The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

Robin Hood and the Tinker

Now it was told before how two hundred pounds were set upon Robin Hood’s head, and how the Sheriff of Nottingham swore that he himself would seize Robin, both because he would fain have the two hundred pounds and because the slain man was a kinsman of his own. Now the Sheriff did not yet know what a force Robin had about him in Sherwood, but thought that he might serve a warrant for his arrest as he could upon any other man that had broken the laws; therefore he offered fourscore golden angels to anyone who would serve this warrant. But men of Nottingham Town knew more of Robin Hood and his doings than the Sheriff did, and many laughed to think of serving a warrant upon the bold outlaw, knowing well that all they would get for such service would be cracked crowns; so that no one came forward to take the matter in hand. Thus a fortnight passed, in which time none came forward to do the Sheriff’s business. Then said he, ‘A right good reward have I offered to whosoever would serve my warrant upon Robin Hood, and I marvel that no one has come to undertake the task.
Then one of his men who was near him said, ‘Good master, thou wottest not the force that Robin Hood has about him and how little he cares for warrant of king or sheriff. Truly, no one likes to go on this service, for fear of cracked crowns and broken bones.’
‘Then I hold all Nottingham men to be cowards,’ said the Sheriff. ‘And let me see the man in all Nottinghamshire that dare disobey the warrant of our sovereign lord King Harry, for, by the shrine of Saint Edmund, I will hang him forty cubits high! But if no man in Nottingham dare win fourscore angels, I will send elsewhere, for there should be men of mettle somewhere in this land.’
Then he called up a messenger in whom he placed great trust, and bade him saddle his horse and make ready to go to Lincoln Town to see whether he could find anyone there that would do his bidding and win the reward. So that same morning the messenger started forth upon his errand.
Bright shone the sun upon the dusty highway that led from Nottingham to Lincoln, stretching away all white over hill and dale. Dusty was the highway and dusty the throat of the messenger, so that his heart was glad when he saw before him the Sign of the Blue Boar Inn, when somewhat more than half his journey was done. The inn looked fair to his eyes, and the shade of the oak trees that stood around it seemed cool and pleasant, so he alighted from his horse to rest himself for a time, calling for a pot of ale to refresh his thirsty throat.
There he saw a party of right jovial fellows seated beneath the spreading oak that shaded the greensward in front of the door. There was a tinker, two barefoot friars, and a party of six of the King’s foresters all clad in Lincoln green, and all of them were quaffing humming ale and singing merry ballads of the good old times. Loud laughed the foresters, as jests were bandied about between the singing, and louder laughed the friars, for they were lusty men with beards that curled like the wool of black rams; but loudest of all laughed the Tinker, and he sang more sweetly than any of the rest. His bag and his hammer hung upon a twig of the oak tree, and near by leaned his good stout cudgel, as thick as his wrist and knotted at the end.
‘Come,’ cried one of the foresters to the tired messenger, ‘come join us for this shot. Ho, landlord! Bring a fresh pot of ale for each man.
The messenger was glad enough to sit down along with the others who were there, for his limbs were weary and the ale was good. etc...

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The Jungle Book

Mowgli’s Brothers

Now Rann the Kite brings home the night That Mang the Bat sets free— The herds are shut in byre and hut For loosed till dawn are we. This is the hour of pride and power, Talon and tush and claw. Oh, hear the call!—Good hunting all That keep the Jungle Law! Night-Song in the Jungle.

