Tuesday, January 21, 2014

CHAPTER IBELOW THE DEAD LINEWhisperings! Always whisperings, low, sibilant, floating errantly from all sides, until they seemed a component part of the drug-laden atmosphere itself. And occasionally another sound: the soft SLAP- SLAP of loose-slippered feet, the faint rustle of equally loose- fitting garments. And everywhere the sweet, sickish smell of opium. It was Chang Foo's, simply a cellar or two deeper in Chang Foo's than that in which Dago...
CHAPTER ITHE GRAY SEALAmong New York's fashionable and ultra-exclusive clubs, the St. James stood an acknowledged leader--more men, perhaps, cast an envious eye at its portals, of modest and unassuming taste, as they passed by on Fifth Avenue, than they did at any other club upon the long list that the city boasts. True, there were more expensive clubs upon whose membership roll scintillated more stars of New York's social set, but the St. James...

Friday, January 17, 2014

CHAPTER I_A new and bold project conceived and executed by Wakefield: The difficulty of making principles agree with practice discussed: Fair promises on the part of an old offender, the hopes they excite and the fears that accompany them_The affair of the pamphlet being removed from my mind, I had leisure to attend to the other difficulty that had lately crossed me; by the possession which Wakefield had illegally taken of effects which he asserted...
CHAPTER I_A cursory glance at law fictions: Legal suppositions endless: The professional jargon of an attorney: An enquiry into the integrity of barristers and the equity of decisions at law: A. and B. or a case stated: A digression from law to philosophy_In the mean time, my application to the law was incessant; and consequently my intercourse with lawyers daily increased. I endeavoured to load my brain with technical terms and phrases, to understand...
CHAPTER I_The pains and penalties of illicit attempts to become rich: The sleep of a gamester: Morning meditations_The pungency of extreme grief acts as a temporary opiate: for a short time it lulls the sufferer to insensibility, and sleep; but it is only to recruit him and awaken him to new torments.When I reached my lodgings, I appeared to myself to have sunk into a state of quiescent resignation. The die was cast. My doom was irrevocable; and...
CHAPTER I_Gloomy thoughts: Filial emotions: A journey to the country: A lawyer's accounts not easily closed: Conscientious scruples: The legacy received and divided: Return to Oxford: More disappointment: Treachery suspected: Arrival at London: Difficulty in choosing a profession_My agitation of mind was too violent to be quickly appeased; it did not end with the day, or with the week; but on the contrary excited interrogatories that prolonged...
The period was now approaching in which I must fix on a profession for life. My choice, as I imagined, was made. There was no place so worthy of or so fit for the display of great talents as the pulpit. This opinion I supposed to be too well founded for any possible arguments to overturn, or even shake. I had heard much of theology from the rector, but more at Oxford. To promote this branch of knowledge the university was first established, and...
CHAPTER I_My birth: Family dignity insulted: Resentment of my grandfather: Parental traits of character_There are moments in which every man is apt to imagine, that the history of his own life is the most important of all histories. The gloom and sunshine, with which my short existence has been chequered, lead me to suppose that a narrative of these vicissitudes may be interesting to others, as well as to myself.In the opinion of some people,...
CHAPTER I.YOU don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly--Tom's Aunt Polly, she is--and Mary, and...

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

CHAPTER II AM A SUBJECT OF CONTENTIONOne midnight of a winter month the sleepers in Riversley Grange were awakened by a ringing of the outer bell and blows upon the great hall- doors. Squire Beltham was master there: the other members of the household were, his daughter Dorothy Beltham; a married daughter Mrs. Richmond; Benjamin Sewis, an old half-caste butler; various domestic servants; and a little boy, christened Harry Lepel Richmond, the squire's...
I. How Brigadier Gerard Lost His EarIt was the old Brigadier who was talking in the cafe.I have seen a great many cities, my friends. I would not dare to tell you how many I have entered as a conqueror with eight hundred of my little fighting devils clanking and jingling behind me. The cavalry were in front of the Grande Armee, and the Hussars of Conflans were in front of the cavalry, and I was in front of the Hussars. But of all the cities which...

Friday, January 10, 2014

CHAPTER IAN INTRODUCTORY DISASTEREarly in the spring of the year 1884 the three-masted schooner _Castor_, from San Francisco to Valparaiso, was struck by a tornado off the coast of Peru. The storm, which rose with frightful suddenness, was of short duration, but it left the _Castor_ a helpless wreck. Her masts had snapped off and gone overboard, her rudder-post had been shattered by falling wreckage, and she was rolling in the trough of the sea,...

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Introductory NoticeWHILE ENGAGED in writing an account of the grand enterprise of Astoria, it was my practice to seek all kinds of oral information connected with the subject. Nowhere did I pick up more interesting particulars than at the table of Mr. John Jacob Astor; who, being the patriarch of the fur trade in the United States, was accustomed to have at his board various persons of adventurous turn, some of whom had been engaged in his own...
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