Essay
toobz17
ESSAY1CLASSICFICTIONChooseOneOfTheseFreeEbooksToRead.pdf
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Classics Writing Assignment
Essay 1
Read the short snippets and then Pick One of These
1. The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe
2. About Love by Anton Chekhov
3. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
4. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
5. Dracula by Bram Stoker
6. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
7. A Reflection by Kate Chopin
8. The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy
9. The Sign of Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
10. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
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11. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
12. Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson
13. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
14. The Haunted Mind by Nathaniel Hawthorne
15. Captain Rogers by William Wymark Jacobs
16. At Twenty-Two by Rudyard Kipling
17. The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
18. Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
19. The Terror by Guy De Maupassant
20. White Jacket by Herman Melville
21. Tis All For the Best by Hannah More
22. Phaedo; Or, The Immortality Of The Soul by Plato
23. Of Drunkenness by Montaigne
24. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
25. The Toys of Peace by Saki
26. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
27. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
28. No Exit by Jean Paul Sartre
29. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
30. Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson
31. The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain
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Free Online Ebooks For Reference
http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/ddefoe/bl-ddefo-furrcru-17.htm
http://www.readbookonline.net/authors/
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au
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The Fall of the House of Usher
by Edgar Allan
Poe (1809-
1849)
http://www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/Poe/Usher.pdf
DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the
clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback,
through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of
the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it
was -- but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded
my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable,
because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural
images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me -- upon the mere
house, and the simple landscape features of the domain -- upon the bleak walls -- upon the
vacant eye-like windows -- upon a few rank sedges -- and upon a few white trunks of
decayed trees -- with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly
sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium -- the bitter
lapse into everyday life -- the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a
sinking, a sickening of the heart -- an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading
of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it -- I paused to think
-- what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a
mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me
as I pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while,
beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power
of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our
depth.
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2
About Love
by Anton
Chekhov
(1860-1904)
http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/556/
At lunch next day there were very nice pies, crayfish, and mutton cutlets; and while we were
eating, Nikanor, the cook, came up to ask what the visitors would like for dinner. He was a man of
medium height, with a puffy face and little eyes; he was close-shaven, and it looked as though his
moustaches had not been shaved, but had been pulled out by the roots. Alehin told us that the beautiful
Pelagea was in love with this cook. As he drank and was of a violent character, she did not want to marry
him, but was willing to live with him without. He was very devout, and his religious convictions would
not allow him to “live in sin”; he insisted on her marrying him, and would consent to nothing else, and
when he was drunk he used to abuse her and even beat her. Whenever he got drunk she used to hide
upstairs and sob, and on such occasions Alehin and the servants stayed in the house to be ready to defend
her in case of necessity.
We began talking about love.
“How love is born,” said Alehin, “why Pelagea does not love somebody more like herself in her spiritual
and external qualities, and why she fell in love with Nikanor, that ugly snout—we all call him ‘The
Snout’—how far questions of personal happiness are of consequence in love—all that is unknown; one
can take what view ones likes of it. So far only one incontestable truth has been uttered about love: ‘This
is a great mystery.’ Everything else that has been written or said about love is not a conclusion, but only
a statement of questions which have remained unanswered. The explanation which would seem to fit
one case does not apply in a dozen others, and the very best thing, to my mind, would be to explain every
case individually without attempting to generalize. We ought, as the doctors say, to individualize each
case.”
“Perfectly true,” Burkin assented.
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“We Russians of the educated class have a partiality for these questions that remain unanswered. Love
is usually poeticized, decorated with roses, nightingales; we Russians decorate our loves with these
momentous questions, and select the most uninteresting of them, too. In Moscow, when I was a student,
I had a friend who shared my life, a charming lady, and every time I took her in my arms she was thinking
what I would allow her a month for housekeeping and what was the price of beef a pound. In the same
way, when we are in love we are never tired of asking ourselves questions: whether it is honourable or
dishonourable, sensible or stupid, what this love is leading up to, and so on. Whether it is a good thing
or not I don’t know, but that it is in the way, unsatisfactory, and irritating, I do know.”
It looked as though he wanted to tell some story. People who lead a solitary existence always have
something in their hearts which they are eager to talk about. In town bachelors visit the baths and the
restaurants on purpose to talk, and sometimes tell the most interesting things to bath attendants and
waiters; in the country, as a rule, they unbosom themselves to their guests. Now from the window we
could see a grey sky, trees drenched in the rain; in such weather we could go nowhere, and there was
nothing for us to do but to tell stories and to listen.
“I have lived at Sofino and been farming for a long time,” Alehin began, “ever since I left the University.
I am an idle gentleman by education, a studious person by disposition; but there was a big debt owing
on the estate when I came here, and as my father was in debt partly because he had spent so much on my
education, I resolved not to go away, but to work till I paid off the debt. I made up my mind to this and
set to work, not, I must confess, without some repugnance. The land here does not yield much, and if
one is not to farm at a loss one must employ serf labour or hired labourers, which is almost the same
thing, or put it on a peasant footing—that is, work the fields oneself and with one’s family. There is no
middle path. But in those days I did not go into such subtleties. I did not leave a clod of earth unturned;
I gathered together all the peasants, men and women, from the neighbouring villages; the work went on
at a tremendous pace. I myself ploughed and sowed and reaped, and was bored doing it, and frowned
with disgust, like a village cat driven by hunger to eat cucumbers in the kitchen-garden. My body ached,
and I slept as I walked. At first it seemed to me that I could easily reconcile this life of toil with my
cultured habits; to do so, I thought, all that is necessary is to maintain a certain external order in life. I
established myself upstairs here in the best rooms, and ordered them to bring me there coffee and liquor
after lunch and dinner, and when I went to bed I read every night the Vyestnik Evropi. But one day our
priest, Father Ivan, came and drank up all my liquor at one sitting; and the Vyestnik Evropi went to the
priest’s daughters; as in the summer, especially at the haymaking, I did not succeed in getting to my bed
at all, and slept in the sledge in the barn, or somewhere in the forester’s lodge, what chance was there of
reading? Little by little I moved downstairs, began dining in the servants’ kitchen, and of my former
luxury nothing is left but the servants who were in my father’s service, and whom it would be painful to
turn away
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3
The Call of the Wild
by Jack
London
(1876-1916)
http://www.readbookonline.net/title/147/
Chapter 1 - Into the Primitive
"Old longings nomadic leap,
Chafing at custom's chain;
Again from its brumal sleep
Wakens the ferine strain."
Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for
himself, but for every tide- water dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to
San Diego. Because men, groping in the Arctic darkness, had found a yellow metal, and because
steamship and transportation companies were booming the find, thousands of men were rushing into the
Northland. These men wanted dogs, and the dogs they wanted were heavy dogs, with strong muscles by
which to toil, and furry coats to protect them from the frost.
Buck lived at a big house in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley. Judge Miller's place, it was called. It
stood back from the road, half hidden among the trees, through which glimpses could be caught of the
wide cool veranda that ran around its four sides. The house was approached by gravelled driveways
which wound about through wide-spreading lawns and under the interlacing boughs of tall poplars. At
the rear things were on even a more spacious scale than at the front. There were great stables, where a
dozen grooms and boys held forth, rows of vine-clad servants' cottages, an endless and orderly array of
outhouses, long grape arbors, green pastures, orchards, and berry patches. Then there was the pumping
plant for the artesian well, and the big cement tank where Judge Miller's boys took their morning plunge
and kept cool in the hot afternoon.
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And over this great demesne Buck ruled. Here he was born, and here he had lived the four years of his
life. It was true, there were other dogs, There could not but be other dogs on so vast a place, but they did
not count. They came and went, resided in the populous kennels, or lived obscurely in the recesses of
the house after the fashion of Toots, the Japanese pug, or Ysabel, the Mexican hairless,-- strange
creatures that rarely put nose out of doors or set foot to ground. On the other hand, there were the fox
terriers, a score of them at least, who yelped fearful promises at Toots and Ysabel looking out of the
windows at them and protected by a legion of housemaids armed with brooms and mops.
But Buck was neither house-dog nor kennel-dog. The whole realm was his. He plunged into the
swimming tank or went hunting with the Judge's sons; he escorted Mollie and Alice, the Judge's
daughters, on long twilight or early morning rambles; on wintry nights he lay at the Judge's feet before
the roaring library fire; he carried the Judge's grandsons on his back, or rolled them in the grass, and
guarded their footsteps through wild adventures down to the fountain in the stable yard, and even beyond,
where the paddocks were, and the berry patches. Among the terriers he stalked imperiously, and Toots
and Ysabel he utterly ignored, for he was king,--king over all creeping, crawling, flying things of Judge
Miller's place, humans included.
His father, Elmo, a huge St. Bernard, had been the Judge's inseparable companion, and Buck bid fair to
follow in the way of his father. He was not so large,--he weighed only one hundred and forty pounds,--
for his mother, Shep, had been a Scotch shepherd dog. Nevertheless, one hundred and forty pounds, to
which was added the dignity that comes of good living and universal respect, enabled him to carry
himself in right royal fashion. During the four years since his puppyhood he had lived the life of a sated
aristocrat; he had a fine pride in himself, was even a trifle egotistical, as country gentlemen sometimes
become because of their insular situation. But he had saved himself by not becoming a mere pampered
house-dog. Hunting and kindred outdoor delights had kept down the fat and hardened his muscles; and
to him, as to the cold-tubbing races, the love of water had been a tonic and a health preserver.
And this was the manner of dog Buck was in the fall of 1897, when the Klondike strike dragged men
from all the world into the frozen North. But Buck did not read the newspapers, and he did not know
that Manuel, one of the gardener's help ers, was an undesirable acquaintance. Manuel had one besetting
sin. He loved to play Chinese lottery. Also, in his gambling, he had one besetting weakness-- faith in a
system; and this made his damnation certain. For to play a system requires money, while the wages of a
gardener's helper do not lap over the needs of a wife and numerous progeny
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4
David Copperfield
by Charles
Dickens (1812-
1870)
http://www.readbookonline.net/title/43/
Chapter 1
Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody
else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as
I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock
began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.
In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was declared by the nurse, and by some sage women
in the neighbourhood who had taken a lively interest in me several months before there was any
possibility of our becoming personally acquainted, first, that I was destined to be unlucky in life; and
secondly, that I was privileged to see ghosts and spirits; both these gifts inevitably attaching, as they
believed, to all unlucky infants of either gender, born towards the small hours on a Friday night.
I need say nothing here, on the first head, because nothing can show better than my history whether that
prediction was verified or falsified by the result. On the second branch of the question, I will only remark,
that unless I ran through that part of my inheritance while I was still a baby, I have not come into it yet.
But I do not at all complain of having been kept out of this property; and if anybody else should be in
the present enjoyment of it, he is heartily welcome to keep it.
I was born with a caul, which was advertised for sale, in the newspapers, at the low price of fifteen
guineas. Whether sea-going people were short of money about that time, or were short of faith and
preferred cork jackets, I don't know; all I know is, that there was but one solitary bidding, and that was
from an attorney connected with the bill-broking business, who offered two pounds in cash, and
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the balance in sherry, but declined to be guaranteed from drowning on any higher bargain. Consequently
the advertisement was withdrawn at a dead loss - for as to sherry, my poor dear mother's own sherry was
in the market then - and ten years afterwards, the caul was put up in a raffle down in our part of the
country, to fifty members at half-a-crown a head, the winner to spend five shillings. I was present myself,
and I remember to have felt quite uncomfortable and confused, at a part of myself being disposed of in
that way. The caul was won, I recollect, by an old lady with a hand-basket, who, very reluctantly,
produced from it the stipulated five shillings, all in halfpence, and twopence halfpenny short - as it took
an immense time and a great waste of arithmetic, to endeavour without any effect to prove to her. It is a
fact which will be long remembered as remarkable down there, that she was never drowned, but died
triumphantly in bed, at ninety-two. I have understood that it was, to the last, her proudest boast, that she
never had been on the water in her life, except upon a bridge; and that over her tea (to which she was
extremely partial) she, to the last, expressed her indignation at the impiety of mariners and others, who
had the presumption to go 'meandering' about the world. It was in vain to represent to her that some
conveniences, tea perhaps included, resulted from this objectionable practice. She always returned, with
greater emphasis and with an instinctive knowledge of the strength of her objection, 'Let us have no
meandering.'
Not to meander myself, at present, I will go back to my birth.
I was born at Blunderstone, in Suffolk, or 'there by', as they say in Scotland. I was a posthumous child.
My father's eyes had closed upon the light of this world six months, when mine opened on it. There is
something strange to me, even now, in the reflection that he never saw me; and something stranger yet
in the shadowy remembrance that I have of my first childish associations with his white grave- stone in
the churchyard, and of the indefinable compassion I used to feel for it lying out alone there in the dark
night, when our little parlour was warm and bright with fire and candle, and the doors of our house were
- almost cruelly, it seemed to me sometimes - bolted and locked against it.
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5
Dracula
by Bram
Stoker
(1845-1912)
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/345/345-h/345-h.htm
Chapter 2
Jonathan Harker's Journal Continued
May 5.--I must have been asleep, for certainly if I had been fully awake I must have noticed the approach
of such a remarkable place. In the gloom the courtyard looked of considerable size, and as several dark
ways led from it under great round arches, it perhaps seemed bigger than it really is. I have not yet been
able to see it by daylight.
When the caleche stopped, the driver jumped down and held out his hand to assist me to alight. Again I
could not but notice his prodigious strength. His hand actually seemed like a steel vice that could have
crushed mine if he had chosen. Then he took my traps, and placed them on the ground beside me as I
stood close to a great door, old and studded with large iron nails, and set in a projecting doorway of
massive stone. I could see even in the dim light that the stone was massively carved, but that the carving
had been much worn by time and weather. As I stood, the driver jumped again into his seat and shook
the reins. The horses started forward,and trap and all disappeared down one of the dark openings.
I stood in silence where I was, for I did not know what to do. Of bell or knocker there was no sign.
Through these frowning walls and dark window openings it was not likely that my voice could penetrate.
The time I waited seemed endless, and I felt doubts and fears crowding upon me. What sort of place had
I come to, and among what kind of people? What sort of grim adventure was it on which I had embarked?
Was this a customary incident in the life of a solicitor's clerk sent out to explain the purchase of a London
estate to a foreigner? Solicitor's clerk! Mina would not like that.
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Solicitor, for just before leaving London I got word that my examination was successful, and I am now
a full-blown solicitor! I began to rub my eyes and pinch myself to see if I were awake. It all seemed like
a horrible nightmare to me, and I expected that I should suddenly awake, and find myself at home, with
the dawn struggling in through the windows, as I had now and again felt in the morning after a day of
overwork. But my flesh answered the pinching test, and my eyes were not to be deceived. I was indeed
awake and among the Carpathians. All I could do now was to be patient, and to wait the coming of
morning.
