MK Publications - Roman

Anne reveled in the world of color about her. “Oh, Marilla,” she exclaimed one Saturday morning, coming dancing in with her arms full of gorgeous boughs, “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn’t it? Look at these maple branches. Don’t they give you a thrill—several thrills? I’m going to decorate my room with them.” “Messy things,” said Marilla, whose aesthetic sense was not noticeably developed. “You clutter up your room entirely too much with out-of-doors stuff, Anne. Bedrooms were made to sleep in.”

‘You believe me,’ I said gratefully. ‘Of course I do,’ and he held out his hand. ‘I believe everything out of the common. The only thing to distrust is the normal.’ He was very young, but he was the man for my money. ‘I think they’re off my track for the moment, but I must lie close for a couple of days. Can you take me in?’ He caught my elbow in his eagerness and drew me towards the house. ‘You can lie as snug here as if you were in a moss-hole. I’ll see that nobody blabs, either. And you’ll give me some more material about your adventures?’

Mrs. Grose was not too bewildered instinctively to protest. “Ah, how CAN you?” “Because I’m clear. Flora doesn’t want me to know.” “It’s only then to spare you.” “No, no—there are depths, depths! The more I go over it, the more I see in it, and the more I see in it, the more I fear. I don’t know what I DON’T see—what I DON’T fear!” Mrs. Grose tried to keep up with me. “You mean you’re afraid of seeing her again?” “Oh, no; that’s nothing—now!” Then I explained. “It’s of NOT seeing her.” But my companion only looked wan. “I don’t understand you.”

I was more confounded with the money than I was before with the love, and began to be so elevated that I scarce knew the ground I stood on. I am the more particular in this part, that if my story comes to be read by any innocent young body, they may learn from it to guard themselves against the mischiefs which attend an early knowledge of their own beauty. If a young woman once thinks herself handsome, she never doubts the truth of any man that tells her he is in love with her; for if she believes herself charming enough to captivate him, ‘tis natural to expect the effects of it.

‘Look at the way you are shut up here. I said to Clifford: If that child rebels one day you’ll have yourself to thank!’ ‘But Clifford never denies me anything,’ said Connie. ‘Look here, my dear child’—and Lady Bennerley laid her thin hand on Connie’s arm. ‘A woman has to live her life, or live to repent not having lived it. Believe me!’ And she took another sip of brandy, which maybe was her form of repentance. ‘But I do live my life, don’t I?’

For now she need not think about anybody. She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of—to think; well, not even to think. To be silent; to be alone. All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others. Although she continued to knit, and sat upright, it was thus that she felt herself; and this self having shed its attachments was free for the strangest adventures.

Before Rowland could reply a shout from the crow’s-nest split the air. “Ice,” yelled the lookout; “ice ahead. Iceberg. Right under the bows.” The first officer ran amidships, and the captain, who had remained there, sprang to the engine-room telegraph, and this time the lever was turned. But in five seconds the bow of the Titan began to lift, and ahead, and on either hand, could be seen, through the fog, a field of ice, which arose in an incline to a hundred feet high in her track. The music in the theater ceased, and among the babel of shouts and cries, and the deafening noise of steel, scraping and crashing over ice, Rowland heard the agonized voice of a woman crying from the bridge steps: “Myra—Myra, where are you? Come back.”

Only the fact that we are unaware how well our nearest know us enables us to live with them. Love is the most impregnable refuge of self-esteem, and we hate the eye that reaches to our nakedness. If Glennard did not hate his wife it was slowly, sufferingly, that there was born in him that profounder passion which made his earlier feeling seem a mere commotion of the blood. He was like a child coming back to the sense of an enveloping presence: her nearness was a breast on which he leaned.

“Come, come; this is all an effusion of immediate want of spirits, Edward. You are in a melancholy humour, and fancy that any one unlike yourself must be happy. But remember that the pain of parting from friends will be felt by every body at times, whatever be their education or state. Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience—or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope. Your mother will secure to you, in time, that independence you are so anxious for; it is her duty, and it will, it must ere long become her happiness to prevent your whole youth from being wasted in discontent. How much may not a few months do?”

Throw the lumber over, man! Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need—a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing. You will find the boat easier to pull then, and it will not be so liable to upset, and it will not matter so much if it does upset; good, plain merchandise will stand water. You will have time to think as well as to work. Time to drink in life’s sunshine—time to listen to the Æolian music that the wind of God draws from the human heart-strings around us—time to— I beg your pardon, really. I quite forgot.

Were they animals, or people, or was it merely the ghostly hand of the wind that wove together all this rustling and crackling and whirring? He listened. It was the wind gently moving the tree tops. No, it wasn’t, it was people—now he could see distinctly—couples arm in arm, who came up from the lighted city to enliven the darkness with their perplexing presence. What were they after? He could not make out. They were not talking to each other, because he heard no voices. All he could catch was the sound of their tread on the gravel and here and there the sight of their figures moving like shadows past some clear space between the trees, always with their arms round each other, like his mother and the baron in the moonlight.

“We have been privileged to overhear a prehistoric tragedy, the sort of drama which occurred among the reeds upon the border of some Jurassic lagoon, when the greater dragon pinned the lesser among the slime,” said Challenger, with more solemnity than I had ever heard in his voice.

“It was surely well for man that he came late in the order of creation. There were powers abroad in earlier days which no courage and no mechanism of his could have met. What could his sling, his throwing-stick, or his arrow avail him against such forces as have been loose to-night? Even with a modern rifle it would be all odds on the monster.”

I took a walk round the garden three or four times, feeling the need of fresh air. On returning Gowing noticed I was not smoking: offered me another cigar, which I politely declined. Gowing began his usual sniffing, so, anticipating him, I said: “You’re not going to complain of the smell of paint again?”

He said: “No, not this time; but I’ll tell you what, I distinctly smell dry rot.” I don’t often make jokes, but I replied: “You’re talking a lot of dry rot yourself.” I could not help roaring at this, and Carrie said her sides quite ached with laughter. I never was so immensely tickled by anything I have ever said before. I actually woke up twice during the night, and laughed till the bed shook.

“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.” “My beauty you had early withstood, and as for my manners—my behaviour to you was at least always bordering on the uncivil, and I never spoke to you without rather wishing to give you pain than not. Now be sincere; did you admire me for my impertinence?” “For the liveliness of your mind, I did.”

‘‘Ah, that’s not Jekyll’s voice-it’s Hyde’s!’’ cried Utterson. ‘‘Down with the door, Poole.’’

Poole swung the axe over his shoulder; the blow shook the building, and the red baize door leaped against the lock and hinges. A dismal screech, as of mere animal terror, rang from the cabinet. Up went the axe again, and again the panels crashed and the frame bonded; four times the blow fell; but the wood was tough and the fittings were of excellent workmanship; and it was not until the fifth, that the lock burst in sunder and the wreck of the door fell inwards on the carpet.

Poor Gregor Samsa. This guy wakes up one morning to discover that he’s become a “monstrous vermin”.

As he struggles to come to terms with his new body, he realizes that he’s (gasp!) late for his job as a traveling salesman. First his mother, then his father and sister, knock on his bedroom door in an effort to get him out of bed. His supervisor, the office manager, arrives to inquire about his absence. With his parents pleading with the office manager outside his bedroom door and his sister sobbing in another room they’re upset because they think he’s sick or shirking his responsibilities

-Gregor manages to crawl to his bedroom door, open it, and reveal to everyone his shocking new buggy form.