The Rake's Progress I borrow De Quincey's Confessionsof an Opium Eater, the aforementionedan account of that singularOriental vice,whereupon misplacing the volumein transitfrom the checkpoint, I attemptto capsulizethe book's misadventures only tosuffer taciturnityon the part of the staff until,the duplicityof a continued numbers game inChinese wearingthin and with lassitude similar tothe... more...

                    "The lopped tree in time may grow again,                   Most naked plants renew both fruit and flower;                   The sorriest wight may find release from pain,                   The driest soil suck in some moistening shower:                   Time goes by turns, and... more...

CHAPTER I. THE NEW ARRIVAL AT GOLD CITY. The stage was late at Gold City. It always was. Everybody knew it, but everybody pretended to expect it on time. Just exactly as the old court-house bell up the hill struck six, the postmistress hurriedly opened her door and stood anxiously peering up the street, the loafers who had been dozing on the saloon benches shuffled out and leaned up against the posts,... more...

CHAPTER I HOW PAUL MARTEL FELL OUT WITH SERCQ To give you a clear understanding of matters I must begin at the beginning and set things down in their proper order, though, as you will see, that was not by any means the way in which I myself came to learn them. For my mother and my grandfather were not given to overmuch talk at the best of times, and all my boyish questionings concerning my father left... more...

A visitor should be fed, but this one could eat you out of house and home ... literally! The leech was waiting for food. For millennia it had been drifting across the vast emptiness of space. Without consciousness, it had spent the countless centuries in the void between the stars. It was unaware when it finally reached a sun. Life-giving radiation flared around the hard, dry spore. Gravitation tugged... more...

CHAPTER I. ALLAN LEARNS FRENCH Although in my old age I, Allan Quatermain, have taken to writing—after a fashion—never yet have I set down a single word of the tale of my first love and of the adventures that are grouped around her beautiful and tragic history. I suppose this is because it has always seemed to me too holy and far-off a matter—as holy and far-off as is that heaven which holds the... more...

For combined beauty and interest—varied beauty and historical interest—there is no place “within easy reach of London”, certainly no place within the suburban radius, that can compare with the stately Tudor palace which stands on the left bank of the Thames, little more than a dozen miles from the metropolis and, though hidden in trees, within eye-reach of Richmond. It is not only one of the... more...

THE FOUNTAIN OF THE HINDS. A spring of living water, known in the neighborhood by the appropriate name of the "Fountain of the Hinds," empties its trickling stream under the oaks of one of the most secret recesses of the forest of Compiegne. Stags and hinds, deers and does, bucks and she-goats come to water at the spot, leaving behind them numerous imprints of their steps on the borders of the... more...

CHAPTER I. Mr. Hallam's View of the Development of the Constitution.—Symptoms of approaching Constitutional Changes.—State of the Kingdom at the Accession of George III.—Improvement of the Law affecting the Commissions of the Judges.—Restoration of Peace.—Lord Bute becomes Minister.—The Case of Wilkes.—Mr. Luttrell is Seated for Middlesex by the House of Commons.—Growth of... more...

CHAPTER I. The Dismissal of Silver Phil. "His name, complete, is 'Silver City Philip.' In them social observances of the Southwest wherein haste is a feacher an' brev'ty the bull's eye aimed at, said cognomen gets shortened to 'Silver Phil.'" The Old Cattleman looked thoughtfully into his glass, as if by that method he collected the scattered elements of a... more...