Just as I had come to this conclusion I heard a heavy step approaching behind the great door, and saw
through the chinks the gleam of a coming light. Then there was the sound of rattling chains and the
clanking of massive bolts drawn back. A key was turned with the loud grating noise of long disuse, and
the great door swung back.
Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head
to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere. He held in his hand an antique silver lamp,
in which the flame burned without a chimney or globe of any kind, throwing long quivering shadows as
it flickered in the draught of the open door. The old man motioned me in with his right hand with a
courtly gesture, saying in excellent English, but with a strange intonation.
"Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own free will!" He made no motion of stepping to meet
me, but stood like a statue,as though his gesture of welcome had fixed him into stone. The instant,
however, that I had stepped over the threshold, he moved impulsively forward, and holding out his hand
grasped mine with a strength which made me wince, an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it
seemed cold as ice, more like the hand of a dead than a living man. Again he said.
"Welcome to my house! Enter freely. Go safely, and leave something of the happiness you bring!" The
strength of the handshake was so much akin to that which I had noticed in the driver, whose face I had
not seen, that for a moment I doubted if it were not the same person to whom I was speaking. So to make
sure, I said interrogatively, "Count Dracula?"
He bowed in a courtly was as he replied, "I am Dracula, and I bid you welcome, Mr. Harker, to my
house. Come in, the night air is chill, and you must need to eat and res
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6
Frankenstein
by Mary
Shelley
(1797-1835)
http://www.readbookonline.net/title/279/
Chapter 5
It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that
almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of
being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered
dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-
extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive
motion agitated its limbs.
How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite
pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features
as beautiful. Beautiful!--Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries
beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these
luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same
colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.
The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature. I had worked hard
for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived
myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I
had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable
to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room, and continued a long time
traversing my bedchamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep. At length lassitude succeeded to the
tumult I had before endured; and I threw myself on the bed in my clothes,
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endeavouring to seek a few moments of forgetfulness. But it was in vain: I slept, indeed, but I was
disturbed by the wildest dreams. I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the streets
of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, I embraced her; but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they
became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I held the corpse
of my dead mother in my arms; a shroud enveloped her form, and I saw the grave- worms crawling in
the folds of the flannel. I started from my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered my forehead, my teeth
chattered, and every limb became convulsed: when, by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced
its way through the window shutters, I beheld the wretch -- the miserable monster whom I had created.
He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws
opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have
spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped, and rushed
down stairs. I took refuge in the courtyard belonging to the house which I inhabited; where I remained
during the rest of the night, walking up and down in the greatest agitation, listening attentively, catching
and fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of the demoniacal corpse to which I had
so miserably given life.
Oh! no mortal could support the horror of that countenance. A mummy again endued with animation
could not be so hideous as that wretch. I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then; but when
those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could
not have conceived.
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7
A Reflection
by Kate
Chopin
(1851-1904)
http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/858/
Some people are born with a vital and responsive energy. It not only enables them to keep abreast of the
times; it qualifies them to furnish in their own personality a good bit of the motive power to the mad
pace. They are fortunate beings. They do not need to apprehend the significance of things. They do not
grow weary nor miss step, nor do they fall out of rank and sink by the wayside to be left contemplating
the moving procession.
Ah! that moving procession that has left me by the road-side! Its fantastic colors are more brilliant and
beautiful than the sun on the undulating waters. What matter if souls and bodies are failing beneath the
feet of the ever-pressing multitude! It moves with the majestic rhythm of the spheres. Its discordant
clashes sweep upward in one harmonious tone that blends with the music of other worlds--to complete
God's orchestra.
It is greater than the stars--that moving procession of human energy; greater than the palpitating earth
and the things growing thereon. Oh! I could weep at being left by the wayside; left with the grass and
the clouds and a few dumb animals. True, I feel at home in the society of these symbols of life's
immutability. In the procession I should feel the crushing feet, the clashing discords, the ruthless hands
and stifling breath. I could not hear the rhythm of the march.
Salve! ye dumb hearts. Let us be still and wait by the roadside
15
8
The Scarlet Pimpernel
by Baroness Emmuska
Orczy (1865-1947)
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/60/60-h/60-h.htm
Chapter 1 Paris: September, 1792
A surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear
they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of
hate. The hour, some little time before sunset, and the place, the West Barricade, at the very spot where,
a decade later, a proud tyrant raised an undying monument to the nation's glory and his own vanity.
During the greater part of the day the guillotine had been kept busy at its ghastly work: all that France
had boasted of in the past centuries, of ancient names, and blue blood, had paid toll to her desire for
liberty and for fraternity. The carnage had only ceased at this late hour of the day because there were
other more interesting sights for the people to witness, a little while before the final closing of the
barricades for the night.
And so the crowd rushed away from the Place de la Greve and made for the various barricades in order
to watch this interesting and amusing sight.
It was to be seen every day, for those aristos were such fools! They were traitors to the people of course,
all of them, men, women, and children, who happened to be descendants of the great men who since the
Crusades had made the glory of France: her old noblesse. Their ancestors had oppressed the people, had
crushed them under the scarlet heels of their dainty buckled shoes, and now the people had become the
rulers of France and crushed their former masters--not beneath their heel, for they went shoeless mostly
in these days--but a more effectual weight, the knife of the guillotine.
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And daily, hourly, the hideous instrument of torture claimed its many victims--old men, young women,
tiny children until the day when it would finally demand the head of a King and of a beautiful young
Queen.
But this was as it should be: were not the people now the rulers of France? Every aristocrat was a traitor,
as his ancestors had been before him: for two hundred years now the people had sweated, and toiled, and
starved, to keep a lustful court in lavish extravagance; now the descendants of those who had help ed to
make those courts brilliant had to hide for their lives--to fly, if they wished to avoid the tardy vengeance
of the people.
And they did try to hide, and tried to fly: that was just the fun of the whole thing.
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9
The Sign of Four
by Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle (1859-1930)
https://sherlock-holm.es/stories/pdf/a4/1-sided/sign.pdf
Chapter 2 - The Statement of the Case
Miss Morstan entered the room with a firm step and an outward composure of manner. She was a blonde
young lady, small, dainty, well gloved, and dressed in the most perfect taste. There was, however, a
plainness and simplicity about her costume which bore with it a suggestion of limited means. The dress
was a sombre grayish beige, untrimmed and unbraided, and she wore a small turban of the same dull
hue, relieved only by a suspicion of white feather in the side. Her face had neither regularity of feature
nor beauty of complexion, but her expression was sweet and amiable, and her large blue eyes were
singularly spiritual and sympathetic. In an experience of women which extends over many nations and
three separate continents, I have never looked upon a face which gave a clearer promise of a refined and
sensitive nature. I could not but observe that as she took the seat which Sherlock Holmes placed for her,
her lip trembled, her hand quivered, and she showed every sign of intense inward agitation.
"I have come to you, Mr. Holmes," she said," because you once enabled my employer, Mrs. Cecil
Forrester, to unravel a little domestic complication. She was much impressed by your kindness and skill."
"Mrs. Cecil Forrester," he repeated thoughtfully. "I believe that I was of some slight service to her. The
case, however, as I remember it, was a very simple one."
"She did not think so. But at least you cannot say the same of mine. I can hardly imagine anything more
strange, more utterly inexplicable, than the situation in which I find myself."
Holmes rubbed his hands, and his eyes glistened. He leaned forward in his chair with an expression of
extraordinary concentration upon his clear-cut, hawklike features.
18
"State your case," said he in brisk business tones.
I felt that my position was an embarrassing one.
"You will, I am sure, excuse me," I said, rising from my chair.
To my surprise, the young lady held up her gloved hand to detain me.
"If your friend," she said, "would be good enough to stop, he might be of inestimable service to me." I
relapsed into my chair.
"Briefly," she continued, "the facts are these. My father was an officer in an Indian regiment, who sent
me home when I was quite a child. My mother was dead, and I had no relative in England. I was placed,
however, in a comfortable boarding establishment at Edinburgh, and there I remained until I was
seventeen years of age. In the year 1878 my father, who was senior captain of his regiment, obtained
twelve months' leave and came home. He telegraphed to me from London that he had arrived all safe
and directed me to come down at once, giving the Langham Hotel as his address. His message, as I
remember, was full of kindness and love. On reaching London I drove to the Langham and was informed
that Captain Morstan was staying there, but that he had gone out the night before and had not returned.
I waited all day without news of him. That night, on the advice of the manager of the hotel, I
communicated with the police, and next morning we advertised in all the papers. Our inquiries led to no
result; and from that day to this no word has ever been heard of my unfortunate father. He came home
with his heart full of hope to find some peace, some comfort, and instead "
She put her hand to her throat, and a choking sob cut short the sentence. "The
date?" asked Holmes, opening his notebook.
"He disappeared upon the third of December, 1878 nearly ten years ago."
19
10
The Tenant of Wildfell
Hall by Anne Bronte
(1820-1849)
http://www.readbookonline.net/title/81/
Chapter 1
You must go back with me to the autumn of 1827.
My father, as you know, was a sort of gentleman farmer in -shire; and I, by his express desire, succeeded
him in the same quiet occupation, not very willingly, for ambition urged me to higher aims, and self-
conceit assured me that, in disregarding its voice, I was burying my talent in the earth, and hiding my
light under a bushel. My mother had done her utmost to persuade me that I was capable of great
achievements; but my father, who thought ambition was the surest road to ruin, and change but another
word for destruction, would listen to no scheme for bettering either my own condition, or that of my
fellow mortals. He assured me it was all rubbish, and exhorted me, with his dying breath, to continue in
the good old way, to follow his steps, and those of his father before him, and let my highest ambition be
to walk honestly through the world, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, and to transmit the
paternal acres to my children in, at least, as flourishing a condition as he left them to me.
'Well! - an honest and industrious farmer is one of the most useful members of society; and if I devote
my talents to the cultivation of my farm, and the improvement of agriculture in general, I shall thereby
benefit, not only my own immediate connections and dependants, but, in some degree, mankind at large:-
hence I shall not have lived in vain.' With such reflections as these I was endeavouring to console myself,
as I plodded home from the fields, one cold, damp, cloudy evening towards the close of October. But the
gleam of a bright red fire through the parlour window had more effect in cheering my spirits, and
rebuking my thankless repinings, than all the sage reflections and good resolutions I had forced my
mind to frame; - for I was young then, remember - only four-
20
and- twenty - and had not acquired half the rule over my own spirit that I now possess - trifling as that
may be.
However, that haven of bliss must not be entered till I had exchanged my miry boots for a clean pair of
shoes, and my rough surtout for a respectable coat, and made myself generally presentable before decent
society; for my mother, with all her kindness, was vastly particular on certain points.
In ascending to my room I was met upon the stairs by a smart, pretty girl of nineteen, with a tidy, dumpy
figure, a round face, bright, blooming cheeks, glossy, clustering curls, and little merry brown eyes. I
need not tell you this was my sister Rose. She is, I know, a comely matron still, and, doubtless, no less
lovely - in your eyes - than on the happy day you first beheld her. Nothing told me then that she, a few
years hence, would be the wife of one entirely unknown to me as yet, but destined hereafter to become
a closer friend than even herself, more intimate than that unmannerly lad of seventeen, by whom I was
collared in the passage, on coming down, and well-nigh jerked off my equilibrium, and who, in
correction for his impudence, received a resounding whack over the sconce, which, however, sustained
no serious injury from the infliction; as, besides being more than commonly thick, it was protected by a
redundant shock of short, reddish curls, that my mother called auburn.
On entering the parlour we found that honoured lady seated in her arm-chair at the fireside, working
away at her knitting, according to her usual custom, when she had nothing else to do. She had swept the
hearth, and made a bright blazing fire for our reception; the servant had just brought in the tea- tray; and
Rose was producing the sugar-basin and tea-caddy from the cupboard in the black oak side- board, that
shone like polished ebony, in the cheerful parlour twilight.
'Well! here they both are,' cried my mother, looking round upon us without retarding the motion of her
nimble fingers and glittering needles. 'Now shut the door, and come to the fire, while Rose gets the tea
ready; I'm sure you must be starved; - and tell me what you've been about all day; - I like to know what
my children have been about.'
21
11
Crime and Punishment,
a fiction by Fyodor
Dostoevsky (1821 – 1881)
http://www.planetpdf.com/planetpdf/pdfs/free_ebooks/Crime_and_Punishment_NT.pdf
PART I - CHAPTER I
On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in
S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. bridge.
He had successfully avoided meeting his landlady on the staircase. His garret was under the roof of a
high, five-storied house and was more like a cupboard than a room. The landlady who provided him with
garret, dinners, and attendance, lived on the floor below, and every time he went out he was obliged to
pass her kitchen, the door of which invariably stood open. And each time he passed, the young man had
a sick, frightened feeling, which made him scowl and feel ashamed. He was hopelessly in debt to his
landlady, and was afraid of meeting her.
This was not because he was cowardly and abject, quite the contrary; but for some time past he had been
in an overstrained irritable condition, verging on hypochondria. He had become so completely absorbed
in himself, and isolated from his fellows that he dreaded meeting, not only his landlady, but anyone at
all. He was crushed by poverty, but the anxieties of his position had of late ceased to weigh upon him.
He had given up attending to matters of practical importance; he had lost all desire to do so. Nothing that
any landlady could do had a real terror for him. But to be stopped on the stairs, to be forced to listen to
her trivial, irrelevant gossip, to pestering demands for payment, threats and complaints, and to rack his
brains for excuses, to prevaricate, to lie--no, rather than that, he would creep down the stairs like a cat
and slip out unseen.
This evening, however, on coming out into the street, he became acutely aware of his fears.
"I want to attempt a thing like that and am frightened by these trifles," he thought, with an odd smile.
"Hm... yes, all is in a man's hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that's an axiom. It would
22
be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what
they fear most.... But I am talking too much. It's because I chatter that I do nothing. Or perhaps it is that
I chatter because I do nothing. I've learned to chatter this last month, lying for days together in my den
thinking... of Jack the Giant-killer. Why am I going there now? Am I capable of that? Is that serious? It
is not serious at all. It's simply a fantasy to amuse myself; a plaything! Yes, maybe it is a plaything."
The heat in the street was terrible: and the airlessness, the bustle and the plaster, scaffolding, bricks, and
dust all about him, and that special Petersburg stench, so familiar to all who are unable to get out of town
in summer--all worked painfully upon the young man's already overwrought nerves. The insufferable
stench from the pot-houses, which are particularly numerous in that part of the town, and the drunken
men whom he met continually, although it was a working day, completed the revolting misery of the
picture. An expression of the profoundest disgust gleamed for a moment in the young man's refined face.
