FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSENUNDER THE WILLOW-TREEby Hans Christian AndersenTHE region round the little town of Kjoge is very bleak andcold. The town lies on the sea shore, which is always beautiful; buthere it might be more beautiful than it is, for on every side thefields are flat, and it is a long way to the forest. But whenpersons reside in a place and get used to it, they can always findsomething beautiful in it,- something for which they long, even in themost charming spot in the world which is not home. It must be owned...
She was sitting there at her glass, at the fashionable going-out hour, trying to decide between a cluster of crystal grapes and a live gardenia as a shoulder decoration, when someone knocked at the suite door, outside across the adjoining reception room. Whatever her decision was in the matter, she knew it would have a city-wide effect. It meant that for the next few weeks hundreds of young women would either all be wearing clusters of crystal grapes or live gardenias. It was hard to believe that just a couple of brief years ago no one had cared a rap what she stuck on her shoulder. N
This novel is dedicated to Stan, Christopher, Michele and Howard; to Rosario and Patrice; to Pamela and Elaine; and to Niccolo. This novel is dedicated by Vittorio to the people of Florence, Italy. 1 WHO I AM, WHY I WRITE, WHAT IS TO E WHEN I was a small boy I had a terrible dream. I dreamt I held in my arms the severed heads of my younger brother I and sister. They were quick still, and mute, with big fluttering eyes, and reddened cheeks, and so horrified was I that I could make no more of a sound than they could. The dream came true. But no one will weep for me or for them. They have be
1 mander James D. Swanson of the U.S. Navy was short, plump and crowding forty. He had jet-black hair topping a pink, cherubic face, and with the deep permanent creases of laughter lines radiating from his eyes and curving around his mouth, he was a dead ringer for the cheerful, happy-golucky extrovert who is the life and soul of the party where the guests park their brains along with their hats and coats. That, anyway, was how he struck me at first glance, but on the reasonable assumption that I might very likely find some other qualities in the man picked to mand the latest and most pow
The solitary figure in the saffron robes shielded his eyes from the glare and squinted down the glacier to where the enormous black vessel lay, one-third submerged, in the floor of the valley. Allowing for the portion lost below the icy surface of the frozen lake it was easily some three hundred cubits long, at least fifty wide and another thirty high. It had, overall, the appearance of some fantastic barge with a kind of gabled house mounted upon its deck. Its gopher wood timbers were blackened by a heavy coating of pitch and hardened by the petrification of the glacier which had kept it vi
In what felt to him like the first cold morning of the world, he groped for fire. It was a high place where he searched, a lifeless, wind-scoured place, a rough, forbidding shelf of black and splintered rock. Snow, driven by squalls of frigid air, streamed across the black rock in white powder, making shifting veils of white over layers of gray ancient ice that was almost as hard as the rock itself. Dawn was in the sky, but still hundreds of kilometers away, as distant as the tiny sawteeth of the horizon to the northwest. The snowfields and icefields along that far edge of the world were
Norman gave his ivory-handled screwdriver a final twist and secured the last screw into the side panel of the slim brass cylinder. Unclamping it from his vice, he lifted it lovingly by its shining axle, and held it towards the dust-smeared glass of the kitchenette window. It was a work of wonder and that was for certain. A mere ten inches in diameter and another one in thickness, the dim light painted a rainbow corona about its varnished circumference. Norman carried it carefully across to his cluttered kitchen table and, elbowing aside a confusion of soiled crockery, placed it upon the twin
I stood there on the beach and said, "Good-by, Butterfly," and the ship slowly turned, then headed out toward deep water. It would make it back into port at the lighthouse of Cabra, I knew, for that place lay near to Shadow. Turning away, I regarded the black line of trees near at hand, knowing that a long walk lay ahead of me. I moved in that direction, making the necessary adjustments as I advanced. A pre-dawn chill lay upon the silent forest, and this was good. I was perhaps fifty pounds underweight and still occasionally experienced double vision, but I was improving. I had escaped the
The Uncommercial Travellerby Charles DickensCHAPTER I - HIS GENERAL LINE OF BUSINESSAllow me to introduce myself - first negatively.No landlord is my friend and brother, no chambermaid loves me, nowaiter worships me, no boots admires and envies me. No round ofbeef or tongue or ham is expressly cooked for me, no pigeon-pie isespecially made for me, no hotel-advertisement is personallyaddressed to me, no hotel-room tapestried with great-coats andrailway wrappers is set apart for me, no house of publicentertainment in the United Kingdom greatly cares for my opinion of...
To The Last Manby Zane GreyFOREWORDIt was inevitable that in my efforts to write romantic history of thegreat West I should at length come to the story of a feud. For longI have steered clear of this rock. But at last I have reached it andmust go over it, driven by my desire to chronicle the stirring eventsof pioneer days.Even to-day it is not possible to travel into the remote corners ofthe West without seeing the lives of people still affected by afighting past. How can the truth be told about the pioneering ofthe West if the struggle, the fight, the blood be left out? It cannot...
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY IN THE WOODTHERE were formerly a king and a queen, who were sosorry that they had no children; so sorry that it cannotbe expressed. They went to all the waters in the world;vows, pilgrimages, all ways were tried, and all to nopurpose.At last, however, the Queen had a daughter. There wasa very fine christening; and the Princess had for her god-mothers all the fairies they could find in the whole kingdom(they found seven), that every one of them mightgive her a gift, as was the custom of fairies in those days.By this means the Princess had all the perfections imaginable....
THE COMPLEAT ANGLERTHE COMPLEATANGLERIZAAK WALTON1- Page 2-THE COMPLEAT ANGLERTo the Right worshipfulJohn Offleyof Madeley Manor, in the County of Stafford Esquire, My mosthonoured FriendSir, I have made so ill use of your former favours, as by them to beencouraged to entreat, that they may be enlarged to the patronage and...
THE COMPARISON OF TIBERIUS AND CAIUS GRACCHUSWITH AGIS AND CLEOMENESby Plutarchtranslated by John DrydenHAVING given an account severally of these persons, it remainsonly that we should take a view of them in comparison with oneanother.As for the Gracchi, the greatest detractors and their worstenemies could not but allow that they had a genius to virtue beyondall other Romans, which was improved also by a generous education.Agis and Cleomenes may be supposed to have had stronger natural gifts,...
MEMOIRS OF CARWIN THE BILOQUIST [A fragment]MEMOIRS OFCARWIN THEBILOQUIST [A fragment]Charles Brockden Brown1- Page 2-MEMOIRS OF CARWIN THE BILOQUIST [A fragment]Chapter I.I was the second son of a farmer, whose place of residence was awestern district of Pennsylvania. My eldest brother seemed fitted by...
A Dome of Many-Coloured GlassA Dome of Many-Coloured Glassby Amy Lowell1- Page 2-A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass"Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radianceof Eternity."Shelley, "Adonais"."Le silence est si grand que mon coeur en frissonne, Seul, le bruit demes pas sur le pave resonne."Albert Samain....
THE SKETCH BOOKRURAL LIFE IN ENGLANDby Washington IrvingOh! friendly to the best pursuits of man,Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace,Domestic life in rural pleasures past!COWPER.THE stranger who would form a correct opinion of the Englishcharacter must not confine his observations to the metropolis. He mustgo forth into the country; he must sojourn in villages and hamlets; he...