The Expedition of Humphry Clinkerby Tobias SmollettTo Mr HENRY DAVIS, Bookseller, in London.ABERGAVENNY, Aug. 4.RESPECTED SIR,I have received your esteemed favour of the 13th ultimo, wherebyit appeareth, that you have perused those same Letters, the whichwere delivered unto you by my friend, the reverend Mr Hugo Behn;and I am pleased to find you think they may be printed with agood prospect of success; in as much as the objections youmention, I humbly conceive, are such as may be redargued, if notentirely removed And, first, in the first place, as touching...
RECALLED TO LIFECHAPTER IThe PeriodIt was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other wayin short, the period was so. far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil
THE RED CARPET THERE are moments of great luxury in the life of a secret agent. There are assignments on which he is required to act the part of a very rich man; occasions when he takes refuge in good living to efface the memory of danger and the shadow of death; and times when, as was now the case, he is a guest in the territory of an allied Secret Service. From the moment the BOAC Stratocruiser taxied up to the International Air Terminal at Idlewild, James Bond was treated like royalty. When he left the aircraft with the other passengers he had resigned himself to the notorious purgatory
CHAPTER 1 - RUMBLINGS AND DREAMS 8CHAPTER 2 - VISIONS AND HORIZONS 13CHAPTER 3 - EXPLORATIONS 19CHAPTER 4 - INTRODUCTIONS 24CHAPTER 5 - GETTING CLOSE 30CHAPTER 6 - BUT NOT TOO CLOSE 37CHAPTER 7 - SIMMERING 43CHAPTER 8 - THE DISH 48CHAPTER 9 - SPIRITS 53CHAPTER 10 - BOLT FROM THE BLUE 59CHAPTER 11 - HAND JIVE 65CHAPTER 12 - HANDOFF 67CHAPTER 13 - COLLEGIALITY 72CHAPTER 14 - DANGER SIGNAL 78CHAPTER 15 - MEETING PLACE 82CHAPTER 16 - A FUR HAT FOR THE WINTER 88CHAPTER 17 - FLASH TRAFFIC 94CHAPTER 18 - CLASSICAL MUSIC 100...
It was Jackstraw who heard it first-it was always Jackstraw, whose hearing was an even match for his phenomenal eyesight, who heard things first. Tired of having my exposed hands alternately frozen, I had dropped my book, zipped my sleeping-bag up to the chin and was drowsily watching him carving figurines from a length of inferior narwhal tusk when his hands suddenly fell still and he sat quite motionless. Then, unhurriedly as always, he dropped the piece of bone into the coffee-pan that simmered gently by the side of our oil-burner stove-curio collectors paid fancy prices for what they i
The caretaker stirred when he heard the crunch of tires on gravel. There was barely any light left in the sky, and he had just made coffee and was reluctant to get up. But his curiosity got the better of him. Visitors to Alexandria seldom ventured into the cemetery at Ivy Hill; the historic town on the Potomac had a brace of other, more colorful attractions and amusements to offer the living. As for the locals, not many came out on a weekday; fewer still on a late afternoon when the April rains lashed the sky. Peering through his gatehouse window, the caretaker saw a man get out of an ordin
The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning. Then the soul-erosion produced by high gambling - a post of greed and fear and nervous tension - bees unbearable and the senses awake and revolt from it. James Bond suddenly knew that he was tired. He always knew when his body or his mind had had enough and he always acted on the knowledge. This helped him to avoid staleness and the sensual bluntness that breeds mistakes. He shifted himself unobtrusively away from the roulette he had been playing and went to stand for a moment at the brass rail which surrounde
To even the least sensitive and perceptive beholder the Morning Rose, at this stage of her long and highly chequered career, must have seemed ill-named, for if ever a vessel could fairly have been said to be approaching, if not actually arrived at, the sunset of her days it was this one. Officially designated an Arctic Steam Trawler, the Morning Rose, 560 gross tons, 173 feet in length, 30 in beam and with a draught, unladen but fully provisioned with fuel and water, of 14.3 feet, had, in fact, been launched from the Jarrow slipways as far back as 1926, the year of the General Strike. The M
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
Chapter One Who I am 1 These are the things I know: Outerbridge Island has briny water running beneath its rocks, a subterranean series of narrow channels between the Sound and the Atlantic. You can see the entrances to these channels on the northern side of the island at low tide. These channels feed into the Great Salt Pond on the westerly side of the island before it empties into the sea. It was said that once-upon-a-time, a Dutch trading ship smashed up against the rocks, and local pirates fed upon the treasures found within the hold of the ship. The treasure, it is said, was buried in
The Way of All Fleshby Samuel ButlerCHAPTER IWhen I was a small boy at the beginning of the century I remember anold man who wore knee-breeches and worsted stockings, and who usedto hobble about the street of our village with the help of a stick.He must have been getting on for eighty in the year 1807, earlierthan which date I suppose I can hardly remember him, for I was bornin 1802. A few white locks hung about his ears, his shoulders werebent and his knees feeble, but he was still hale, and was muchrespected in our little world of Paleham. His name was Pontifex....
The Brotherhood of Consolationby Honore de BalzacTranslated by Katharine Prescott WormeleyFIRST EPISODEMADAME DE LA CHANTERIEITHE MALADY OF THE AGEOn a fine evening in the month of September, 1836, a man about thirtyyears of age was leaning on the parapet of that quay from which aspectator can look up the Seine from the Jardin des Plantes to Notre-Dame, and down, along the vast perspective of the river, to theLouvre. There is not another point of view to compare with it in thecapital of ideas. We feel ourselves on the quarter-deck, as it were,...
On HorsemanshipOn HorsemanshipBy XenophonTranslation by H. G. Dakyns1- Page 2-On HorsemanshipIClaiming to have attained some proficiency in horsemanship[1]ourselves, as the result of long experience in the field, our wish is toexplain, for the benefit of our younger friends, what we conceive to be the...
Lavengro, The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priestby George BorrowPREFACEIN the following pages I have endeavoured to describe a dream,partly of study, partly of adventure, in which will be foundcopious notices of books, and many descriptions of life andmanners, some in a very unusual form.The scenes of action lie in the British Islands; - pray be notdispleased, gentle reader, if perchance thou hast imagined that Iwas about to conduct thee to distant lands, and didst promisethyself much instruction and entertainment from what I might tell...
Fabre, Poet of Scienceby DR. G.-V. LEGROS."De fimo ad excelsa."J.-H. Fabre.WITH A PREFACE BY JEAN-HENRI FABRE.TRANSLATED BY BERNARD MIALL.PREFACE.The good friend who has so successfully terminated the task which he felt avocation to undertake thought it would be of advantage to complete it bypresenting to the reader a picture both of my life as a whole and of thework which it has been given me to accomplish.The better to accomplish his undertaking, he abstracted from mycorrespondence, as well as from the long conversations which we have so...
IN WHICH PHILEAS FOGG AND PASSEPARTOUT ACCEPT EACH OTHER, THE ONE AS MASTER, THE OTHER AS MAN.Mr Phileas Fogg lived, in 1872, at No. 7, Saville Row, Burlington Gardens, the house in which Sheridan died in 1814. He was one of the most noticeable members of the Reform Club, though he seemed always to avoid attracting attention; an enigmatical personage, about whom little was known, except that he was a polished man of the world. People said that he resembled Byron, - at least that his head was Byronic; but he was a bearded, tranquil Byron, who might live on a thousand years without growing old.