He was, by the way, exceptionally handsome, above the average in height, slim, well-built, with beautiful
dark eyes and dark brown hair. Soon he sank into deep thought, or more accurately speaking into a
complete blankness of mind; he walked along not observing what was about him and not caring to
observe it. From time to time, he would mutter something, from the habit of talking to himself, to which
he had just confessed. At these moments he would become conscious that his ideas were sometimes in
a tangle and that he was very weak; for two days he had scarcely tasted food.
He was so badly dressed that even a man accustomed to shabbiness would have been ashamed to be seen
in the street in such rags. In that quarter of the town, however, scarcely any shortcoming in dress would
have created surprise. Owing to the proximity of the Hay Market, the number of establishments of bad
character, the preponderance of the trading and working class population crowded in these streets and
alleys in the heart of Petersburg, types so various were to be seen in the streets that no figure, however
queer, would have caused surprise. But there was such accumulated bitterness and contempt in the young
man's heart, that, in spite of all the fastidiousness of youth, he minded his rags least of all in the street. It
was a different matter when he met with acquaintances or with former fellow students, whom, indeed,
he disliked meeting at any time. And yet when a drunken man who, for some unknown reason, was being
taken somewhere in a huge waggon dragged by a heavy dray horse, suddenly shouted at him as he drove
past: "Hey there, German hatter" bawling at the top of his voice and pointing at him--the young man
stopped suddenly and clutched tremulously at his hat. It was a tall round hat from Zimmerman's, but
completely worn out, rusty with age, all torn and bespattered, brimless and bent on one side in a most
unseemly fashion. Not shame, however, but quite another feeling akin to terror had overtaken him.
23
12
Nature
by Ralph Waldo
Emerson 1803 – 1882
http://www.readbookonline.net/title/44170/
CHAPTER I. NATURE
TO go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary
whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars.
The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches. One
might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies,
the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! If the stars should
appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many
generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these
envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.
The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all
natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears
a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out
all her perfection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains,
reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood.
When we speak of nature in this manner, we have a distinct but most poetical sense in the mind. We
mean the integrity of impression made by manifold natural objects. It is this which distinguishes the stick
of timber of the wood-cutter, from the tree of the poet. The charming landscape which I saw this
morning, is indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that, and
Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the landscape. There is a property
24
in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet. This is the
best part of these men's farms, yet to this their warranty-deeds give no title.
To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a
very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart
of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each
other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven
and earth, becomes part of his daily food. In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man,
in spite of real sorrows. Nature says,--he is my creature, and maugre all his impertinent griefs, he shall
be glad with me. Not the sun or the summer alone, but every hour and season yields its tribute of delight;
for every hour and change corresponds to and authorizes a different state of the mind, from breathless
noon to grimmest midnight. Nature is a setting that fits equally well a comic or a mourning piece. In
good health, the air is a cordial of incredible virtue. Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at
twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I
have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear. In the woods too, a man casts off his
years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is
perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is
dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we return
to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life,--no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me
my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground,--my head bathed by the blithe air,
and uplifted into infinite space,--all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am
nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.
The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances, -
-master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance. I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty.
In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages. In the tranquil
landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his
own nature.
25
13
Madame
Bovary Gustave
Flaubert (1821 –
1880)
http://www.readbookonline.net/title/21094/
The Death of Emma Bovary
Part III
Chapter Eight
{These are excerpts from the Chapter}
"Oh, Rodolphe! if you but knew! I loved you so!"
It was then that she took his hand, and they remained some time, their fingers intertwined, like that first
day at the Show. With a gesture of pride he struggled against this emotion. But sinking upon his breast
she said to him--
"How did you think I could live without you? One cannot lose the habit of happiness. I was desolate. I
thought I should die. I will tell you about all that and you will see. And you--you fled from me!"
For, all the three years, he had carefully avoided her in consequence of that natural cowardice that
characterises the stronger sex. Emma went on, with dainty little nods, more coaxing than an amorous
kitten--
"You love others, confess it! Oh, I understand them, dear! I excuse them. You probably seduced them
as you seduced me. You are indeed a man; you have everything to make one love you. But we'll begin
again, won't we? We will love one another. See! I am laughing; I am happy! Oh, speak!"
26
And she was charming to see, with her eyes, in which trembled a tear, like the rain of a storm in a blue
corolla.
He had drawn her upon his knees, and with the back of his hand was caressing her smooth hair, where
in the twilight was mirrored like a golden arrow one last ray of the sun. She bent down her brow; at last
he kissed her on the eyelids quite gently with the tips of his lips.
She turned her head from side to side with a gentle movement full of agony, while constantly opening
her mouth as if something very heavy were weighing upon her tongue. At eight o'clock the vomiting
began again.
Charles noticed that at the bottom of the basin there was a sort of white sediment sticking to the sides of
the porcelain.
"This is extraordinary--very singular," he repeated.
But she said in a firm voice, "No, you are
mistaken."
Then gently, and almost as caressing her, he passed his hand over her stomach. She uttered a sharp cry.
He fell back terror-stricken.
Then she began to groan, faintly at first. Her shoulders were shaken by a strong shuddering, and she was
growing paler than the sheets in which her clenched fingers buried themselves. Her unequal pulse was
now almost imperceptible.
Drops of sweat oozed from her bluish face, that seemed as if rigid in the exhalations of a metallic vapour.
Her teeth chattered, her dilated eyes looked vaguely about her, and to all questions she replied only with
a shake of the head; she even smiled once or twice. Gradually, her moaning grew louder; a hollow shriek
burst from her; she pretended she was better and that she would get up presently. But she was seized
with convulsions and cried out--
"Ah! my God! It is horrible!"
He threw himself on his knees by her bed.
"Tell me! what have you eaten? Answer, for heaven's sake!"
And he looked at her with a tenderness in his eyes such as she had never seen.
"Well, there--there!" she said in a faint voice. He flew to the writing-table, tore open the seal, and read
aloud: "Accuse no one." He stopped, passed his hands across his eyes, and read it over again.
27
"What! help--help!"
28
He could only keep repeating the word: "Poisoned! poisoned!" Felicite ran to Homais, who proclaimed
it in the market-place; Madame Lefrancois heard it at the "Lion d'Or"; some got up to go and tell their
neighbours, and all night the village was on the alert.
Distraught, faltering, reeling, Charles wandered about the room. He knocked against the furniture, tore
his hair, and the chemist had never believed that there could be so terrible a sight
14
The Haunted Mind
Nathaniel
Hawthorne 1804 –
1864
http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/8935/
What a singular moment is the first one, when you have hardly begun to recollect yourself after starting
from midnight slumber! By unclosing your eyes so suddenly, you seem to have surprised the personages
of your dream in full convocation round your bed, and catch one broad glance at them before they can
flit into obscurity. Or, to vary the metaphor, you find yourself, for a single instant, wide awake in that
realm of illusions, whither sleep has been the passport, and behold its ghostly inhabitants and wondrous
scenery, with a perception of their strangeness, such as you never attain while the dream is undisturbed.
The distant sound of a church-clock is borne faintly on the wind. You question with yourself, half
seriously, whether it has stolen to your waking ear from some gray tower, that stood within the precincts
of your dream. While yet in suspense, another clock flings its heavy clang over the slumbering town,
with so full and distinct a sound, and such a long murmur in the neighboring air, that you are certain it
must proceed from the steeple at the nearest corner. You count the strokes--one--two, and there they
cease, with a booming sound, like the gathering of a third stroke within the bell.
If you could choose an hour of wakefulness out of the whole night, it would be this. Since your sober
bedtime, at eleven, you have had rest enough to take off the pressure of yesterday's fatigue; while before
you, till the sun comes from "far Cathay" to brighten your window, there is almost the space of a summer
night; one hour to be spent in thought, with the mind's eye half shut, and two in pleasant dreams, and
two in that strangest of enjoyments, the forgetfulness alike of joy and woe. The moment of rising belongs
to another period of time, and appears so distant, that the plunge out of a warm bed into the frosty air
cannot yet be anticipated with dismay. Yesterday has already vanished among the shadows of the past;
to-morrow has not yet emerged from the future. You have found an intermediate space, where the
business of life does not intrude; where the passing moment lingers,
29
and becomes truly the present; a spot where Father Time, when he thinks nobody is watching him, sits
down by the wayside to take breath. O that he would fall asleep, and let mortals live on without growing
older!
Hitherto you have lain perfectly still, because the slightest motion would dissipate the fragments of your
slumber. Now, being irrevocably awake, you peep through the half-drawn window-curtain, and observe
that the glass is ornamented with fanciful devices in frostwork, and that each pane presents something
like a frozen dream. There will be time enough to trace out the analogy, while waiting the summons to
breakfast. Seen through the clear portion of the glass, where the silvery mountain-peaks of the frost
scenery do not ascend, the most conspicuous object is the steeple, the white spire of which directs you
to the wintry lustre of the firmament. You may almost distinguish the figures on the clock that has just
told the hour. Such a frosty sky, and the snow-covered roofs, and the long vista of the frozen street, all
white, and the distant water hardened into rock, might make you shiver, even under four blankets and a
woollen comforter. Yet look at that one glorious star! Its beams are distinguishable from all the rest, and
actually cast the shadow of the casement on the bed, with a radiance of deeper hue than moonlight,
though not so accurate an outline.
You sink down and muffle your head in the clothes, shivering all the while, but less from bodily chill
than the bare idea of a polar atmosphere. It is too cold even for the thoughts to venture abroad. You
speculate on the luxury of wearing out a whole existence in bed, like an oyster in its shell, content with
the sluggish ecstasy of inaction, and drowsily conscious of nothing but delicious warmth, such as you
now feel again. Ah! that idea has brought a hideous one in its train. You think how the dead are lying in
their cold shrouds and narrow coffins, through the drear winter of the grave, and cannot persuade your
fancy that they neither shrink nor shiver, when the snow is drifting over their little hillocks, and the bitter
blast howls against the door of the tomb. That gloomy thought will collect a gloomy multitude, and
throw its complexion over your wakeful hour.
In the depths of every heart there is a tomb and a dungeon, though the lights, the music, and revelry
above may cause us to forget their existence, and the buried ones, or prisoners whom they hide. But
sometimes, and oftenest at midnight, these dark receptacles are flung wide open. In an hour like this,
when the mind has a passive sensibility, but no active strength; when the imagination is a mirror,
imparting vividness to all ideas, without the power of selecting or controlling them; then pray that your
griefs may slumber, and the brotherhood of remorse not break their chain. It is too late! A funeral train
comes gliding by your bed, in which Passion and Feeling assume bodily shape, and things of the mind
become dire spectres to the eye. There is your earliest Sorrow, a pale young mourner, wearing a sister's
likeness to first love, sadly beautiful, with a hallowed sweetness in her melancholy features, and grace
in the flow of her sable robe. Next appears a shade of ruined loveliness, with dust among her golden hair,
and her bright garments all faded and defaced, stealing from your glance with drooping head, as fearful
of reproach; she was your fondest Hope, but a delusive one; so call her Disappointment now. A sterner
form succeeds, with a brow of wrinkles, a look and gesture of iron authority; there is no name for him
unless it be Fatality, an emblem of the evil influence that rules
30
your fortunes; a demon to whom you subjected yourself by some error at the outset of life, and were
bound his slave forever, by once obeying him. See! those fiendish lineaments graven on the darkness,
the writhed lip of scorn, the mockery of that living eye, the pointed finger, touching the sore place in
your heart! Do you remember any act of enormous folly, at which you would blush, even in the remotest
cavern of the earth? Then recognize your Shame.
15
Captain Rogers
William Wymark
Jacobs
1863 – 1943
http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/5505/
A man came slowly over the old stone bridge, and averting his gaze from the dark river with its silent
craft, looked with some satisfaction toward the feeble lights of the small town on the other side. He
walked with the painful, forced step of one who has already trudged far. His worsted hose, where they
were not darned, were in holes, and his coat and knee-breeches were rusty with much wear, but he
straightened himself as he reached the end of the bridge and stepped out bravely to the taverns which
stood in a row facing the quay.
He passed the "Queen Anne"--a mere beershop--without pausing, and after a glance apiece at the "Royal
George" and the "Trusty Anchor," kept on his way to where the "Golden Key" hung out a gilded emblem.
It was the best house in Riverstone, and patronized by the gentry, but he adjusted his faded coat, and
with a swaggering air entered and walked boldly into the coffee-room.
The room was empty, but a bright fire afforded a pleasant change to the chill October air outside. He
drew up a chair, and placing his feet on the fender, exposed his tattered soles to the blaze, as a waiter
who had just seen him enter the room came and stood aggressively inside the door.
"Brandy and water," said the stranger; "hot."
"The coffee-room is for gentlemen staying in the house," said the waiter.
The stranger took his feet from the fender, and rising slowly, walked toward him. He was a short man
and thin, but there was something so menacing in his attitude, and something so fearsome in his stony
brown eyes, that the other, despite his disgust for ill-dressed people, moved back uneasily.
"Brandy and water, hot," repeated the stranger; "and plenty of it. D'ye hear?"
30
The man turned slowly to depart.
"Stop!" said the other, imperiously. "What's the name of the landlord here?"
"Mullet," said the fellow, sulkily.
"Send him to me," said the other, resuming his seat; "and hark you, my friend, more civility, or 'twill
be the worse for you."
He stirred the log on the fire with his foot until a shower of sparks whirled up the chimney. The door
opened, and the landlord, with the waiter behind him, entered the room, but he still gazed placidly at the
glowing embers.
"What do you want?" demanded the landlord, in a deep voice.
The stranger turned a little weazened yellow face and grinned at him familiarly. "Send
that fat rascal of yours away," he said, slowly.
The landlord started at his voice and eyed him closely; then he signed to the man to withdraw, and
closing the door behind him, stood silently watching his visitor.
"You didn't expect to see me, Rogers," said the latter.
"My name's Mullet," said the other, sternly. "What do you want?"
"Oh, Mullet?" said the other, in surprise. "I'm afraid I've made a mistake, then. I thought you were my
old shipmate, Captain Rogers. It's a foolish mistake of mine, as I've no doubt Rogers was hanged years
ago. You never had a brother named Rogers, did you?"
"I say again, what do you want?" demanded the other, advancing upon him.
"Since you're so good," said the other. "I want new clothes, food, and lodging of the best, and my
pockets filled with money."
"You had better go and look for all those things, then," said Mullet. "You won't find them here."
"Ay!" said the other, rising. "Well, well--There was a hundred guineas on the head of my old shipmate
Rogers some fifteen years ago. I'll see whether it has been earned yet."
