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It is not true that a rose by any other name will smell as sweet. Were it true, I should call this story "The Great Orley Farm Case." But who would ask for the ninth number of a serial work burthened with so very uncouth an appellation? Thence, and therefore,—Orley Farm. I say so much at commencing in order that I may have an opportunity of explaining that this book of mine will not be... more...

CHAPTER I Some years ago a book was published under the title of "The Pilgrim's Scrip." It consisted of a selection of original aphorisms by an anonymous gentleman, who in this bashful manner gave a bruised heart to the world. He made no pretension to novelty. "Our new thoughts have thrilled dead bosoms," he wrote; by which avowal it may be seen that youth had manifestly gone from... more...

INTRODUCTION BY H.G. WELLS "'But do I see afore me, him as I ever sported with in his times of happy infancy? And may I—may I?' "This May I, meant might he shake hands?" —DICKENS, Great Expectations. I do not know why I should be so overpoweringly reminded of the immortal, if at times impossible, Uncle Pumblechook, when I sit down to write a short preface to Mr.... more...

CHAPTER I PERRINE AND PALIKARE IT WAS Saturday afternoon about 3 o'clock. There was the usual scene; outside the Gates of Bercy there was a crowd of people, and on the quays, four rows deep, carts and wagons were massed together. Coal carts, carts heaped with hay and straw, all were waiting in the clear, warm June sunshine for the examination from the custom official. All had been hurrying to... more...

CHAPTER I. THE hands on the hall-clock pointed to half-past six in the morning. The house was a country residence in West Somersetshire, called Combe-Raven. The day was the fourth of March, and the year was eighteen hundred and forty-six. No sounds but the steady ticking of the clock, and the lumpish snoring of a large dog stretched on a mat outside the dining-room door, disturbed the mysterious... more...

"Well, they're gone!" said Direxia Hawkes. "H'm!" said Mrs. Tree. Direxia had been to market, and, it was to be supposed, had brought home, beside the chops and the soup-piece, all the information the village afforded. She had now, after putting away her austere little bonnet and cape, brought a china basin, and a mystic assortment of white cloths, and was polishing the... more...

“ hope your passenger hasn’t missed his train,” observed the ferryman to Mr. Jimmy Fallows, who sat on the river bank with the painter of his rickety little naphtha launch held loosely in his hand. “Mr. Opp?” said Jimmy. “I bet he did. If there is one person in the world that’s got a talent for missing things, it’s Mr. Opp. I never seen him that he hadn’t just missed gettin’ a... more...

CHAPTER I. MONTE-CRISTO AND THE PRIMA DONNA. The Count of Monte-Cristo was in Rome. He had hired one of the numerous private palaces, the Palazzo Costi, situated on a broad thoroughfare near the point where the Ponte St. Angelo connects Rome proper with that transtiberine suburb known as the Leonine City or Trastavere. The impecunious Roman nobility were ever ready to let their palaces to titled... more...

CHAPTER I. MY FIRST SUPPER PARTY The devil take me if I can remember her name, notwithstanding I dearly loved her, the charming girl! It is strange how rich we find ourselves when we rummage in old drawers; how many forgotten sighs, how many pretty little trinkets, broken, old-fashioned, and dusty, we come across. But no matter. I was now eighteen, and, upon my honor, very unsuspecting. It was in the... more...