It was seven o’clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day’s rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips. Mother Wolf lay with her big gray nose dropped across her four tumbling, squealing cubs, and the moon shone into the mouth of the cave where they all lived. ‘Augrh!’ said Father Wolf. ‘It is time to hunt again.’ He was going to spring down hill when a little shadow with a bushy tail crossed the threshold and whined: ‘Good luck go with you, O Chief of the Wolves. And good luck and strong white teeth go with noble children that they may never forget the hungry in this world.
It was the jackal—Tabaqui, the Dish-licker—and the wolves of India despise Tabaqui because he runs about making mischief, and telling tales, and eating rags and pieces of leather from the village rubbish-heaps. But they are afraid of him too, because Tabaqui, more than anyone else in the jungle, is apt to go mad, and then he forgets that he was ever afraid of anyone, and runs through the forest biting everything in his way. Even the tiger runs and hides when little Tabaqui goes mad, for madness is the most disgraceful thing that can overtake a wild creature. We call it hydrophobia, but they call it dewanee—the madness— and run.
‘Enter, then, and look,’ said Father Wolf stiffly, ‘but there is no food here.’
‘For a wolf, no,’ said Tabaqui, ‘but for so mean a person as myself a dry bone is a good feast. Who are we, the Gidur-log [the jackal people], to pick and choose?’ He scuttled to the back of the cave, where he found the bone of a buck with some meat on it, and sat cracking the end merrily.
‘All thanks for this good meal,’ he said, licking his lips. ‘How beautiful are the noble children! How large are their eyes! And so young too! Indeed, indeed, I might have remembered that the children of kings are men from the beginning.’
Now, Tabaqui knew as well as anyone else that there is nothing so unlucky as to compliment children to their faces. It pleased him to see Mother and Father Wolf look uncomfortable.
Tabaqui sat still, rejoicing in the mischief that he had made, and then he said spitefully:
‘Shere Khan, the Big One, has shifted his hunting grounds. He will hunt among these hills for the next moon, so he has told me.’
Shere Khan was the tiger who lived near the Waingunga River, twenty miles away.
‘He has no right!’ Father Wolf began angrily—‘By the Law of the Jungle he has no right to change his quarters without due warning. He will frighten every head of game within ten miles, and I—I have to kill for two, these days.’
‘His mother did not call him Lungri [the Lame One] for nothing,’ said Mother Wolf quietly. ‘He has been lame in one foot from his birth. That is why he has only killed cattle. Now the villagers of the Waingunga are angry with him, and he has come here to make our villagers angry. They will scour the jungle for him when he is far away, and we and our children must run when the grass is set alight. Indeed, we are very grateful to Shere Khan!’
‘Shall I tell him of your gratitude?’ said Tabaqui.
‘Out!’ snapped Father Wolf. ‘Out and hunt with thy master. Thou hast done harm enough for one night.’
‘I go,’ said Tabaqui quietly. ‘Ye can hear Shere Khan below in the thickets. I might have saved myself the message.’
Father Wolf listened, and below in the valley that ran down to a little river he heard the dry, angry, snarly, singsong whine of a tiger who has caught nothing and does not care if all the jungle knows it.
‘The fool!’ said Father Wolf. ‘To begin a night’s work with that noise! Does he think that our buck are like his fat Waingunga bullocks?’
‘H’sh. It is neither bullock nor buck he hunts to-night,’ said Mother Wolf. ‘It is Man.’
The whine had changed to a sort of humming purr that seemed to come from every quarter of the compass. It was the noise that bewilders woodcutters and gypsies sleeping in the open, and makes them run sometimes into the very mouth of the tiger. etc...