"If I gave you a hundred guineas," said the innkeeper, repressing his passion by a mighty effort, "you
30
would not be satisfied."
"Reads like a book," said the stranger, in tones of pretended delight. "What a man it is!"
He fell back as he spoke, and thrusting his hand into his pocket, drew forth a long pistol as the
innkeeper, a man of huge frame, edged toward him.
31
"Keep your distance," he said, in a sharp, quick voice.
The innkeeper, in no wise disturbed at the pistol, turned away calmly, and ringing the bell, ordered some
spirits. Then taking a chair, he motioned to the other to do the same, and they sat in silence until the
staring waiter had left the room again. The stranger raised his glass.
16
At Twenty-two
Rudyard
Kipling (1865 –
1936)
http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/8179/
Narrow as the womb, deep as the Pit, and dark as the heart of a man.--_Sonthal Miner's Proverb_.
"A weaver went out to reap but stayed to unravel the corn-stalks. Ha! Ha! Ha! Is there any sense in a
weaver?"
Janki Meah glared at Kundoo, but, as Janki Meah was blind, Kundoo was not impressed. He had come
to argue with Janki Meah, and, if chance favored, to make love to the old man's pretty young wife.
This was Kundoo's grievance, and he spoke in the name of all the five men who, with Janki Meah,
composed the gang in Number Seven gallery of Twenty-Two. Janki Meah had been blind for the thirty
years during which he had served the Jimahari Collieries with pick and crowbar. All through those thirty
years he had regularly, every morning before going down, drawn from the overseer his allowance of
lamp-oil--just as if he had been an eyed miner. What Kundoo's gang resented, as hundreds of gangs had
resented before, was Janki Meah's selfishness. He would not add the oil to the common stock of his gang,
but would save and sell it.
"I knew these workings before you were born," Janki Meah used to reply; "I don't want the light to get
my coal out by, and I am not going to help you. The oil is mine, and I intend to keep it."
A strange man in many ways was Janki Meah, the white-haired, hot tempered, sightless weaver who had
turned pitman. All day long--except on Sundays and Mondays when he was usually drunk--he worked
in the Twenty-Two shaft of the Jimahari Colliery as cleverly as a man with all the senses. At evening he
went up in the great steam-hauled cage to the pit-bank, and there called for his pony--a rusty, coal-dusty
beast, nearly as old as Janki Meah. The pony would come to his side, and Janki Meah would clamber on
to its back and be taken at once to the plot of land which he, like the other miners,
32
received from the Jimahari Company. The pony knew that place, and when, after six years, the Company
changed all the allotments to prevent the miners from acquiring proprietary rights, Janki Meah
represented, with tears in his eyes, that were his holdings shifted, he would never be able to find his way
to the new one. "My horse only knows that place," pleaded Janki Meah, and so he was allowed to keep
his land.
On the strength of this concession and his accumulated oil-savings, Janki Meah took a second wife--a
girl of the Jolaha main stock of the Meahs, and singularly beautiful. Janki Meah could not see her beauty;
wherefore he took her on trust, and forbade her to go down the pit. He had not worked for thirty years in
the dark without knowing that the pit was no place for pretty women. He loaded her with ornaments--
not brass or pewter, but real silver ones--and she rewarded him by flirting outrageously with Kundoo of
Number Seven gallery gang. Kundoo was really the gang-head, but Janki Meah insisted upon all the
work being entered in his own name, and chose the men that he worked with. Custom--stronger even
than the Jimahari Company--dictated that Janki, by right of his years, should manage these things, and
should, also, work despite his blindness. In Indian mines where they cut into the solid coal with the pick
and clear it out from floor to ceiling, he could come to no great harm. At Home, where they undercut the
coal and bring it down in crashing avalanches from the roof, he would never have been allowed to set
foot in a pit. He was not a popular man, because of his oil- savings; but all the gangs admitted that Janki
knew all the _khads,_ or workings, that had ever been sunk or worked since the Jimahari Company first
started operations on the Tarachunda fields.
Pretty little Unda only knew that her old husband was a fool who could be managed. She took no interest
in the collieries except in so far as they swallowed up Kundoo five days out of the seven, and covered
him with coal-dust. Kundoo was a great workman, and did his best not to get drunk, because, when he
had saved forty rupees, Unda was to steal everything that she could find in Janki's house and run with
Kundoo to a land where there were no mines, and every one kept three fat bullocks and a milch-buffalo.
While this scheme ripened it was his custom to drop in upon Janki and worry him about the oil savings.
Unda sat in a corner and nodded approval. On the night when Kundoo had quoted that objectionable
proverb about weavers, Janki grew angry.
"Listen, you pig," said he, "blind I am, and old I am, but, before ever you were born, I was grey among
the coal. Even in the days when the Twenty-Two _khad_ was unsunk and there were not two thousand
men here, I was known to have all knowledge of the pits. What _khad_ is there that I do not know, from
the bottom of the shaft to the end of the last drive? Is it the Baromba _khad_, the oldest, or the Twenty-
Two where Tibu's gallery runs up to Number Five?"
"Hear the old fool talk!" said Kundoo, nodding to Unda. "No gallery of Twenty-Two will cut into Five
before the end of the Rains. We have a month's solid coal before us. The Babuji says so.
33
17
The Phantom of the
Opera
Gaston Leroux (1868 –
1927)
http://www.readbookonline.net/title/253/
Chapter 1 – Is it a Ghost?
It was the evening on which MM. Debienne and Poligny, the managers of
the Opera, were giving a last gala performance to mark their retirement.
Suddenly the dressing-room of La Sorelli, one of the principal dancers,
was invaded by half-a-dozen young ladies of the ballet, who had come up
from the stage after "dancing" Polyeucte. They rushed in amid
great confusion, some giving vent to forced and unnatural laughter,
others to cries of terror. Sorelli, who wished to be alone for a moment
to "run through" the speech which she was to make to the resigning
managers, looked around angrily at the mad and tumultuous crowd. It
was little Jammes--the girl with the tip-tilted nose,
the forget-me-not eyes, the rose-red cheeks and the lily-white
neck and shoulders--who gave the explanation in a trembling voice:
"It's the ghost!" And she locked the door.
Sorelli's dressing-room was fitted up with official, commonplace elegance.
A pier-glass, a sofa, a dressing-table and a cupboard or two provided
the necessary furniture. On the walls hung a few engravings,
relics of the mother, who had known the glories of the old Opera in
the Rue le Peletier; portraits of Vestris, Gardel, Dupont, Bigottini.
But the room seemed a palace to the brats of the corps de ballet, who
were lodged in common dressing-rooms where they spent their
34
time singing, quarreling, smacking the dressers and hair-dressers
and buying one another glasses of cassis, beer, or even rhum, until
the call-boy's bell rang.
Sorelli was very superstitious. She shuddered when she heard
little Jammes speak of the ghost, called her a "silly little fool"
and then, as she was the first to believe in ghosts in general, and
the Opera ghost in particular, at once asked for details: "Have
you seen him?"
"As plainly as I see you now!" said little Jammes, whose legs were
giving way beneath her, and she dropped with a moan into a chair.
Thereupon little Giry--the girl with eyes black as sloes,
hair black as ink, a swarthy complexion and a poor little skin
stretched over poor little bones--little Giry added:
"If that's the ghost, he's very ugly!"
"Oh, yes!" cried the chorus of ballet-girls.
And they all began to talk together. The ghost had appeared to them in
the shape of a gentleman in dress-clothes, who had suddenly stood
before them in the passage, without their knowing where he came from.
He seemed to have come straight through the wall.
"Pooh!" said one of them, who had more or less kept her head.
"You see the ghost everywhere!"
And it was true. For several months, there had been nothing discussed at
the Opera but this ghost in dress-clothes who stalked about
the building, from top to bottom, like a shadow, who spoke to nobody, to
whom nobody dared speak and who vanished as soon as he was seen,
no one knowing how or where. As became a real ghost, he made no noise
in walking. People began by laughing and making fun of this specter
dressed like a man of fashion or an undertaker; but the ghost legend soon
swelled to enormous proportions among the corps de ballet.
All the girls pretended to have met this supernatural being more
or less often. And those who laughed the loudest were not the most at
ease. When he did not show himself, he betrayed his presence
or his passing by accident, comic or serious, for which the general
superstition held him responsible. Had any one met with a fall,
or suffered a practical joke at the hands of one of the other girls, or
lost a powderpuff, it was at once the fault of the ghost,
of the Opera ghost.
35
After all, who had seen him? You meet so many men in dress-clothes
at the Opera who are not ghosts. But this dress-suit had a peculiarity of
its own. It covered a skeleton. At least, so the ballet-girls said. And, of
course, it had a death's head. Was all this serious? The truth is that the
idea of the skeleton came from the description of the ghost given by
Joseph Buquet, the chief scene-shifter, who had really seen the ghost.
He had run up against the ghost on the little staircase, by the
footlights, which leads to "the cellars." He had seen him for a second--
for the ghost had fled--and to any one who cared to listen to him he
said:
"He is extraordinarily thin and his dress-coat hangs on a skeleton frame.
His eyes are so deep that you can hardly see the fixed pupils.
You just see two big black holes, as in a dead man's skull.
His skin, which is stretched across his bones like a drumhead,
is not white, but a nasty yellow. His nose is so little worth
talking about that you can't see it side-face; and THE
ABSENCE of that nose is a horrible thing TO LOOK AT. All
the hair he
has is three or four long dark locks on his forehead and behind
his ears."
This chief scene-shifter was a serious, sober, steady man,
very slow at imagining things. His words were received with interest
and amazement; and soon there were other people to say that they too
had met a man in dress-clothes with a death's head on his shoulders.
Sensible men who had wind of the story began by saying that Joseph
Buquet had been the victim of a joke played by one of his assistants.
And then, one after the other, there came a series of incidents
so curious and so inexplicable that the very shrewdest people began to
feel uneasy.
36
18
Women in Love
D. H.
Lawrence
(1885 – 1930)
http://www.readbookonline.net/title/169/
CHAPTER I. Sisters
Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen sat one morning in the window-bay of their
father's house in Beldover, working and talking. Ursula was stitching a
piece of brightly-coloured embroidery, and Gudrun was drawing upon a
board which she held on her knee. They were mostly silent, talking as
their thoughts strayed through their minds.
'Ursula,' said Gudrun, 'don't you REALLY WANT to get married?'
Ursula laid her embroidery in her lap and looked up. Her face was calm
and considerate.
'I don't know,' she replied. 'It depends how you mean.'
Gudrun was slightly taken aback. She watched her sister for some
moments.
'Well,' she said, ironically, 'it usually means one thing! But don't
you think anyhow, you'd be--' she darkened slightly--'in a better
position than you are in now.'
37
A shadow came over Ursula's face.
'I might,' she said. 'But I'm not sure.'
Again Gudrun paused, slightly irritated. She wanted to be quite
definite.
'You don't think one needs the EXPERIENCE of having been married?'
she asked.
'Do you think it need BE an experience?' replied Ursula.
'Bound to be, in some way or other,' said Gudrun, coolly. 'Possibly
undesirable, but bound to be an experience of some sort.'
'Not really,' said Ursula. 'More likely to be the end of experience.'
Gudrun sat very still, to attend to this.
'Of course,' she said, 'there's THAT to consider.' This brought the
conversation to a close. Gudrun, almost angrily, took up her rubber and
began to rub out part of her drawing. Ursula stitched absorbedly.
'You wouldn't consider a good offer?' asked Gudrun.
'I think I've rejected several,' said Ursula.
'REALLY!' Gudrun flushed dark--'But anything really worth while?
Have you REALLY?'
'A thousand a year, and an awfully nice man. I liked him awfully,'
said Ursula.
'Really! But weren't you fearfully tempted?'
'In the abstract but not in the concrete,' said Ursula. 'When it comes to
the point, one isn't even tempted--oh, if I were tempted, I'd marry
38
like a shot. I'm only tempted NOT to.' The faces of both sisters
suddenly lit up with amusement.
'Isn't it an amazing thing,' cried Gudrun, 'how strong the temptation
is, not to!' They both laughed, looking at each other. In their hearts
they were frightened.
There was a long pause, whilst Ursula stitched and Gudrun went on with
her sketch. The sisters were women, Ursula twenty-six, and Gudrun
twenty-five. But both had the remote, virgin look of modern girls, sisters
of Artemis rather than of Hebe. Gudrun was very beautiful, passive, soft-
skinned, soft-limbed. She wore a dress of dark-blue silky stuff, with
ruches of blue and green linen lace in the neck and
sleeves; and she had emerald-green stockings. Her look of confidence
and diffidence contrasted with Ursula's sensitive expectancy. The
provincial people, intimidated by Gudrun's perfect sang-froid and
exclusive bareness of manner, said of her: 'She is a smart woman.' She
had just come back from London, where she had spent several years,
working at an art-school, as a student, and living a studio life.
'I was hoping now for a man to come along,' Gudrun said, suddenly
catching her underlip between her teeth, and making a strange grimace,
half sly smiling, half anguish. Ursula was afraid.
'So you have come home, expecting him here?' she laughed.
'Oh my dear,' cried Gudrun, strident, 'I wouldn't go out of my way to
look for him. But if there did happen to come along a highly attractive
individual of sufficient means--well--' she tailed off ironically. Then
she looked searchingly at Ursula, as if to probe her. 'Don't you find
yourself getting bored?' she asked of her sister. 'Don't you find, that
things fail to materialise? NOTHING MATERIALISES! Everything
withers in the bud.'
'What withers in the bud?' asked Ursula.
39
'Oh, everything--oneself--things in general.' There was a pause, whilst
each sister vaguely considered her fate.
'It does frighten one,' said Ursula, and again there was a pause. 'But
do you hope to get anywhere by just marrying?'
'It seems to be the inevitable next step,' said Gudrun. Ursula pondered
this, with a little bitterness. She was a class mistress herself, in
Willey Green Grammar School, as she had been for some years.
'I know,' she said, 'it seems like that when one thinks in the
abstract. But really imagine it: imagine any man one knows, imagine him
coming home to one every evening, and saying "Hello," and giving one a
kiss--'
There was a blank pause.
'Yes,' said Gudrun, in a narrowed voice. 'It's just impossible. The man
makes it impossible.'
'Of course there's children--' said Ursula doubtfully.
Gudrun's face hardened.
'Do you REALLY want children, Ursula?' she asked coldly. A
dazzled, baffled look came on Ursula's face.
'One feels it is still beyond one,' she said.
'DO you feel like that?' asked Gudrun. 'I get no feeling whatever from
40
the thought of bearing children.'
Gudrun looked at Ursula with a masklike, expressionless face. Ursula
knitted her brows.
