering consequence and he was to meet Mrs Rushworth there Curiosity and vanity were both engaged and the temptation of immediate pleasure was too strong for a mind unused to make any sacrifice to right he resolved to defer his Norfolk journey resolved that writing should answer the purpose of it |
H.G. Wells | Time Machine | safety matches that still remained to me I was afraid to push my way in among all this machinery in the dark and it was only with my last glimpse of light I discovered that my store of matches had run low It had never occurred to me until that moment that there was any need to economise them and I had wasted almost half the box in astonishing the Overworlders to whom fire was a novelty Now as I say I had four left and while I stood in the dark a hand touched mine lank fingers came feeling |
Arthur Conan Doyle | Hound of Baskervilles | Though Sir Charles had resided at Baskerville Hall for a comparatively short period his amiability of character and extreme generosity had won the affection and respect of all who had been brought into contact with him In these days of _nouveaux riches_ it is refreshing to find a case where the scion of an old county family which has fallen upon evil days is able to make his own fortune and to bring it back with him to restore the fallen grandeur of his line Sir Charles as is well known made large sums of money in South African speculation |
Arthur Conan Doyle | Hound of Baskervilles | an enemy Where is that friend or enemy now Has he remained in London or has he followed us down here Could he could he be the stranger whom I saw upon the tor It is true that I have had only the one glance at him and yet there are some things to which I am ready to swear He is no one whom I have seen down here and I have now met all the neighbours The figure was far taller than that of Stapleton far thinner than that of Frankland Barrymore it might possibly have been but |
H.G. Wells | The Island of Doctor Moreau | his heavy face thrust forward staring at us He was dressed like Montgomery and his white haired companion in jacket and trousers of blue serge As we came still nearer this individual began to run to and fro on the beach making the most grotesque movements At a word of command from Montgomery the four men in the launch sprang up and with singularly awkward gestures struck the lugs Montgomery steered us round and into a narrow little dock excavated in the beach Then the man on the beach hastened towards us This dock as I call it was really |
Arthur Conan Doyle | The Lost World | seven minutes said he It is all part and parcel of the same system of quackery and nonsense for which I regret to say that the writer is notorious Oh come we must play the game accordin to rules said Lord John It s old man Challenger s show and we are here by his good will so it would be rotten bad form if we didn t follow his instructions to the letter A pretty business it is cried the Professor bitterly It struck me as preposterous in London but I m bound to say that it seems even |
Arthur Conan Doyle | Hound of Baskervilles | were just in time to catch a glimpse of the tall black bearded figure his shoulders rounded as he tiptoed down the passage Then he passed through the same door as before and the light of the candle framed it in the darkness and shot one single yellow beam across the gloom of the corridor We shuffled cautiously towards it trying every plank before we dared to put our whole weight upon it We had taken the precaution of leaving our boots behind us but even so the old boards snapped and creaked beneath our tread Sometimes it seemed impossible |
H.G. Wells | Time Machine | the heat and glare in a colossal ruin near the great house where I slept and fed there happened this strange thing Clambering among these heaps of masonry I found a narrow gallery whose end and side windows were blocked by fallen masses of stone By contrast with the brilliancy outside it seemed at first impenetrably dark to me I entered it groping for the change from light to blackness made spots of colour swim before me Suddenly I halted spellbound A pair of eyes luminous by reflection against the daylight without was watching me out of the darkness The |
Robert Louis Stevenson | The Black Arrow | a space he was silent Richard he said what brings you here I know not but I much misdoubt it to be evil Nevertheless for the kindness that was I would not willingly deliver you to harm Ye shall sit all night beside me in the stalls ye shall sit there till my Lord of Shoreby be married and the party gone safe home and if all goeth well and ye have planned no evil in the end ye shall go whither ye will But if your purpose be bloody it shall return upon your head Amen And the priest |
Charles Dickens | Nicholas Nickleby | mama that was it You never seem to me to be talking about anything else Kate and upon my word I am quite surprised at your being so very thoughtless You can find subjects enough to talk about sometimes and when you know how important it is to keep up Miss Bray s spirits and interest her and all that it really is quite extraordinary to me what can induce you to keep on prose prose prose din din din everlastingly upon the same theme You are a very kind nurse Kate and a very good one and I know |
Jane Austen | Mansfield Park | after the second breakfast Edmund bade them good bye for a week and mounted his horse for Peterborough and then all were gone Nothing remained of last night but remembrances which she had nobody to share in She talked to her aunt Bertram she must talk to somebody of the ball but her aunt had seen so little of what had passed and had so little curiosity that it was heavy work Lady Bertram was not certain of anybody s dress or anybody s place at supper but her own She could not recollect what it was that she had |
Charles Dickens | Great Expectations | on my head and that the Law would avenge it Without having any definite idea of the penalties I had incurred it was clear to me that village boys could not go stalking about the country ravaging the houses of gentlefolks and pitching into the studious youth of England without laying themselves open to severe punishment For some days I even kept close at home and looked out at the kitchen door with the greatest caution and trepidation before going on an errand lest the officers of the County Jail should pounce upon me The pale young gentleman s nose |
Charles Dickens | Great Expectations | you then Pip You told me Mr Jaggers that it might be years hence when that person appeared Just so said Mr Jaggers that s my answer As we looked full at one another I felt my breath come quicker in my strong desire to get something out of him And as I felt that it came quicker and as I felt that he saw that it came quicker I felt that I had less chance than ever of getting anything out of him Do you suppose it will still be years hence Mr Jaggers Mr Jaggers shook his head |
Arthur Conan Doyle | Hound of Baskervilles | he should imagine that he could hold a beautiful woman like his sister to himself for her whole life If she had to leave him he had rather it was to a neighbour like myself than to anyone else But in any case it was a blow to him and it would take him some time before he could prepare himself to meet it He would withdraw all opposition upon his part if I would promise for three months to let the matter rest and to be content with cultivating the lady s friendship during that time without claiming her |
Robert Louis Stevenson | Jekyll and Hyde | darkness seemed in the lawyer s eyes like a district of some city in a nightmare The thoughts of his mind besides were of the gloomiest dye and when he glanced at the companion of his drive he was conscious of some touch of that terror of the law and the law s officers which may at times assail the most honest As the cab drew up before the address indicated the fog lifted a little and showed him a dingy street a gin palace a low French eating house a shop for the retail of penny numbers and twopenny |
Subsets and Splits