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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Chapter I
‘TOM!’
No answer.
‘TOM!’
No answer.
‘What’s gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!’
No answer.
The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never looked THROUGH them for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for ‘style,’ not service — she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well. She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear:
‘Well, I lay if I get hold of you I’ll —‘
She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and punching under the bed with the broom, and so she needed breath to punctuate the punches with. She resurrected nothing but the cat.
‘I never did see the beat of that boy!’
She went to the open door and stood in it and looked out among the tomato vines and ‘jimpson’ weeds that constituted the garden. No Tom. So she lifted up her voice at an angle calculated for distance and shouted:
‘Y-o-u-u TOM!’
There was a slight noise behind her and she turned just in time to seize a small boy by the slack of his roundabout and arrest his flight.
‘There! I might ‘a’ thought of that closet. What you been doing in there?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing! Look at your hands. And look at your mouth. What IS that truck?’
‘I don’t know, aunt.’
‘Well, I know. It’s jam — that’s what it is. Forty times I’ve said if you didn’t let that jam alone I’d skin you. Hand me that switch.’
The switch hovered in the air — the peril was des- perate —
‘My! Look behind you, aunt!’
The old lady whirled round, and snatched her skirts out of danger. The lad fled on the instant, scrambled up the high board-fence, and disappeared over it.
His aunt Polly stood surprised a moment, and then broke into a gentle laugh.
‘Hang the boy, can’t I never learn anything? Ain’t he played me tricks enough like that for me to be look- ing out for him by this time? But old fools is the big- gest fools there is. Can’t learn an old dog new tricks, as the saying is. But my goodness, he never plays them alike, two days, and how is a body to know what’s coming? He ‘pears to know just how long he can torment me before I get my dander up, and he knows if he can make out to put me off for a minute or make me laugh, it’s all down again and I can’t hit him a lick. I ain’t doing my duty by that boy, and that’s the Lord’s truth, goodness knows. Spare the rod and spile the child, as the Good Book says. I’m a laying up sin and suffering for us both, I know. He’s full of the Old Scratch, but laws-a-me! he’s my own dead sister’s boy, poor thing, and I ain’t got the heart to lash him, some- how. Every time I let him off, my conscience does hurt me so, and every time I hit him my old heart most breaks. Well-a-well, man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble, as the Scripture says, and I reckon it’s so. He’ll play hookey this evening, * and [* Southwestern for ‘afternoon"] I’ll just be obleeged to make him work, to-morrow, to punish him. It’s mighty hard to make him work Saturdays, when all the boys is having holiday, but he hates work more than he hates anything else, and I’ve GOT to do some of my duty by him, or I’ll be the ruination of the child.’
Tom did play hookey, and he had a very good time. He got back home barely in season to help Jim, the small colored boy, saw next-day’s wood and split the kindlings before supper — at least he was there in time to tell his adventures to Jim while Jim did three-fourths of the work. Tom’s younger brother (or rather half-brother) Sid was already through with his part of the work (picking up chips), for he was a quiet boy, and had no adventurous, trouble- some ways. etc...

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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

CHAPTER I

YOU don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly — Tom’s Aunt Polly, she is — and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.
Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six thousand dollars apiece — all gold. It was an awful sight of money when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year round — more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn’t stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back.
The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn’t do nothing but sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old thing commenced again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to come to time. When you got to the table you couldn’t go right to eating, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the victuals, though there warn’t really anything the matter with them, — that is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds and ends it is different; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better.
After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then I didn’t care no more about him, because I don’t take no stock in dead people.
Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she wouldn’t. She said it was a mean practice and wasn’t clean, and I must try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don’t know nothing about it. Here she was a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to any- body, being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff, too; of course that was all right, because she done it herself.
Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on, had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now with a spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then the widow made her ease up. I couldn’t stood it much longer. Then for an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would say, ‘Don’t put your feet up there, Huckleberry;’ and ‘Don’t scrunch up like that, Huckleberry — set up straight;’ and pretty soon she would say, ‘Don’t gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry — why don’t you try to be- have?’ Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there. She got mad then, but I didn’t mean no harm. All I wanted was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn’t particular. She said it was wicked to say what I said; said she wouldn’t say it for the whole world; she was going to live so as to go to the good place. Well, I couldn’t see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn’t try for it. But I never said so, because it would only make trouble, and wouldn’t do no good.
Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the good place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn’t think much of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and she said not by a considerable sight. I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together. etc...

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Pride And Prejudice - Jane Austen