40
'Perhaps it isn't genuine,' she faltered. 'Perhaps one doesn't really want
them, in one's soul--only superficially.' A hardness came over Gudrun's
face. She did not want to be too definite.
'When one thinks of other people's children--' said Ursula. Again
Gudrun looked at her sister, almost hostile. 'Exactly,' she said,
to close the conversation.
The two sisters worked on in silence, Ursula having always that strange
brightness of an essential flame that is caught, meshed, contravened. She
lived a good deal by herself, to herself, working, passing on from day to day,
and always thinking, trying to lay hold on life, to grasp
it in her own understanding. Her active living was suspended, but underneath,
in the darkness, something was coming to pass. If only she could break through
the last integuments! She seemed to try and put her hands out, like an infant in
the womb, and she could not, not yet.
Still she had a strange prescience, an intimation of something yet to
come.
41
19
The Terror
Guy De Maupassant
(1850 – 1893)
http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/1679/
You say you cannot possibly understand it, and I believe you. You think I am losing my mind? Perhaps
I am, but for other reasons than those you imagine, my dear friend.
Yes, I am going to be married, and will tell you what has led me to take that step.
I may add that I know very little of the girl who is going to become my wife to-morrow; I have only seen
her four or five times. I know that there is nothing unpleasing about her, and that is enough for my
purpose. She is small, fair, and stout; so, of course, the day after to-morrow I shall ardently wish for a
tall, dark, thin woman.
She is not rich, and belongs to the middle classes. She is a girl such as you may find by the gross, well
adapted for matrimony, without any apparent faults, and with no particularly striking qualities. People
say of her:
"Mlle. Lajolle is a very nice girl," and tomorrow they will say: "What a very nice woman Madame
Raymon is." She belongs, in a word, to that immense number of girls whom one is glad to have for
42
one's wife, till the moment comes when one discovers that one happens to prefer all other women to that
particular woman whom one has married.
"Well," you will say to me, "what on earth did you get married for?"
I hardly like to tell you the strange and seemingly improbable reason that urged me on to this senseless
act; the fact, however, is that I am afraid of being alone.
I don't know how to tell you or to make you understand me, but my state of mind is so wretched that you
will pity me and despise me.
I do not want to be alone any longer at night. I want to feel that there is some one close to me, touching
me, a being who can speak and say something, no matter what it be.
I wish to be able to awaken somebody by my side, so that I may be able to ask some sudden question, a
stupid question even, if I feel inclined, so that I may hear a human voice, and feel that there is some
waking soul close to me, some one whose reason is at work; so that when I hastily light the candle I may
see some human face by my side--because--because --I am ashamed to confess it--because I am afraid
of being alone.
Oh, you don't understand me yet.
I am not afraid of any danger; if a man were to come into the room, I should kill him without trembling.
I am not afraid of ghosts, nor do I believe in the supernatural. I am not afraid of dead people, for I believe
in the total annihilation of every being that disappears from the face of this earth.
Well--yes, well, it must be told: I am afraid of myself, afraid of that horrible sensation of
incomprehensible fear.
You may laugh, if you like. It is terrible, and I cannot get over it. I am afraid of the walls, of the furniture,
of the familiar objects; which are animated, as far as I am concerned, by a kind of animal life. Above all,
I am afraid of my own dreadful thoughts, of my reason, which seems as if it were about to leave me,
43
driven away by a mysterious and invisible agony.
At first I feel a vague uneasiness in my mind, which causes a cold shiver to run all over me. I look
round, and of course nothing is to be seen, and I wish that there were something there, no matter
44
what, as long as it were something tangible. I am frightened merely because I cannot understand my
own terror.
If I speak, I am afraid of my own voice. If I walk, I am afraid of I know not what, behind the door, behind
the curtains, in the cupboard, or under my bed, and yet all the time I know there is nothing anywhere,
and I turn round suddenly because I am afraid of what is behind me, although there is nothing there, and
I know it.
I become agitated. I feel that my fear increases, and so I shut myself up in my own room, get into bed,
and hide under the clothes; and there, cowering down, rolled into a ball, I close my eyes in despair, and
remain thus for an indefinite time, remembering that my candle is alight on the table by my bedside, and
that I ought to put it out, and yet--I dare not do it.
It is very terrible, is it not, to be like that?
Formerly I felt nothing of all that. I came home quite calm, and went up and down my apartment without
anything disturbing my peace of mind. Had any one told me that I should be attacked by a malady--for
I can call it nothing else--of most improbable fear, such a stupid and terrible malady as it is, I should
have laughed outright. I was certainly never afraid of opening the door in the dark. I went to bed slowly,
without locking it, and never got up in the middle of the night to make sure that everything was firmly
closed.
It began last year in a very strange manner on a damp autumn evening. When my servant had left the
room, after I had dined, I asked myself what I was going to do. I walked up and down my room for some
time, feeling tired without any reason for it, unable to work, and even without energy to read. A fine
rain was falling, and I felt unhappy, a prey to one of those fits of despondency, without any apparent
cause, which make us feel inclined to cry, or to talk, no matter to whom, so as to shake off our depressing
thoughts.
45
20
White Jacket
Herman
Melville (1819 –
1891)
http://www.readbookonline.net/title/11408/
CHAPTER II. HOMEWARD BOUND
"All hands up anchor! Man the capstan!"
"High die! my lads, we're homeward bound!"
Homeward bound!--harmonious sound! Were you _ever_ homeward bound?--No?--Quick! take the
wings of the morning, or the sails of a ship, and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth. There, tarry a year
or two; and then let the gruffest of boatswains, his lungs all goose-skin, shout forth those magical words,
and you'll swear "the harp of Orpheus were not more enchanting."
All was ready; boats hoisted in, stun' sail gear rove, messenger passed, capstan-bars in their places,
accommodation-ladder below; and in glorious spirits, we sat down to dinner. In the ward-room, the
lieutenants were passing round their oldest port, and pledging their friends; in the steerage, the
_middies_ were busy raising loans to liquidate the demands of their laundress, or else--in the navy
phrase--preparing to pay their creditors _with a flying fore-topsail_. On the poop, the captain was
46
looking to windward; and in his grand, inaccessible cabin, the high and mighty commodore sat silent
and stately, as the statue of Jupiter in Dodona.
We were all arrayed in our best, and our bravest; like strips of blue sky, lay the pure blue collars of our
frocks upon our shoulders; and our pumps were so springy and playful, that we danced up and down as
we dined.
It was on the gun-deck that our dinners were spread; all along between the guns; and there, as we cross-
legged sat, you would have thought a hundred farm-yards and meadows were nigh. Such a cackling of
ducks, chickens, and ganders; such a lowing of oxen, and bleating of lambkins, penned up here and there
along the deck, to provide sea repasts for the officers. More rural than naval were the sounds; continually
reminding each mother's son of the old paternal homestead in the green old clime; the old arching elms;
the hill where we gambolled; and down by the barley banks of the stream where we bathed.
"All hands up anchor!"
When that order was given, how we sprang to the bars, and heaved round that capstan; every man a
Goliath, every tendon a hawser!-- round and round--round, round it spun like a sphere, keeping time
with our feet to the time of the fifer, till the cable was straight up and down, and the ship with her nose
in the water.
"Heave and pall! unship your bars, and make sail!"
It was done: barmen, nipper-men, tierers, veerers, idlers and all, scrambled up the ladder to the braces
and halyards; while like monkeys in Palm-trees, the sail-loosers ran out on those broad boughs, our
yards; and down fell the sails like white clouds from the ether--topsails, top-gallants, and royals; and
away we ran with the halyards, till every sheet was distended.
"Once more to the bars!"
"Heave, my hearties, heave hard!"
47
With a jerk and a yerk, we broke ground; and up to our bows came several thousand pounds of old iron,
in the shape of our ponderous anchor.
Where was White-Jacket then?
48
21
'Tis All For The
Best
Hannah More
(1745-1833)
http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/42910/
"It is all for the best," said Mrs. Simpson, whenever any misfortune befell her. She had got such a habit
of vindicating Providence, that instead of weeping and wailing under the most trying dispensations, her
chief care was to convince herself and others, that however great might be her sufferings, and however
little they could be accounted for at present, yet that the Judge of all the earth could not but do right.
Instead of trying to clear herself from any possible blame that might attach to her under those misfortunes
which, to speak after the manner of men, she might seem not
to have deserved, she was always the first to justify Him who had inflicted it. It was not that she
superstitiously converted every visitation into a punishment; she entertained more correct ideas of that
God who overrules all events. She knew that some calamities were sent to exercise her faith, others to
purify her heart; some to chastise her rebellious will, and all to remind her that this "was not her rest;"
that this world was not the scene for the full and final display of retributive justice. The honor of God
was dearer to her than her own credit, and her chief desire was to turn all events to his glory.
Though Mrs. Simpson was the daughter of a clergyman, and the widow of a genteel tradesman, she
White-Jacket was where he belonged. It was White-Jacket that loosed that main-royal, so far up aloft
there, it looks like a white albatross' wing. It was White-Jacket that was taken for an albatross himself,
as he flew out on the giddy yard-arm!
49
had been reduced by a succession of misfortunes, to accept of a room in an almshouse. Instead of repining
at the change; instead of dwelling on her former gentility, and saying, "how handsomely she had lived
once; and how hard it was to be reduced; and she little thought ever to end her days in an alms-house"--
which is the common language of those who were never so well off before--she was thankful that such
an asylum was provided for want and age; and blessed God that it was to the Christian dispensation alone
that such pious institutions owed their birth.
One fine evening, as she was sitting reading her Bible on the little bench shaded with honey-suckles, just
before her door, who should come and sit down by her but Mrs. Betty, who had formerly been lady's
maid at the nobleman's house in the village of which Mrs. Simpson's father had been minister. Betty,
after a life of vanity, was, by a train of misfortunes, brought to this very alms-house; and though she had
taken no care by frugality and prudence to avoid it, she thought it a hardship and disgrace, instead of
being thankful, as she ought to have been, for such a retreat. At first she did not know Mrs. Simpson; her
large bonnet, cloak, and brown stuff gown (for she always made her appearance conform to her
circumstances) being very different from the dress she had been used to wear when Mrs. Betty had seen
her dining at the great house; and time and sorrow had much altered her countenance. But when Mrs.
Simpson kindly addressed her as an old acquaintance, she screamed with surprise. "What! you, madam?"
cried she; "you in an alms-house, living on charity; you, who used to be so charitable yourself, that you
never suffered any distress in the parish which you could prevent?" "That may be one reason, Betty,"
replied Mrs. Simpson, "why Providence has provided this refuge for my old age. And my heart overflows
with gratitude when I look back on his goodness." "No such great goodness, methinks," said Betty; "why,
you were born and bred a lady, and are now reduced to live in an alms-house." "Betty, I was born and
bred a sinner, undeserving of the mercies I have received." "No such great mercies," said Betty. "Why,
I heard you had been turned out of doors; that your husband had broke; and that you had been in danger
of starving, though I did not know what was become of you." "It is all true, Betty, glory be to God! it is
all true."
"Well," said Betty, "you are an odd sort of a gentlewoman. If from a prosperous condition I had been
made a bankrupt, a widow, and a beggar, I should have thought it no such mighty matter to be thankful
for: but there is no accounting for taste. The neighbors used to say that all your troubles must needs be a
judgment upon you; but I who knew how good you were, thought it very hard you should suffer so much;
but now I see you reduced to an alms-house, I beg your pardon, madam, but I am afraid the neighbors
were in the right, and that so many misfortunes could never have happened to you without you had
committed a great many sins to deserve them; for I always thought that God
50
is so just that he punishes us for all our bad actions, and rewards us for all our good ones." "So he does,
Betty; but he does it in his own way, and at his own time, and not according to our notions of good and
evil; for his ways are not as our ways. God, indeed, punishes the bad, and rewards the good; but he does
not do it fully and finally in this world. Indeed he does not set such a value on outward things as to make
riches, and rank, and beauty, and health, the reward of piety; that would be acting like weak and erring
men, and not like a just and holy God. Our belief in a future state of rewards and punishments is not
always so strong as it ought to be, even now; but how totally would our faith fail, if we regularly saw
every thing made even in this world. We shall lose nothing by having pay-day put off. The longest
voyages make the best returns. So far am I from thinking that God is less just, and future happiness less
certain, because I see the wicked sometimes prosper, and the righteous suffer in this world, that I am
rather led to believe that God is more just and heaven more certain: for, in the first place, God will not
put off his favorite children with so poor a lot as the good things of this world; and next, seeing that the
best men here below do not often attain to the best things; why it only serves to strengthen my belief that
they are not the best things in His eye; and He has most assuredly reserved for those that love Him such
'good things as eye has not seen nor ear heard.' God, by keeping man in Paradise while he was innocent,
and turning him into this world as soon as he had sinned, gave a plain proof that he never intended the
world, even in its happiest state, as a place of reward. My father gave me good principles and useful
knowledge; and while he taught me by a habit of constant employment to be, if I may so say, independent
of the world; yet he led me to a constant sense of dependence on God--" "I do not see, however,"
interrupted Mrs. Betty, "that your religion has been of any use to you. It has been so far from preserving
you from trouble, that I think you have had more than the usual share."
51
22
Phaedo; Or, The Immortality Of The
Soul, a non-fiction book by Plato
(429–347 B.C.E)
http://www.readbookonline.net/read/40305/80871/
Literally Translated By Henry Cary, M.A.
This dialogue presents us with an account of the manner In which Socrates spent the last day of his, life,
and how he met his death. The main subject is that of the soul's immortality, which Socrates takes upon
himself to prove with as much certainty as it is possible for the human mind to arrive at. The question
itself, though none could be better suited to the occasion, arises simply and He begins[1] by stating that
philosophy itself is nothing else than a preparation for and meditation on death. Death and philosophy
have this in common: death separates the soul from the body; philosophy draws off the mind from bodily
things to the contemplation of truth and virtue: for he is not a true philosopher who is led away by bodily
pleasures, since the senses are the source of ignorance and all evil. The mind, therefore, is entirely
occupied in meditating on death, and freeing itself as much as possible from the body. How, then, can
such a man be afraid of death? He who grieves at the approach of death can not be a true lover of wisdom,
but is a lover of his body. And, indeed, most men are temperate through intemperance; that is to say,
they abstain from some pleasures that they may the more easily and permanently enjoy others. They
embrace only a shadow of virtue, not virtue itself, since they estimate the value of all things by the
pleasures they afford. Whereas the philosopher purifies his mind from all such things, and pursues virtue
and wisdom for their own sakes. This course Socrates himself has pursued to the utmost of his ability,
with what success he should shortly know; and on these grounds he did not repine at leaving his friends
in this world, being persuaded that in another he should meet with good masters and good friends.
