IT WAS nothing out of the ordinary that Mrs. Barry Rackham had made the appointment with her finger pressed to her lips. That is by no means an unusual gesture for people who find themselves in a situation where the best thing they can think of is to make arrangements to see Nero Wolfe. With Mrs. Barry Rackham the shushing finger was only figurative, since she made the date speaking to me on the phone. It was in her voice, low and jerky, and also in the way she kept telling me how confidential it was, even after I solemnly assured her that we rarely notified the press when someone requeste
Aucassin and NicoleteTranslated by Andrew LangINTRODUCTIONThere is nothing in artistic poetry quite akin to "Aucassin andNicolete."By a rare piece of good fortune the one manuscript of the Song-Storyhas escaped those waves of time, which have wrecked the bark ofMenander, and left of Sappho but a few floating fragments. The veryform of the tale is peculiar; we have nothing else from the twelfthor thirteenth century in the alternate prose and verse of the cante-fable. {1} We have fabliaux in verse, and prose Arthurian romances....
Democracy In America, Volume 1by Alexis de ToquevilleTranslator - Henry ReeveBook OneIntroductionSpecial Introduction By Hon. John T. MorganIn the eleven years that separated the Declaration of the Independence of the United States from the completion of that act in the ordination of our written Constitution, the great minds of America were bent upon the study of the principles of government that were essential to the preservation of the liberties which had been won at great cost and with heroic labors and sacrifices. Their studies were conducted in view of the imperfections that experience
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The Queen of Heartsby Wilkie CollinsLETTER OF DEDICATION.-TOEMILE FORGUES.-AT a time when French readers were altogether unaware of theexistence of any books of my writing, a critical examination ofmy novels appeared under your signature in the _Revue des DeuxMoudes_. I read that article, at the time of its appearance, withsincere pleasure and sincere gratitude to the writer, and I havehonestly done my best to profit by it ever since.At a later period, when arrangements were made for thepublication of my novels in Paris, you kindly undertook, at some...
While Europe was a collection of warring tribes and Rome merely another city-state on the Tiber and the people of Israel shepherds in the Judean hills, a little girl could carry a sack of diamonds across the Loni Empire in East Africa and never fear even one being taken from her. If she suffered an injured eye, here alone in all the world were men who could repair it. In any village she could receive a parchment for her jewels, take it to any other village, then collect gems of exactly identical weight and purity. Waters from the great Busati River were stored in artificial lakes and channe
Fire from the sky came thrusting down, a dazzling crooked spear of white light that lived for an instant only, long enough to splinter a lone tree at the jutting edge of the seaside cliff. The impact beneath the howling darkness of the sky stunned eyes and ears alike. Ben winced away from the blinding flash - too late, of course, to do his shocked eyes any good - and turned his gaze downward, trying to see the path again, to find secure places to put down his sandaled feet. In night and wind and rain it was hard to judge how far away the stroke had fallen, but he could hope that the next o
THE BOOK OF BLOOD THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN THE YATTERING AND JACK PIG BLOOD AND STARSHINE IN THE HILLS, THE CITIES THE BOOK OF BLOOD THE DEAD HAVE highways. They run, unerring lines of ghost-trains, of dream-carriages, across the wasteland behind our lives, bearing an endless traffic of departed souls. Their thrum and throb can be heard in the broken places of the world, through cracks made by acts of cruelty, violence and depravity. Their freight, the wandering dead, can be glimpsed when the heart is close to bursting, and sights that should be hidden e plainly into v
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH.ITHE SLEDS WERE SINGING their eternal lament to the creaking of theharness and the tinkling bells of the leaders; but the men and dogswere tired and made no sound. The trail was heavy with new-fallensnow, and they had come far, and the runners, burdened with flint-likequarters of frozen moose, clung tenaciously to the unpacked surfaceand held back with a stubbornness almost human. Darkness was comingon, but there was no camp to pitch that night. The snow fell gently...
FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSENTHE BUTTERFLYby Hans Christian AndersenTHERE was once a butterfly who wished for a bride, and, as maybe supposed, he wanted to choose a very pretty one from among theflowers. He glanced, with a very critical eye, at all the flower-beds,and found that the flowers were seated quietly and demurely on theirstalks, just as maidens should sit before they are engaged; butthere was a great number of them, and it appeared as if his searchwould become very wearisome. The butterfly did not like to take too...
The eyes behind the wide black rubber goggles were cold as flint. In the howling speed-turmoil of a BSA M20 doing seventy, they were the only quiet things in the hurtling flesh and metal. Protected by the glass of the goggles, they stared fixedly ahead from just above the centre of the handlebars, and their dark unwavering focus was that of gun muzzles. Below the goggles, the wind had got into the face through the mouth and had wrenched the lips back into a square grin that showed big tombstone teeth and strips of whitish gum. On both sides of the grin the cheeks had been blown out by the w
THE CAMERA flashes blinded him for a moment. If only he could get the photographers away. But they had been at his side for months now-ever since the first artifacts had been found in these barren hills, south of Cairo. It was as if they too had known. Something about to happen. After all these years, Lawrence Stratford was on to a major find. And so they were there with the cameras, and the smoking flashes. They almost knocked him off balance as he made his way into the narrow rough-hewn passage towards the letters visible on the half-uncovered marble door. The twilight seemed to darken
THE SENIOR partner studied the resume for the hundredth time and again found nothing he disliked about Mitchell Y. McDeere, at least not on paper. He had the brains, the ambition, the good looks. And he was hungry; with his background, he had to be. He was married, and that was mandatory. had never hired an unmarried lawyer, and it frowned heavily on divorce, as well as womanizing and drinking. Drug testing was in the contract. He had a degree in accounting, passed the CPA exam the first time he took it and wanted to be a tax lawyer, which of course was a requirement with a tax firm. He wa
FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSENDELAYING IS NOT FORGETTINGby Hans Christian AndersenTHERE was an old mansion surrounded by a marshy ditch with adrawbridge which was but seldom let down:- not all guests are goodpeople. Under the roof were loopholes to shoot through, and to pourdown boiling water or even molten lead on the enemy, should heapproach. Inside the house the rooms were very high and had ceilingsof beams, and that was very useful considering the great deal of smokewhich rose up from the chimney fire where the large, damp logs of wood...
ClocksClocksby Jerome K. Jerome1- Page 2-ClocksThere are two kinds of clocks. There is the clock that is alwayswrong, and that knows it is wrong, and glories in it; and there is the clockthat is always rightexcept when you rely upon it, and then it is morewrong than you would think a clock _could_ be in a civilized country.I remember a clock of this latter type, that we had in the house when I...
Armadaleby Wilkie CollinsTOJOHN FORSTER.In acknowledgment of the services which he has rendered to thecause of literature by his "Life of Goldsmith;" and inaffectionate remembrance of a friendship which is associated withsome of the happiest years of my life.READERS in generalon whose friendly reception experience hasgiven me some reason to relywill, I venture to hope, appreciatewhatever merit there may be in this story without any prefatorypleading for it on my part. They will, I think, see that it hasnot been hastily meditated or idly wrought out. They will judge...