I had no refuge, no appliances, no human being in the world in whom I could confide. To have told my secret would have given me away—made a mere show and rarity of me. Nevertheless, I was half-minded to accost some passer-by and throw myself upon his mercy. But I knew too clearly the terror and b...
Teddy Henfrey’s First Impressions AT FOUR O‘CLOCK, WHEN it was fairly dark and Mrs. Hall was screwing up her courage to go in and ask her visitor if he would take some tea,ea Teddy Henfrey, the clock-jobber,eb came into the bar. “My sakes! Mrs. Hall,” said he, “but t...
Moreau's explanation stood before my mind, clear and definite, from the moment of my awakening. I got out of the hammock and went to the door to assure myself that the key was turned. Then I tried the window-bar, and found it firmly fixed. That these man-like creatures were in truth only bestial ...
The thudding vibration continued with wearisome persistence. I whispered for the curate several times, and at last felt my way to the door of the kitchen. It was still daylight, and I perceived him across the room, lying against the triangular hole that looked out upon the Martians. His shoulders...
How did men think and what did they think in those remote days of hunting and wandering 400 centuries ago before seed time and harvest began? Those were days long before the written record of any human impressions, and we are left almost entirely to inference and guesswork in our answers to these...
When Mr. Stanley came home at a quarter to six—an earlier train by fifteen minutes than he affected—his sister met him in the hall with a hushed expression. "I'm so glad you're here, Peter," she said. "She means to go." "Go!" he said. "Where?" "To that ball." "What ball?" The question was rhetori...
Ledbetter's Vacation * My friend, Mr. Ledbetter, is a round-faced little man, whose natural mildness of eye is gigantically exaggerated when you catch the beam through his glasses, and whose deep, deliberate voice irritates irritable people. A certain elaborate clearness of enunciation has come w...
Verrall I became representative, I was a man who stood for all the disinherited of the world. I had no hope of pride or pleasure left in me, I was raging rebellion against God and mankind. There were no more vague intentions swaying me this way and that; I was perfectly clear now upon what I mean...
At breakfast next morning their overnight talk seemed to both Sir Richmond and Dr. Martineau like something each had dreamt about the other, a quite impossible excess of intimacy. They discussed the weather, which seemed to be settling down to the utmost serenity of which the English spring is ca...