50
Upon this Cebes[2] says that he agrees with all else that had been said, but can not help entertaining
doubts of what will become of the soul when separated from the body, for the common opinion is that it
is dispersed and vanishes like breath or smoke, and no longer exists anywhere. Socrates, therefore,
proposes to inquire into the probability of the case, a fit employment for him under his present
circumstances.
His first argument[3] is drawn from the ancient belief prevalent among men, that souls departing hence
exist in Hades, and are produced again from the dead. If this be true, it must follow that our souls are
there, for they could not be produced again if they did not exist; and its truth is confirmed by this, that it
is a general law of nature that contraries are produced from contraries--the greater from the less, strong
from weak, slow from swift, heat from cold, and in like manner life from death, and vice versa. To
explain this more clearly, he proceeds to show that what is changed passes from one state to another, and
so undergoes three different states--first, the actual state; then the transition; and, thirdly, the new state;
as from a state of sleep, by awaking to being awake. In like manner birth is a transition from a state of
death to life, and dying from life to death; so that the soul, by the act of dying, only passes to another
state. If it were not so, all nature would in time become dead, just as if people did not awake out of sleep
all would at last be buried in eternal sleep. Whence the conclusion is that the souls of men are not
annihilated by death.
51
23
Of
Drunkenness
Montaigne
(1533 – 1592)
http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/22194/
There is in this as great diversity as in anything whatever. The confounding of the order and measure
of sins is dangerous: murderers, traitors, and tyrants get too much by it, and it is not reasonable they
should flatter their consciences, because another man is idle, lascivious, or not assiduous at his
devotion. Every one overrates the offence of his companions, but extenuates his own. Our very
instructors themselves rank them sometimes, in my opinion, very ill. As Socrates said that the principal
office of wisdom was to distinguish good from evil, we, the best of whom are vicious, ought also to say
the same of the science of distinguishing betwixt vice and vice, without which, and that very exactly
performed, the virtuous and the wicked will remain confounded and unrecognised.
Now, amongst the rest, drunkenness seems to me to be a gross and brutish vice. The soul has greater
part in the rest, and there are some vices that have something, if a man may so say, of generous in
them; there are vices wherein there is a mixture of knowledge, diligence, valour, prudence, dexterity,
and address; this one is totally corporeal and earthly. And the rudest nation this day in Europe is that
alone where it is in fashion. Other vices discompose the understanding: this totally overthrows it and
renders the body stupid:
52
"Cum vini vis penetravit . . .
Consequitur gravitas membrorum, praepediuntur
Crura vacillanti, tardescit lingua, madet mens,
Nant oculi; clamor, singultus, jurgia, gliscunt."
["When the power of wine has penetrated us, a heaviness of the limbs follows, the legs of the tottering
person are impeded; the tongue grows torpid, the mind is dimmed, the eyes swim; noise, hiccup, and
quarrels arise.--"Lucretius, i. 3, 475.]
The worst state of man is that wherein he loses the knowledge and government of himself. And 'tis
said amongst other things upon this subject, that, as the must fermenting in a vessel, works up to the
top whatever it has in the bottom, so wine, in those who have drunk beyond measure, vents the most
inward secrets:
"Tu sapientum
Curas et arcanum jocoso
Consilium retegis Lyaeo."
["Thou disclosest to the merry Lyacus the cares and secret
counsel of the wise."--Horace, Od., xxi. 1, 114.]
[Lyacus, a name given to Bacchus.]
53
24
The Divine
Comedy Dante
Alighieri (1265-
1321)
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/d/dante/d19he/25
Dante Alighieri
The Divine Comedy: Hell
Canto III
“THROUGH me you pass into the city of
woe: Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of my fabric mov’d:
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.”
Such characters in colour dim I
mark’d Over a portal’s lofty arch
inscrib’d:
Whereat I thus: “Master, these words import
54
Hard meaning.” He as one prepar’d replied:
“Here thou must all distrust behind thee leave;
Here be vile fear extinguish’d. We are come
Where I have told thee we shall see the souls
To misery doom’d, who intellectual good
Have lost.” And when his hand he had stretch’d forth
To mine, with pleasant looks, whence I was cheer’d,
Into that secret place he led me on.
Here sighs with lamentations and loud moans
Resounded through the air pierc’d by no star,
That e’en I wept at entering. Various tongues,
Horrible languages, outcries of woe,
Accents of anger, voices deep and hoarse,
With hands together smote that swell’d the sounds,
Made up a tumult, that for ever whirls
Round through that air with solid darkness stain’d,
Like to the sand that in the whirlwind flies.
I then, with error yet encompass’d, cried:
“O master! What is this I hear? What race
Are these, who seem so overcome with woe?”
He thus to me: “This miserable fate
Suffer the wretched souls of those, who liv’d
Without or praise or blame, with that ill band
Of angels mix’d, who nor rebellious prov’d
Nor yet were true to God, but for themselves
Were only. From his bounds Heaven drove them forth,
Not to impair his lustre, nor the depth
Of Hell receives them, lest th’ accursed tribe
Should glory thence with exultation vain.”
I then: “Master! what doth aggrieve them thus,
55
That they lament so loud?” He straight replied:
56
“That will I tell thee briefly. These of death
No hope may entertain: and their blind life
So meanly passes, that all other lots
They envy. Fame of them the world hath none,
Nor suffers; mercy and justice scorn them both.
Speak not of them, but look, and pass them by.”
And I, who straightway look’d, beheld a
flag, Which whirling ran around so rapidly,
That it no pause obtain’d: and following came
Such a long train of spirits, I should ne’er
Have thought, that death so many had despoil’d.
When some of these I recogniz’d, I saw
And knew the shade of him, who to base fear
Yielding, abjur’d his high estate. Forthwith
I understood for certain this the tribe
Of those ill spirits both to God displeasing
And to his foes. These wretches, who ne’er lived,
Went on in nakedness, and sorely stung
By wasps and hornets, which bedew’d their cheeks
With blood, that mix’d with tears dropp’d to their feet,
And by disgustful worms was gather’d there.
Then looking farther onwards I beheld
A throng upon the shore of a great stream:
Whereat I thus: “Sir! grant me now to know
Whom here we view, and whence impell’d they seem
So eager to pass o’er, as I discern
Through the blear light?” He thus to me in few:
“This shalt thou know, soon as our steps arrive
Beside the woeful tide of Acheron.”
57
Then with eyes downward cast and fill’d with shame,
Fearing my words offensive to his ear,
58
Till we had reach’d the river, I from speech
Abstain’d. And lo! toward us in a bark
Comes on an old man hoary white with eld,
Crying, “Woe to you wicked spirits! hope not
Ever to see the sky again. I come
To take you to the other shore across,
Into eternal darkness, there to dwell
In fierce heat and in ice. And thou, who there
Standest, live spirit! get thee hence, and leave
These who are dead.” But soon as he beheld
I left them not, “By other way,” said he,
“By other haven shalt thou come to shore,
Not by this passage; thee a nimbler boat
Must carry.” Then to him thus spake my guide:
“Charon! thyself torment not: so ’t is will’d,
Where will and power are one: ask thou no more.”
Straightway in silence fell the shaggy cheeks
Of him the boatman o’er the livid lake,
Around whose eyes glar’d wheeling flames. Meanwhile
Those spirits, faint and naked, color chang’d,
And gnash’d their teeth, soon as the cruel words
They heard. God and their parents they blasphem’d,
The human kind, the place, the time, and seed
That did engender them and give them birth.
Then all together sorely wailing drew
To the curs’d strand, that every man must pass
Who fears not God. Charon, demoniac form,
With eyes of burning coal, collects them all,
Beck’ning, and each, that lingers, with his oar
Strikes. As fall off the light autumnal leaves,
One still another following, till the bough
59
Strews all its honours on the earth beneath;
E’en in like manner Adam’s evil brood
Cast themselves one by one down from the shore,
Each at a beck, as falcon at his call.
Thus go they over through the umber’d wave,
And ever they on the opposing bank
Be landed, on this side another throng
Still gathers. “Son,” thus spake the courteous guide,
“Those, who die subject to the wrath of God,
All here together come from every clime,
And to o’erpass the river are not loth:
For so heaven’s justice goads them on, that fear
Is turn’d into desire. Hence ne’er hath past Good
spirit. If of thee Charon complain,
Now mayst thou know the import of his words.”
This said, the gloomy region trembling shook
So terribly, that yet with clammy dews
Fear chills my brow. The sad earth gave a blast,
That, lightening, shot forth a vermilion flame,
Which all my senses conquer’d quite, and I
Down dropp’d, as one with sudden slumber seiz’d.
60
25
The Toys Of Peace
Saki
Hector Hugh Munro
(Dec 18, 1870 - Nov 14,
1916)
http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/828/
"Harvey," said Eleanor Bope, handing her brother a cutting from a London morning paper of the 19th of
March, "just read this about children's toys, please; it exactly carries out some of our ideas about
influence and upbringing."
"In the view of the National Peace Council," ran the extract, "there are grave objections to presenting
our boys with regiments of fighting men, batteries of guns, and squadrons of 'Dreadnoughts.' Boys, the
Council admits, naturally love fighting and all the panoply of war . . . but that is no reason for
encouraging, and perhaps giving permanent form to, their primitive instincts. At the Children's Welfare
Exhibition, which opens at Olympia in three weeks' time, the Peace Council will make an alternative
suggestion to parents in the shape of an exhibition of 'peace toys.' In front of a specially- painted
representation of the Peace Palace at The Hague will be grouped, not miniature soldiers but miniature
civilians, not guns but ploughs and the tools of industry . . . It is hoped that manufacturers may take a
hint from the exhibit, which will bear fruit in the toy shops."
"The idea is certainly an interesting and very well-meaning one," said Harvey; "whether it would
succeed well in practice--"
61
"We must try," interrupted his sister; "you are coming down to us at Easter, and you always bring the
boys some toys, so that will be an excellent opportunity for you to inaugurate the new experiment. Go
about in the shops and buy any little toys and models that have special bearing on civilian life in its more
peaceful aspects. Of course you must explain the toys to the children and interest them in the new idea.
I regret to say that the 'Siege of Adrianople' toy, that their Aunt Susan sent them, didn't need any
explanation; they knew all the uniforms and flags, and even the names of the respective commanders,
and when I heard them one day using what seemed to be the most objectionable language they said it
was Bulgarian words of command; of course it MAY have been, but at any rate I took the toy away from
them. Now I shall expect your Easter gifts to give quite a new impulse and direction to the children's
minds; Eric is not eleven yet, and Bertie is only nine-and-a-half, so they are really at a most
impressionable age."
"There is primitive instinct to be taken into consideration, you know," said Henry doubtfully, "and
hereditary tendencies as well. One of their great-uncles fought in the most intolerant fashion at Inkerman-
-he was specially mentioned in dispatches, I believe--and their great-grandfather smashed all his Whig
neighbours' hot houses when the great Reform Bill was passed. Still, as you say, they are at an
impressionable age. I will do my best."
On Easter Saturday Harvey Bope unpacked a large, promising-looking red cardboard box under the
expectant eyes of his nephews. "Your uncle has brought you the newest thing in toys," Eleanor had said
impressively, and youthful anticipation had been anxiously divided between Albanian soldiery and a
Somali camel-corps. Eric was hotly in favour of the latter contingency. "There would be Arabs on
horseback," he whispered; "the Albanians have got jolly uniforms, and they fight all day long, and all
night, too, when there's a moon, but the country's rocky, so they've got no cavalry."
A quantity of crinkly paper shavings was the first thing that met the view when the lid was removed; the
most exiting toys always began like that. Harvey pushed back the top layer and drew forth a square,
rather featureless building.
"It's a fort!" exclaimed Bertie.
"It isn't, it's the palace of the Mpret of Albania," said Eric, immensely proud of his knowledge of the
exotic title; "it's got no windows, you see, so that passers-by can't fire in at the Royal Family."
62
"It's a municipal dust-bin," said Harvey hurriedly; "you see all the refuse and litter of a town is
collected there, instead of lying about and injuring the health of the citizens."
60
In an awful silence he disinterred a little lead figure of a man in black clothes.
"That," he said, "is a distinguished civilian, John Stuart Mill. He was an authority on political
economy."
"Why?" asked Bertie.
"Well, he wanted to be; he thought it was a useful thing to be."
Bertie gave an expressive grunt, which conveyed his opinion that there was no accounting for tastes.
Another square building came out, this time with windows and chimneys.
"A model of the Manchester branch of the Young Women's Christian Association," said Harvey.
"Are there any lions?" asked Eric hopefully. He had been reading Roman history and thought that where
you found Christians you might reasonably expect to find a few lions.
"There are no lions," said Harvey. "Here is another civilian, Robert Raikes, the founder of Sunday
schools, and here is a model of a municipal wash-house. These little round things are loaves backed in a
sanitary bakehouse. That lead figure is a sanitary inspector, this one is a district councillor, and this one
is an official of the Local Government Board."
"What does he do?" asked Eric wearily.
"He sees to things connected with his Department," said Harvey. "This box with a slit in it is a ballot-
box. Votes are put into it at election times."
"What is put into it at other times?" asked Bertie.
60
"Nothing. And here are some tools of industry, a wheelbarrow and a hoe, and I think these are meant for
hop-poles. This is a model beehive, and that is a ventilator, for ventilating sewers. This seems to be
another municipal dust-bin--no, it is a model of a school of art and public library. This little lead figure
is Mrs. Hemans, a poetess, and this is Rowland Hill, who introduced the system of penny postage. This
is Sir John Herschel, the eminent astrologer."
"Are we to play with these civilian figures?" asked Eric.
61
"Of course," said Harvey, "these are toys; they are meant to be played with." "But
how?"
It was rather a poser. "You might make two of them contest a seat in Parliament," said Harvey, "an have
an election--"
"With rotten eggs, and free fights, and ever so many broken heads!" exclaimed Eric.
"And noses all bleeding and everybody drunk as can be," echoed Bertie, who had carefully studied one
of Hogarth's pictures.
"Nothing of the kind," said Harvey, "nothing in the least like that. Votes will be put in the ballot-box,
and the Mayor will count them-- and he will say which has received the most votes, and then the two
candidates will thank him for presiding, and each will say that the contest has been conducted throughout
in the pleasantest and most straightforward fashion, and they part with expressions of mutual esteem.
There's a jolly game for you boys to play. I never had such toys when I was young."
"I don't think we'll play with them just now," said Eric, with an entire absence of the enthusiasm that his
uncle had shown; "I think perhaps we ought to do a little of our holiday task. It's history this time; we've
got to learn up something about the Bourbon period in France."