Chapter 1

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.
‘My dear Mr. Bennet,’ said his lady to him one day, ‘have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?’
Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.
‘But it is,’ returned she; ‘for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it.’
Mr. Bennet made no answer.
‘Do you not want to know who has taken it?’ cried his wife impatiently.
‘YOU want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.’
This was invitation enough.
‘Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so much delighted with it, that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that he is to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of next week.’
‘What is his name?’
‘Bingley.’
‘Is he married or single?’
‘Oh! Single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!’
‘How so? How can it affect them?’
‘My dear Mr. Bennet,’ replied his wife, ‘how can you be so tiresome! You must know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them.’
‘Is that his design in settling here?’
‘Design! Nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very likely that he MAY fall in love with one of them, and therefore you must visit him as soon as he comes.’
‘I see no occasion for that. You and the girls may go, or you may send them by themselves, which perhaps will be still better, for as you are as handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley may like you the best of the party.’
‘My dear, you flatter me. I certainly HAVE had my share of beauty, but I do not pretend to be anything extraordinary now. When a woman has five grown-up daughters, she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty.’
‘In such cases, a woman has not often much beauty to think of.’
‘But, my dear, you must indeed go and see Mr. Bingley when he comes into the neighbourhood.’
‘It is more than I engage for, I assure you.’
‘But consider your daughters. Only think what an establishment it would be for one of them. Sir William and Lady Lucas are determined to go, merely on that account, for in general, you know, they visit no newcomers. Indeed you must go, for it will be impossible for US to visit him if you do not.’
‘You are over-scrupulous, surely. I dare say Mr. Bingley will be very glad to see you; and I will send a few lines by you to assure him of my hearty consent to his marrying whichever he chooses of the girls; though I must throw in a good word for my little Lizzy.’
‘I desire you will do no such thing. Lizzy is not a bit better than the others; and I am sure she is not half so handsome as Jane, nor half so good-humoured as Lydia. But you are always giving HER the preference.
‘They have none of them much to recommend them,’ replied he; ‘they are all silly and ignorant like other girls; but Lizzy has something more of quickness than her sisters.’
‘Mr. Bennet, how CAN you abuse your own children in such a way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion for my poor nerves.’
‘You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these last twenty years at least.’
Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three-and-twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character. HER mind was less difficult to develop. She was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented, she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news.


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Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

Part I

CHAPTER ONE

We were in class when the head-master came in, followed
by a ‘new fellow,’ not wearing the school
uniform, and a school servant carrying a large desk. Those
who had been asleep woke up, and every one rose as if just
surprised at his work.
The head-master made a sign to us to sit down. Then,
turning to the class-master, he said to him in a low voice—
‘Monsieur Roger, here is a pupil whom I recommend to
your care; he’ll be in the second. If his work and conduct
are satisfactory, he will go into one of the upper classes, as
becomes his age.’
The ‘new fellow,’ standing in the corner behind the door
so that he could hardly be seen, was a country lad of about
fifteen, and taller than any of us. His hair was cut square on
his forehead like a village chorister’s; he looked reliable, but
very ill at ease. Although he was not broad-shouldered, his
short school jacket of green cloth with black buttons must
have been tight about the arm-holes, and showed at the
opening of the cuffs red wrists accustomed to being bare.
His legs, in blue stockings, looked out from beneath yellow
trousers, drawn tight by braces, He wore stout, ill-cleaned,
hob-nailed boots.
We began repeating the lesson. He listened with all his
ears, as attentive as if at a sermon, not daring even to cross his legs or lean on his elbow; and when at two o’clock the
bell rang, the master was obliged to tell him to fall into line
with the rest of us.
When we came back to work, we were in the habit of
throwing our caps on the ground so as to have our hands
more free; we used from the door to toss them under the
form, so that they hit against the wall and made a lot of dust:
it was ‘the thing.’
But, whether he had not noticed the trick, or did not dare
to attempt it, the ‘new fellow,’ was still holding his cap on
his knees even after prayers were over. It was one of those
head-gears of composite order, in which we can find traces
of the bearskin, shako, billycock hat, sealskin cap, and
cotton night-cap; one of those poor things, in fine, whose
dumb ugliness has depths of expression, like an imbecile’s
face. Oval, stiffened with whalebone, it began with three
round knobs; then came in succession lozenges of velvet
and rabbit-skin separated by a red band; after that a sort of
bag that ended in a cardboard polygon covered with complicated
braiding, from which hung, at the end of a long
thin cord, small twisted gold threads in the manner of a tassel.
The cap was new; its peak shone.
‘Rise,’ said the master.
He stood up; his cap fell. The whole class began to laugh.
He stooped to pick it up. A neighbor knocked it down again
with his elbow; he picked it up once more.
‘Get rid of your helmet,’ said the master, who was a bit
of a wag.
There was a burst of laughter from the boys, which so thoroughly put the poor lad out of countenance that he did
not know whether to keep his cap in his hand, leave it on
the ground, or put it on his head. He sat down again and
placed it on his knee.
‘Rise,’ repeated the master, ‘and tell me your name.’
The new boy articulated in a stammering voice an unintelligible
name.
‘Again!’
The same sputtering of syllables was heard, drowned by
the tittering of the class.
‘Louder!’ cried the master; ‘louder!’
The ‘new fellow’ then took a supreme resolution, opened
an inordinately large mouth, and shouted at the top of his
voice as if calling someone in the word ‘Charbovari.’
A hubbub broke out, rose in crescendo with bursts of
shrill voices (they yelled, barked, stamped, repeated ‘Charbovari!
Charbovari’), then died away into single notes,
growing quieter only with great difficulty, and now and
again suddenly recommencing along the line of a form
whence rose here and there, like a damp cracker going off,
a stifled laugh.
However, amid a rain of impositions, order was gradually
re-established in the class; and the master having
succeeded in catching the name of ‘Charles Bovary,’ having
had it dictated to him, spelt out, and re-read, at once ordered
the poor devil to go and sit down on the punishment
form at the foot of the master’s desk. He got up, but before
going hesitated. etc ...


