CHAPTER I. ——"How graves give up their dead. And how the night air hideous grows With shrieks!" MIDNIGHT.—THE HAIL-STORM.—THE DREADFUL VISITOR.—THE VAMPYRE. The solemn tones of an old cathedral clock have announced midnight—the air is thick and heavy—a strange, death like stillness pervades all nature. Like the ominous calm which precedes some more than usually terrific outbreak... more...

Chapter I Is it the Ghost? It was the evening on which MM. Debienne and Poligny, the managers of the Opera, were giving a last gala performance to mark their retirement. Suddenly the dressing-room of La Sorelli, one of the principal dancers, was invaded by half-a-dozen young ladies of the ballet, who had come up from the stage after "dancing" Polyeucte. They rushed in amid great confusion, some... more...

Tuesday Night, November 3rd. Theories! What is the good of theories? They are the scourges that lash our minds in modern days, lash them into confusion, perplexity, despair. I have never been troubled by them before. Why should I be troubled by them now? And the absurdity of Professor Black's is surely obvious. A child would laugh at it. Yes, a child! I have never been a diary writer. I have never... more...

FROM “THE JOURNAL OF OCCULTISM”MID-JANUARY, 1907. A strange story comes from the Adriatic.  It appears that on the night of the 9th, as the Italia Steamship Company’s vessel “Victorine” was passing a little before midnight the point known as “the Spear of Ivan,” on the coast of the Blue Mountains, the attention of the Captain, then on the bridge, was called by the look-out man to a tiny... more...

Chapter I It all seemed so real that I could hardly imagine that it had ever occurred before; and yet each episode came, not as a fresh step in the logic of things, but as something expected. It is in such a wise that memory plays its pranks for good or ill; for pleasure or pain; for weal or woe. It is thus that life is bittersweet, and that which has been done becomes eternal. Again, the light skiff,... more...

‘I would rather be an angel than God!’ The voice of the speaker sounded clearly through the hawthorn tree.  The young man and the young girl who sat together on the low tombstone looked at each other.  They had heard the voices of the two children talking, but had not noticed what they said; it was the sentiment, not the sound, which roused their attention. The girl put her finger to her lips to... more...

CHAPTER I—ADAM SALTON ARRIVES Adam Salton sauntered into the Empire Club, Sydney, and found awaiting him a letter from his grand-uncle.  He had first heard from the old gentleman less than a year before, when Richard Salton had claimed kinship, stating that he had been unable to write earlier, as he had found it very difficult to trace his grand-nephew’s address.  Adam was delighted and replied... more...

THE PARASITE I March 24. The spring is fairly with us now. Outside my laboratory window the great chestnut-tree is all covered with the big, glutinous, gummy buds, some of which have already begun to break into little green shuttlecocks. As you walk down the lanes you are conscious of the rich, silent forces of nature working all around you. The wet earth smells fruitful and luscious. Green shoots are... more...

Introduction It was somewhere, I think, towards the autumn of the year 1889 that the thought occurred to me that I might perhaps try to write a little in the modern way. For, hitherto, I had been, as it were, wearing costume in literature. The rich, figured English of the earlier part of the seventeenth century had always had a peculiar attraction for me. I accustomed myself to write in it, to think in... more...

The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitely settled—but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved, precluded the... more...