"The Bourbon period," said Harvey, with some disapproval in his voice.
"We've got to know something about Louis the Fourteenth," continued Eric; "I've learnt the names of all
the principal battles already."
This would never do. "There were, of course, some battles fought during his reign," said Harvey, "but I
fancy the accounts of them were much exaggerated; news was very unreliable in those days, and there
were practically no war correspondents, so generals and commanders could magnify every little skirmish
they engaged in till they reached the proportions of decisive battles. Louis was really famous, now, as a
landscape gardener; the way he laid out Versailles was so much admired that it was copied all over
Europe."
"Do you know anything about Madame Du Barry?" asked Eric; "didn't she have her head chopped
off?"
62
"She was another great lover of gardening," said Harvey, evasively; "in fact, I believe the well known
rose Du Barry was named after her, and now I think you had better play for a little and leave your lessons
till later."
63
Harvey retreated to the library and spent some thirty or forty minutes in wondering whether it would be
possible to compile a history, for use in elementary schools, in which there should be no prominent
mention of battles, massacres, murderous intrigues, and violent deaths. The York and Lancaster period
and the Napoleonic era would, he admitted to himself, present considerable difficulties, and the Thirty
Years' War would entail something of a gap if you left it out altogether. Still, it would be something
gained if, at a highly impressionable age, children could be got to fix their attention on the invention of
calico printing instead of the Spanish Armada or the Battle of Waterloo.
It was time, he thought, to go back to the boys' room, and see how they were getting on with their peace
toys. As he stood outside the door he could hear Eric's voice raised in command; Bertie chimed in now
and again with a helpful suggestion.
"That is Louis the Fourteenth," Eric was saying, "that one in knee- breeches, that Uncle said invented
Sunday schools. It isn't a bit like him, but it'll have to do."
"We'll give him a purple coat from my paintbox by and by," said Bertie.
"Yes, an' red heels. That is Madame de Maintenon, that one he called Mrs. Hemans. She begs Louis not
to go on this expedition, but he turns a deaf ear. He takes Marshal Saxe with him, and we must pretend
that they have thousands of men with them. The watchword is Qui vive? and the answer is L'etat c'est
moi--that was one of his favourite remarks, you know. They land at Manchester in the dead of the night,
and a Jacobite conspirator gives them the keys of the fortress."
Peeping in through the doorway Harvey observed that the municipal dustbin had been pierced with holes
to accommodate the muzzles of imaginary cannon, and now represented the principal fortified position
in Manchester; John Stuart Mill had been dipped in red ink, and apparently stood for Marshal Saxe.
"Louis orders his troops to surround the Young Women's Christian Association and seize the lot of them.
'Once back at the Louvre and the girls are mine,' he exclaims. We must use Mrs. Hemans again for one
of the girls; she says 'Never,' and stabs Marshal Saxe to the heart."
"He bleeds dreadfully," exclaimed Bertie, splashing red ink liberally over the facade of the Association
building.
64
Babbitt
Sinclair Lewis
(February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951)
http://www.readbookonline.net/read/240/7626/
Chapter I - II
There was nothing of the giant in the aspect of the man who was beginning to awaken on the sleeping-
porch of a Dutch Colonial house in that residential district of Zenith known as Floral Heights.
His name was George F. Babbitt. He was forty-six years old now, in April, 1920, and he made
nothing in particular, neither butter nor shoes nor poetry, but he was nimble in the calling of selling
houses for more than people could afford to pay.
His large head was pink, his brown hair thin and dry. His face was babyish in slumber, despite his
wrinkles and the red spectacle-dents on the slopes of his nose. He was not fat but he was exceedingly
well fed; his cheeks were pads, and the unroughened hand which lay helpless upon the khaki-colored
blanket was slightly puffy. He seemed prosperous, extremely married and unromantic; and altogether
unromantic appeared this sleeping-porch, which looked on one sizable elm, two respectable grass-
plots, a cement driveway, and a corrugated iron garage. Yet Babbitt was again dreaming of the fairy
child, a dream more romantic than scarlet pagodas by a silver sea.
"The soldiers rush in and avenge his death with the utmost savagery. A hundred girls are killed"--here
Bertie emptied the remainder of the red ink over the devoted building--"and the surviving five hundred
are dragged off to the French ships. 'I have lost a Marshal,' says Louis, 'but I do not go back empty-
handed.'"
Harvey stole away from the room, and sought out his sister.
"Eleanor," he said, "the experiment--"
"Yes?"
"Has failed. We have begun too late."
25
65
For years the fairy child had come to him. Where others saw but Georgie Babbitt, she discerned
gallant youth. She waited for him, in the darkness beyond mysterious groves. When at last he could
slip away from the crowded house he darted to her. His wife, his clamoring friends, sought to follow,
but he escaped, the girl fleet beside him, and they crouched together on a shadowy hillside. She was
66
so slim, so white, so eager! She cried that he was gay and valiant, that she would wait for him, that
they would sail--
Rumble and bang of the milk-truck.
Babbitt moaned; turned over; struggled back toward his dream. He could see only her face now,
beyond misty waters. The furnace-man slammed the basement door. A dog barked in the next yard. As
Babbitt sank blissfully into a dim warm tide, the paper-carrier went by whistling, and the rolled-up
Advocate thumped the front door. Babbitt roused, his stomach constricted with alarm. As he relaxed,
he was pierced by the familiar and irritating rattle of some one cranking a Ford: snap-ah-ah, snap-ah-
ah, snap-ah-ah. Himself a pious motorist, Babbitt cranked with the unseen driver, with him waited
through taut hours for the roar of the starting engine, with him agonized as the roar ceased and again
began the infernal patient snap-ah-ah--a round, flat sound, a shivering cold-morning sound, a sound
infuriating and inescapable. Not till the rising voice of the motor told him that the Ford was moving
was he released from the panting tension. He glanced once at his favorite tree, elm twigs against the
gold patina of sky, and fumbled for sleep as for a drug. He who had been a boy very credulous of life
was no longer greatly interested in the possible and improbable adventures of each new day.
He escaped from reality till the alarm-clock rang, at seven-twenty.
III
It was the best of nationally advertised and quantitatively produced alarm-clocks, with all modern
attachments, including cathedral chime, intermittent alarm, and a phosphorescent dial. Babbitt was
proud of being awakened by such a rich device. Socially it was almost as creditable as buying
expensive cord tires.
He sulkily admitted now that there was no more escape, but he lay and detested the grind of the real-
estate business, and disliked his family, and disliked himself for disliking them. The evening before, he
had played poker at Vergil Gunch's till midnight, and after such holidays he was irritable before
67
breakfast. It may have been the tremendous home-brewed beer of the prohibition-era and the cigars to
which that beer enticed him; it may have been resentment of return from this fine, bold man- world to a
restricted region of wives and stenographers, and of suggestions not to smoke so much.
68
From the bedroom beside the sleeping-porch, his wife's detestably cheerful "Time to get up, Georgie
boy," and the itchy sound, the brisk and scratchy sound, of combing hairs out of a stiff brush.
He grunted; he dragged his thick legs, in faded baby-blue pajamas, from under the khaki blanket; he sat
on the edge of the cot, running his fingers through his wild hair, while his plump feet mechanically felt
for his slippers. He looked regretfully at the blanket--forever a suggestion to him of freedom and
heroism. He had bought it for a camping trip which had never come off. It symbolized gorgeous
loafing, gorgeous cursing, virile flannel shirts.
He creaked to his feet, groaning at the waves of pain which passed behind his eyeballs. Though he
waited for their scorching recurrence, he looked blurrily out at the yard. It delighted him, as always; it
was the neat yard of a successful business man of Zenith, that is, it was perfection, and made him also
perfect. He regarded the corrugated iron garage. For the three-hundred-and-sixty-fifth time in a year he
reflected, "No class to that tin shack. Have to build me a frame garage. But by golly it's the only thing
on the place that isn't up-to-date!" While he stared he thought of a community garage for his acreage
development, Glen Oriole. He stopped puffing and jiggling. His arms were akimbo. His petulant,
sleep-swollen face was set in harder lines. He suddenly seemed capable, an official, a man to contrive,
to direct, to get things done.
On the vigor of his idea he was carried down the hard, dean, unused-looking hall into the bathroom.
Though the house was not large it had, like all houses on Floral Heights, an altogether royal bathroom
of porcelain and glazed tile and metal sleek as silver. The towel-rack was a rod of clear glass set in
nickel. The tub was long enough for a Prussian Guard, and above the set bowl was a sensational
exhibit of tooth-brush holder, shaving-brush holder, soap-dish, sponge-dish, and medicine-cabinet, so
glittering and so ingenious that they resembled an electrical instrument-board. But the Babbitt whose
god was Modern Appliances was not pleased. The air of the bathroom was thick with the smell of a
heathen toothpaste. "Verona been at it again! 'Stead of sticking to Lilidol, like I've re-peat-ed-ly asked
her, she's gone and gotten some confounded stinkum stuff that makes you sick!"
The bath-mat was wrinkled and the floor was wet. (His daughter Verona eccentrically took baths in
the morning, now and then.) He slipped on the mat, and slid against the tub. He said "Damn!"
Furiously he snatched up his tube of shaving-cream, furiously he lathered, with a belligerent slapping
of the unctuous brush, furiously he raked his plump cheeks with a safety-razor. It pulled. The blade
was dull. He said, "Damn--oh--oh--damn it!"
69
He hunted through the medicine-cabinet for a packet of new razor-blades (reflecting, as invariably, "Be
cheaper to buy one of these dinguses and strop your own blades,") and when he discovered the packet,
behind the round box of bicarbonate of soda, he thought ill of his wife for putting it there and very well
of himself for not saying "Damn." But he did say it, immediately afterward, when with wet and soap-
slippery fingers he tried to remove the horrible little envelope and crisp clinging oiled paper from the
new blade. Then there was the problem, oft-pondered, never solved, of what to do with the old blade,
which might imperil the fingers of his young. As usual, he tossed it on top of the medicine- cabinet,
with a mental note that some day he must remove the fifty or sixty other blades that were also
temporarily, piled up there. He finished his shaving in a growing testiness increased by his spinning
headache and by the emptiness in his stomach. When he was done, his round face smooth and streamy
and his eyes stinging from soapy water, he reached for a towel. The family towels were wet, wet and
clammy and vile, all of them wet, he found, as he blindly snatched them--his own face- towel, his
wife's, Verona's, Ted's, Tinka's, and the lone bath-towel with the huge welt of initial. Then George F.
Babbitt did a dismaying thing. He wiped his face on the guest-towel! It was a pansy- embroidered trifle
which always hung there to indicate that the Babbitts were in the best Floral Heights society. No one
had ever used it. No guest had ever dared to. Guests secretively took a corner of the nearest regular
towel.
He was raging, "By golly, here they go and use up all the towels, every doggone one of 'em, and they
use 'em and get 'em all wet and sopping, and never put out a dry one for me--of course, I'm the goat!--
and then I want one and--I'm the only person in the doggone house that's got the slightest doggone bit
of consideration for other people and thoughtfulness and consider there may be others that may want
to use the doggone bathroom after me and consider--"
He was pitching the chill abominations into the bath-tub, pleased by the vindictiveness of that desolate
flapping sound; and in the midst his wife serenely trotted in, observed serenely, "Why Georgie dear,
what are you doing? Are you going to wash out the towels? Why, you needn't wash out the towels. Oh,
Georgie, you didn't go and use the guest-towel, did you?"
It is not recorded that he was able to answer.
For the first time in weeks he was sufficiently roused by his wife to look at her.
70
IV
71
Myra Babbitt--Mrs. George F. Babbitt--was definitely mature. She had creases from the corners of her
mouth to the bottom of her chin, and her plump neck bagged. But the thing that marked her as
having passed the line was that she no longer had reticences before her husband, and no longer
worried about not having reticences. She was in a petticoat now, and corsets which bulged, and
unaware of being seen in bulgy corsets. She had become so dully habituated to married life that in
her full matronliness she was as sexless as an anemic nun. She was a good woman, a kind woman, a
diligent woman, but no one, save perhaps Tinka her ten-year-old, was at all interested in her or
entirely aware that she was alive.
After a rather thorough discussion of all the domestic and social aspects of towels she apologized to
Babbitt for his having an alcoholic headache; and he recovered enough to endure the search for a
B.V.D. undershirt which had, he pointed out, malevolently been concealed among his clean pajamas
27.
Wuthering Heights
By Emily Bronte
http://www.freeclassicebooks.com/Emily%20Bronte/Wuthering%20Heights.pdf
1801. - I have just returned from a visit to my landlord - the solitary neighbour that I
shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not
believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of
society. A perfect misanthropist's heaven: and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable
pair to divide the desolation between us. A capital fellow! He little imagined how my
heart warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under
their brows, as I rode up, and when his fingers sheltered themselves, with a jealous
resolution, still further in his waistcoat, as I announced my name. 'Mr. Heathcliff?' I said.
A nod was the answer.
'Mr. Lockwood, your new tenant, sir. I do myself the honour of calling as soon as
possible after my arrival, to express the hope that I have not inconvenienced you by my
perseverance in soliciting the occupation of Thrushcross Grange: I heard yesterday you
had had some thoughts - '
'Thrushcross Grange is my own, sir,' he interrupted, wincing. 'I should not allow any one
to inconvenience me, if I could hinder it - walk in!'
The 'walk in' was uttered with closed teeth, and expressed the sentiment, 'Go to the
68
Deuce:' even the gate over which he leant manifested no sympathising movement to the
words; and I think that circumstance determined me to accept the invitation: I felt
interested in a man who seemed more exaggeratedly reserved than myself.
When he saw my horse's breast fairly pushing the barrier, he did put out his hand to
unchain it, and then sullenly preceded me up the causeway, calling, as we entered the
court, - 'Joseph, take Mr. Lockwood's horse; and bring up some wine.'
'Here we have the whole establishment of domestics, I suppose,' was the reflection
suggested by this compound order. 'No wonder the grass grows up between the flags, and
cattle are the only hedge- cutters.'
Joseph was an elderly, nay, an old man: very old, perhaps, though hale and sinewy. 'The
Lord help us!' he soliloquised in an undertone of peevish displeasure, while relieving me
of my horse: looking, meantime, in my face so sourly that I charitably conjectured he
must have need of divine aid to digest his dinner, and his pious ejaculation had no
reference to my unexpected advent.
Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr. Heathcliff's dwelling. 'Wuthering' being a
significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station
is exposed in stormy weather. Pure, bracing ventilation they must have up there at all
times, indeed: one may guess the power of the north wind blowing over the edge, by the
excessive slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house; and by a range of gaunt
thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun. Happily, the
architect had foresight to build it strong: the narrow windows are deeply set in the wall,
and the corners defended with large jutting stones.