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Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift

PART I—A VOYAGE
TO LILLIPUT.

Chapter I

My father had a small estate in Nottinghamshire: I was
the third of five sons. He sent me to Emanuel College
in Cambridge at fourteen years old, where I resided three
years, and applied myself close to my studies; but the charge
of maintaining me, although I had a very scanty allowance,
being too great for a narrow fortune, I was bound apprentice
to Mr. James Bates, an eminent surgeon in London,
with whom I continued four years. My father now and then
sending me small sums of money, I laid them out in learning
navigation, and other parts of the mathematics, useful
to those who intend to travel, as I always believed it would
be, some time or other, my fortune to do. When I left Mr.
Bates, I went down to my father: where, by the assistance of
him and my uncle John, and some other relations, I got forty
pounds, and a promise of thirty pounds a year to maintain
me at Leyden: there I studied physic two years and seven
months, knowing it would be useful in long voyages.
Soon after my return from Leyden, I was recommended by my good master, Mr. Bates, to be surgeon to the Swallow,
Captain Abraham Pannel, commander; with whom I
continued three years and a half, making a voyage or two
into the Levant, and some other parts. When I came back I
resolved to settle in London; to which Mr. Bates, my master,
encouraged me, and by him I was recommended to several
patients. I took part of a small house in the Old Jewry; and
being advised to alter my condition, I married Mrs. Mary
Burton, second daughter to Mr. Edmund Burton, hosier, in
Newgate-street, with whom I received four hundred pounds
for a portion.
But my good master Bates dying in two years after, and
I having few friends, my business began to fail; for my conscience
would not suffer me to imitate the bad practice of
too many among my brethren. Having therefore consulted
with my wife, and some of my acquaintance, I determined
to go again to sea. I was surgeon successively in two ships,
and made several voyages, for six years, to the East and
West Indies, by which I got some addition to my fortune. My
hours of leisure I spent in reading the best authors, ancient
and modern, being always provided with a good number of
books; and when I was ashore, in observing the manners
and dispositions of the people, as well as learning their language;
wherein I had a great facility, by the strength of my
memory.
The last of these voyages not proving very fortunate, I
grew weary of the sea, and intended to stay at home with
my wife and family. I removed from the Old Jewry to Fetter
Lane, and from thence to Wapping, hoping to get business among the sailors; but it would not turn to account. After
three years expectation that things would mend, I accepted
an advantageous offer from Captain William Prichard,
master of the Antelope, who was making a voyage to the
South Sea. We set sail from Bristol, May 4, 1699, and our
voyage was at first very prosperous.
It would not be proper, for some reasons, to trouble the
reader with the particulars of our adventures in those seas;
let it suffice to inform him, that in our passage from thence
to the East Indies, we were driven by a violent storm to the
north-west of Van Diemen’s Land. By an observation, we
found ourselves in the latitude of 30 degrees 2 minutes
south. Twelve of our crew were dead by immoderate labour
and ill food; the rest were in a very weak condition. On the
5th of November, which was the beginning of summer in
those parts, the weather being very hazy, the seamen spied
a rock within half a cable’s length of the ship; but the wind
was so strong, that we were driven directly upon it, and immediately
split. Six of the crew, of whom I was one, having
let down the boat into the sea, made a shift to get clear of the
ship and the rock. We rowed, by my computation, about
three leagues, till we were able to work no longer, being already
spent with labour while we were in the ship. We
therefore trusted ourselves to the mercy of the waves, and in
about half an hour the boat was overset by a sudden flurry
from the north. What became of my companions in the
boat, as well as of those who escaped on the rock, or were
left in the vessel, I cannot tell; but conclude they were all
lost. For my own part, I swam as fortune directed me, and was pushed forward by wind and tide. I often let my legs
drop, and could feel no bottom; but when I was almost gone,
and able to struggle no longer, I found myself within my
depth; and by this time the storm was much abated. The declivity
was so small, that I walked near a mile before I got to
the shore, which I conjectured was about eight o’clock in
the evening. I then advanced forward near half a mile, but
could not discover any sign of houses or inhabitants; at least
I was in so weak a condition, that I did not observe them. I
was extremely tired, and with that, and the heat of the
weather, and about half a pint of brandy that I drank as I left
the ship, I found myself much inclined to sleep. I lay down
on the grass, which was very short and soft, where I slept
sounder than ever I remembered to have done in my life,
and, as I reckoned, about nine hours; for when I awaked, it
was just day-light. I attempted to rise, but was not able to
stir: for, as I happened to lie on my back, I found my arms
and legs were strongly fastened on each side to the ground;
and my hair, which was long and thick, tied down in the
same manner. I likewise felt several slender ligatures across
my body, from my arm-pits to my thighs. I could only look
upwards; the sun began to grow hot, and the light offended
my eyes. I heard a confused noise about me; but in the posture
I lay, could see nothing except the sky. In a little time I
felt something alive moving on my left leg, which advancing
gently forward over my breast, came almost up to my
chin; when, bending my eyes downwards as much as I could,
I perceived it to be a human creature not six inches high,
with a bow and arrow in his hands, and a quiver at his back. etc...


