The Broken Shaft: Tales in Mid-ocean

الغلاف الأمامي
Henry Norman
D. Appleton, 1885 - 223 من الصفحات
A group of first class passengers, aboard the fictitious steamer Bavaria, each tell a tale to amuse the others in their party after the ship has a mid-ocean breakdown.

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الصفحة 73 - ... lesson. Hitherto I have been driven with revolt to what I would not ; I was a bondslave to poverty, driven and scourged. There are robust virtues that can stand in these temptations; mine was not so: I had a thirst of pleasure. But today, and out of this deed, I pluck both warning and riches — both the power and a fresh resolve to be myself. I become in all things a free actor in the world; I begin to see myself all changed, these hands the agents of good, this heart at peace. Something comes...
الصفحة 67 - With the tail of his eye he saw the door — even glanced at it from time to time directly, like a besieged commander pleased to verify the good estate of his defences. But in truth he was at peace.
الصفحة 60 - ... alone, of course; and yet, in the bulk of empty house above him, he could surely hear a stir of delicate footing - he was surely conscious, inexplicably conscious of some presence. Ay, surely; to every room and corner of the house his imagination followed it; and now it was a faceless thing, and yet had eyes to see with; and again it was a shadow of himself; and yet again behold the image of the dead dealer, re-inspired with cunning and hatred.
الصفحة 75 - I will propound to you one simple question," said the other; "and as you answer, I shall read to you your moral horoscope. You have grown in many things more lax; possibly you do right to be so; and at any account, it is the same with all men. But granting that, are you in any one particular, however trifling, more difficult to please with your own conduct, or do you go in all things with a looser rein?" "In any one?" repeated Markheim, with an anguish of consideration. "No," he added, with despair,...
الصفحة 65 - ... mount the stairs, feet fled quietly before him and followed stealthily behind. If he were but deaf, he thought, how tranquilly he would possess his soul ! And then again, and hearkening with ever fresh attention, he blessed himself for that unresting sense which held the outposts and stood a trusty sentinel upon his life. His head turned continually on his neck; his eyes, which seemed starting from their orbits, scouted on every side, and on every side were half rewarded as with the tail of something...
الصفحة 63 - ... change of sentiment, that pale mouth had spoken, that body had been all on fire with governable energies ; and now, and by his act, that piece of life had been arrested, as the horologist, with interjected finger, arrests the beating of the clock. So he reasoned in vain ; he could rise to no more remorseful consciousness; the same heart which had shuddered before the painted effigies of crime, looked on its reality unmoved.
الصفحة 69 - it does! Be helped by you? No, never; not by you! You do not know me yet; thank God, you do not know me ! " "I know you," replied the visitant, with a sort of kind severity or rather firmness. "I know you to the soul.
الصفحة 58 - ... gazed, this bundle of old clothes and pool of blood began to find eloquent voices. There it must lie ; there was none to work the cunning hinges or direct the miracle of locomotion; there it must lie till it was found. Found! ay» and then? Then would this dead flesh lift up a cry that would ring over England, and fill the world with the echoes of pursuit. Ay, dead or not, this was still the enemy. "Time was that when the brains were out," he thought ; and the first word struck into his mind.
الصفحة 56 - We should rather cling, cling to what little we can get, like a man at a cliffs edge. Every second is a cliff, if you think upon it - a cliff a mile high - high enough, if we fall, to dash us out of every feature of humanity. Hence it is best to talk pleasantly. Let us talk of each other: why should we wear this mask? Let us be confidential. Who knows, we might become friends?' 'I have just one word to say to you,
الصفحة 59 - It was impossible, he thought, but that some rumor of the struggle must have reached their ears and set on edge their curiosity ; and now, in all the neighbouring houses, he divined them sitting motionless and with uplifted ear — solitary people, condemned to spend Christmas dwelling alone on memories of the past, and now startlingly recalled from that tender exercise ; happy family parties, struck into silence round the table, the mother still...

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