Before passing the threshold, I paused to admire a quantity of grotesque carving lavished
over the front, and especially about the principal door; above which, among a wilderness
of crumbling griffins and shameless little boys, I detected the date '1500,' and the name
'Hareton Earnshaw.' I would have made a few comments, and requested a short history of
the place from the surly owner; but his attitude at the door appeared to demand my
speedy entrance, or complete departure, and I had no desire to aggravate his impatience
previous to inspecting the penetralium.
One stop brought us into the family sitting-room, without any introductory lobby or
passage: they call it here 'the house' pre- eminently. It includes kitchen and parlour,
generally; but I believe at Wuthering Heights the kitchen is forced to retreat altogether
into another quarter: at least I distinguished a chatter of tongues, and a clatter of culinary
utensils, deep within; and I observed no signs of roasting, boiling, or baking, about the
huge fireplace; nor any glitter of copper saucepans and tin colanders on the walls. One
end, indeed, reflected splendidly both light and heat from ranks of immense pewter
dishes, interspersed with silver jugs and tankards, towering row after row, on a vast oak
dresser, to the very roof. The latter had never been under-drawn: its entire anatomy lay
bare to an inquiring eye, except where a frame of wood laden with oatcakes and clusters
of legs of beef, mutton, and ham, concealed it. Above the chimney were sundry
villainous old guns, and a couple of horse-pistols: and, by way of ornament, three
gaudily-painted canisters disposed along its ledge. The floor was of smooth, white stone;
the chairs, high-backed, primitive structures, painted green: one or two heavy black ones
lurking in the shade. In an arch under the dresser reposed a huge, liver-coloured bitch
pointer, surrounded by a swarm of squealing puppies; and other dogs haunted other
recesses.
The apartment and furniture would have been nothing extraordinary as belonging to a
homely, northern farmer, with a stubborn countenance, and stalwart limbs set out to
advantage in knee- breeches and gaiters. Such an individual seated in his arm-chair, his
mug of ale frothing on the round table before him, is to be seen in any circuit of five or
six miles among these hills, if you go at the right time after dinner. But Mr. Heathcliff
forms a singular contrast to his abode and style of living. He is a dark- skinned gypsy in
aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman: that is, as much a gentleman as many a
country squire: rather slovenly, perhaps, yet not looking amiss with his negligence,
because he has an erect and handsome figure; and rather morose. Possibly, some people
might suspect him of a degree of under-bred pride; I have a sympathetic chord within
that tells me it is nothing of the sort: I know, by instinct, his reserve springs from an
aversion to showy displays of feeling - to manifestations of mutual kindliness. He'll love
and hate equally under cover, and esteem it a species of impertinence to be loved or
hated again. No, I'm running on too fast: I bestow my own attributes over-liberally on
him. Mr. Heathcliff may have entirely dissimilar reasons for keeping his hand out of the
way when he meets a would-be acquaintance, to those which actuate me. Let me hope
my constitution is almost peculiar: my dear mother used to say I should never have a
comfortable home; and only last summer I proved myself perfectly unworthy of one.
While enjoying a month of fine weather at the sea-coast, I was thrown into the company
of a most fascinating creature: a real goddess in my eyes, as long as she took no notice of
me. I 'never told my love' vocally; still, if looks have language, the merest idiot might
have guessed I was over head and ears: she understood me at last, and looked a return -
the sweetest of all imaginable looks. And what did I do? I confess it with shame - shrunk
icily into myself, like a snail; at every glance retired colder and farther; till finally the
poor innocent was led to doubt her own senses, and, overwhelmed with confusion at her
supposed mistake, persuaded her mamma to decamp. By this curious turn of disposition I
have gained the reputation of deliberate heartlessness; how undeserved, I alone can
appreciate.
I took a seat at the end of the hearthstone opposite that towards which my landlord
advanced, and filled up an interval of silence by attempting to caress the canine mother,
who had left her nursery, and was sneaking wolfishly to the back of my legs, her lip
curled up, and her white teeth watering for a snatch. My caress provoked a long, guttural
gnarl.
'You'd better let the dog alone,' growled Mr. Heathcliff in unison, checking fiercer
demonstrations with a punch of his foot. 'She's not accustomed to be spoiled - not kept
for a pet.' Then, striding to a side door, he shouted again, 'Joseph!'
Joseph mumbled indistinctly in the depths of the cellar, but gave no intimation of
ascending; so his master dived down to him, leaving me vis-à-vis the ruffianly bitch and
a pair of grim shaggy sheep-dogs, who shared with her a jealous guardianship over all
my movements. Not anxious to come in contact with their fangs, I sat still; but,
imagining they would scarcely understand tacit insults, I unfortunately indulged in
winking and making faces at the trio, and some turn of my physiognomy so irritated
madam, that she suddenly broke into a fury and leapt on my knees. I flung her back, and
hastened to interpose the table between us. This proceeding aroused the whole hive: half-
a-dozen four-footed fiends, of various sizes and ages, issued from hidden dens to the
common centre. I felt my heels and coat-laps peculiar subjects of assault; and parrying
off the larger combatants as effectually as I could with the poker, I was constrained to
demand, aloud, assistance from some of the household in re-establishing peace.
Mr. Heathcliff and his man climbed the cellar steps with vexatious phlegm: I don't think
they moved one second faster than usual, though the hearth was an absolute tempest of
worrying and yelping. Happily, an inhabitant of the kitchen made more despatch: a lusty
dame, with tucked-up gown, bare arms, and fire-flushed cheeks, rushed into the midst of
us flourishing a frying-pan: and used that weapon, and her tongue, to such purpose, that
the storm subsided magically, and she only remained, heaving like a sea after a high
wind, when her master entered on the scene.
'What the devil is the matter?' he asked, eyeing me in a manner that I could ill endure,
after this inhospitable treatment.
'What the devil, indeed!' I muttered. 'The herd of possessed swine could have had no
worse spirits in them than those animals of yours, sir. You might as well leave a stranger
with a brood of tigers!'
28
No Exit
By Jean Paul Sartre
http://139.59.27.172/no-exit-jean-paul-sartre-script.pdf
Sartre sought to synthesize many of his philosophical arguments with fiction. Yet in a
play about "self-deception" and "bad faith" the implicit double entendre of characters
"play-acting" to be something they are not and actors pretending to play those characters,
perfectly complements Sartre's straightforward philosophical argument. In effect, No Exit
is a play about the "devouring" gaze of the other and how it restricts one's freedom,
incorporated into the play itself and played out on stage through the gaze of the audience
members. The characters constantly look for mirrors in order to avoid the judging gaze
of each other, while their failure is played out by the constant stare of the play's
spectators.
The play's central themes of freedom and responsibility come from Sartre's doctrine that "existence
precedes essence." Sartre believed that human consciousness, or a "being-for-itself," differed from
inanimate objects, or a "being-in-itself," since humans have the ability to choose and define their
individual characteristics, or essence. But with this freedom of choice comes the absolute responsibility
for one's action. The fear and anxiety of this responsibility leads many people to ignore both their
freedom and their responsibility by letting other people make their choices for them, resulting in bad
faith. This is why Garcin is unable to leave the room when the door opens. He can't handle the
responsibility of confronting his decision to flee his country, and thus leaves it up to Inez to judge him
and define his essence. Similarly, Estelle does not think that she exists unless she looks in a mirror,
seeing herself as others do. When Inez pretends to be her "mirror" and says Estelle has a pimple on her
face, Estelle's bad faith causes her to accept someone else literally creating her essence. Both Estelle and
Garcin are not only "condemned to be free," but are willing to condemn themselves in order to avoid
being free.
This emphasis on bad faith establishes Sartre's underlying argument of the play: "Hell is
other people." Using only three people and an empty room, Sartre evokes scenes of utter
torture and despair. In effect, Inez can't stand Garcin looking at her because she thinks
that he is automatically judging her. Since she thinks that is her own role, she accuses him
of "stealing" her face. Garcin's mere existence thus reduces Inez's feelings of autonomy.
Moreover, both Garcin and Estelle refuse to let go of their pasts, each "looking" at their
friends and loved ones back on earth. They attempt to justify their existence by only
thinking about their past experiences: as Garcin explains, his "fate" is the evaluation of his
past actions by other people. Inez however, sees her past as meaningless and inaccessible,
choosing to exist in the present instead. She insists to the others that "nothing" is left of
them on earth and that "all you own is here." Rather than justify her existence in terms of
the person she used to be, Inez asserts her freedom to choose her essence in the present,
even though she is in hell. She is the only character in the play intent on confronting both
her responsibility and her suffering--an essential step is asserting her existence. As Sartre
explained, "Life begins on the other side of despair."
29
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
By Jules Verne
http://www.freeclassicebooks.com/Jules%20Verne/Jules%20Verne%20-
%20English/Twenty%20Thousand%20Leagues%20under%20the%20Sea.pdf
CHAPTER I
A SHIFTING REEF
The year 1866 was signalised by a re
markable incident, a mysterious and
puzzling phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten. Not to
mention rumours which agitated the ma
ritime population
and excited the
public mind, even in the interior of continents, seafaring men were
particularly excited. Merchants, common sailors, captains of vessels,
skippers, both of Europe
and America, naval officers of all countries,
and the Governments of several States on the two continents, were
deeply interested in the matter.
For some time past vessels had been met by "an enormous thing," a long
object, spindle-shaped, occasionally
phosphorescent, and infinitely
larger and more rapid in its movements than a whale.
The facts relating to this apparition (entered in various log-books)
agreed in most respects as to the shape of the object or creature in
question, the untiring rapidity of its movements, its surprising power
of locomotion, and the peculiar life
with which it seemed endowed. If
it was a whale, it surpassed in size
all those hitherto classified in
3
science. Taking into consideration
the mean of observations made at
divers times--rejecting the timid es
timate of those who assigned to
this object a length of two hundred feet, equally with the exaggerated
opinions which set it down as a mile in width and three in length--we
might fairly conclude that this mysterious being surpassed greatly all
dimensions admitted by the learned ones of the day, if it existed at
all. And that it DID exist was an undeniable fact; and, with that
tendency which disposes the human mind in favour of the marvellous, we
can understand the excitement produced in the entire world by this
supernatural apparition. As to classing it in the list of fables, the
idea was out of the question.
On the 20th of July, 1866, the steamer Governor Higginson, of the
Calcutta and Burnach Steam Navigation Company, had met this moving mass
five miles off the east coast of Australia. Captain Baker thought at
first that he was in the presence of an unknown sandbank; he even
prepared to determine its exact position when two columns of water,
projected by the mysterious object,
shot with a hissing noise a hundred
and fifty feet up into the air. Now, unless the sandbank had been
submitted to the intermittent eruption of a geyser, the Governor
Higginson had to do neither more no
r less than with an aquatic mammal,
unknown till then, which threw up from its blow-holes columns of water
mixed with air and vapour.
Similar facts were observed on the 23rd of July in the same year, in
the Pacific Ocean, by the Columbus, of the West India and Pacific Steam
4
Navigation Company. But this extraordinary creature could transport
itself from one place to another with surprising velocity; as, in an
interval of three days, the Governor Higginson and the Columbus had
observed it at two different poin
ts of the chart, separated by a
distance of more than seven hundred nautical leagues.
Fifteen days later, two thousand mi
les farther off, the Helvetia, of
the Compagnie-Nationale, and the Shannon, of the Royal Mail Steamship
Company, sailing to windward in that portion of the Atlantic lying
between the United States and Europe, respectively signalled the
monster to each other in 42° 15' N. lat. and 60° 35' W. long.
In these simultaneous observations they thought themselves justified in
estimating the minimum length of the mammal at more than three hundred
and fifty feet, as the Shannon and Helvetia were of smaller dimensions
than it, though they measured three hundred feet over all.
30
Treasure Island
By Robert Louis Stevenson
http://www.freeclassicebooks.com/Robert%20Louis%20Stevenson/Treasure%20Island.pd
f
"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest,
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!"
in the high, old tottering voice that seemed to have been tuned and
broken at the capstan bars. Then he rapped on the door with a bit of
stick like a handspike that he carried, and when my father appeared,
called roughly for a glass of rum. Th
is, when it was brought to him, he
drank slowly, like a connoisseur, li
ngering on the taste, and still
looking about him at the cliffs
and up at our signboard.
"This is a handy cove," says he, at length; "and a pleasant sittyated
grog-shop. Much company, mate?"
My father told him no, very little company, the more was the pity.
"Well, then," said he, "this is the berth for me. Here you, matey," he
cried to the man who trundled the barrow; "bring up alongside and help
up my chest. I'll stay here a bit," he
continued. "I'm a plain man; rum
and bacon and eggs is what I want, and that head up there for to watch
ships off. What you mought call me?
You mought call me captain. Oh, I
see what you're at--there"; and he threw down three or four gold pieces
on the threshold. "You can tell me when I've worked through that," said
he, looking as fierce as a commander.
And, indeed, bad as his clothes were,
and coarsely as he spoke, he had
6
none of the appearance of a man who sailed before the mast, but seemed
like a mate or skipper, accustomed to be obeyed or to strike. The man
who came with the barrow told us the mail had set him down the morning
before at the "Royal George"; that he had inquired what inns there were
along the coast, and hearing ours well spoken of, I suppose, and
described as lonely, had chosen it from the others for his place of
residence. And that was all we could learn of our guest.
31
The Prince and the Pauper
By Mark Twain
http://www.freeclassicebooks.com/Mark%20Twain/The%20Prince%20and%20The%20P
auper.pdf
Chapter I. The birth of the Prince and the Pauper.
In the ancient city of London, on
a certain autumn day in the second
quarter of the sixteenth century, a boy was born to a poor family of the
name of Canty, who did not want him. On the same day another English
child was born to a rich family of th
e name of Tudor,
who did want him.
All England wanted him too. England had so longed for him, and hoped for
him, and prayed God for him, that, now that he was really come, the
people went nearly mad for joy. Mere acquaintances hugged and kissed
each other and cried. Everybody took
a holiday, and high and low, rich
and poor, feasted and danced and sang, and got very mellow; and they kept
this up for days and nights together. By day, London was a sight to see,
with gay banners waving from every balcony and housetop, and splendid
pageants marching along. By night,
it was again a sight to see, with its
great bonfires at every corner, and its troops of revellers making merry
around them. There was no talk in all England but of the new baby,
Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales, who lay lapped in silks and satins,
unconscious of all this fuss, and not
knowing that great lords and ladies
were tending him and watching over him--and not caring, either. But
there was no talk about the other baby, Tom Canty, lapped in his poor
rags, except among the family of paupers whom he had just come to trouble
with his presence.
