HOW FEAR CAME The stream is shrunk—the pool is dry,And we be comrades, thou and I;With fevered jowl and dusty flankEach jostling each along the bank;And by one drouthy fear made still,Forgoing thought of quest or kill.Now 'neath his dam the fawn may see,The lean Pack-wolf as cowed as he,And the tall buck, unflinching, noteThe fangs that tore his father's throat.The pools are shrunk—the... more...

A WHITE ROSE Even when Annesley Grayle turned out of the Strand toward the Savoy she was uncertain whether she would have courage to walk into the hotel. With each step the thing, the dreadful thing, that she had come to do, loomed blacker. It was monstrous, impossible, like opening the door of the lions' cage at the Zoo and stepping inside. There was time still to change her mind. She had only to... more...

Socrates: Well, here we are at the appointed time, Meno. Meno: Yes, and it looks like a fine day for it, too. Socrates: And I see our serving boy is also here. Boy: Yes, I am, and ready to do your bidding. Socrates: Wonderful. Now, Meno, I want you to be on your guard, as you were the other day, to insure that I teach nothing to the boy, but rather pull out of his mind the premises which are already... more...

CHAPTER I Crash! Bang! Bang! "The March of the Pilgrims" came to an abrupt end. John Lansing Birch laid down his viola and bow, whirled about, and flung out his arms in despair. "Oh, this crowd is hopeless!" he groaned. "Never mind any other instrument, providing yours is heard. This march is supposed to die away in the distance! You murder it in front of the house. That second... more...

Crawford completed the rehearsal in less than an hour. He listened to the orchestra run through its selections, okayed the song the guest vocalist had chosen, then finished up with a long dialogue between Spud and himself. When it was over he checked timing with the program director, made a few script changes and conferred briefly with a Special Service Officer about the number of troops the auditorium... more...

You who take the trouble to read these reminiscences of the Santa FeTrail may be curious to know how much of them are literally true. The writer of this preface was intimately acquainted with the author of this book, and knows that he has not yielded to temptation to draw upon his imagination for the incidents related herein, but has adhered strictly to the truth. Truth is, sometimes, "stranger... more...

CHAPTER I Mr Verloc, going out in the morning, left his shop nominally in charge of his brother-in-law.  It could be done, because there was very little business at any time, and practically none at all before the evening.  Mr Verloc cared but little about his ostensible business.  And, moreover, his wife was in charge of his brother-in-law. The shop was small, and so was the house.  It was one of... more...

Chapter I: A Mysterious Visitor. The great house at Chad was wrapped in sleep. The brilliant beams of a June moon illuminated the fine pile of gray masonry with a strong white light. Every castellated turret and twisted chimney stood out in bold relief from the heavy background of the pine wood behind, and the great courtyard lay white and still, lined by a dark rim of ebon shadow. Chad, without being... more...

I There are certain things that I feel, as I look through this bundle of manuscript, that I must say. The first is that of course no writer ever has fulfilled his intention and no writer ever will; secondly, that there was, when I began, another intention than that of dealing with my subject adequately, namely that of keeping myself outside the whole of it; I was to be, in the most abstract and... more...

CHAPTER I When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true, too. She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow, and her face was yellow because she had been born in India and had always been ill in one way or another. Her father had... more...