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Grimm's Fairy Tales - Brothers Grimm

THE GOLDEN BIRD

A certain king had a beautiful garden, and in the garden stood a tree which bore golden apples. These apples were always counted, and about the time when they began to grow ripe it was found that every night one of them was gone. The king became very angry at this, and ordered the gardener to keep watch all night under the tree. The gardener set his eldest son to watch; but about twelve o’clock he fell asleep, and in the morning another of the apples was missing. Then the second son was ordered to watch; and at midnight he too fell asleep, and in the morning another apple was gone. Then the third son offered to keep watch; but the gardener at first would not let him, for fear some harm should come to him: however, at last he consented, and the young man laid himself under the tree to watch. As the clock struck twelve he heard a rustling noise in the air, and a bird came flying that was of pure gold; and as it was snapping at one of the apples with its beak, the gardener’s son jumped up and shot an arrow at it. But the arrow did the bird no harm; only it dropped a golden feather from its tail, and then flew away. The golden feather was brought to the king in the morning, and all the council was called together. Everyone agreed that it was worth more than all the wealth of the kingdom: but the king said, ‘One feather is of no use to me, I must have the whole bird.’
Then the gardener’s eldest son set out and thought to find the golden bird very easily; and when he had gone but a little way, he came to a wood, and by the side of the wood he saw a fox sitting; so he took his bow and made ready to shoot at it. Then the fox said, ‘Do not shoot me, for I will give you good counsel; I know what your business is, and that you want to find the golden bird. You will reach a village in the evening; and when you get there, you will see two inns opposite to each other, one of which is very pleasant and beautiful to look at: go not in there, but rest for the night in the other, though it may appear to you to be very poor and mean.’ But the son thought to himself, ‘What can such a beast as this know about the matter?’ So he shot his arrow at the fox; but he missed it, and it set up its tail above its back and ran into the wood. Then he went his way, and in the evening came to the village where the two inns were; and in one of these were people singing, and dancing, and feasting; but the other looked very dirty, and poor. ‘I should be very silly,’ said he, ‘if I went to that shabby house, and left this charming place’; so he went into the smart house, and ate and drank at his ease, and forgot the bird, and his country too.
Time passed on; and as the eldest son did not come back, and no tidings were heard of him, the second son set out, and the same thing happened to him. He met the fox, who gave him the good advice: but when he came to the two inns, his eldest brother was standing at the window where the merrymaking was, and called to him to come in; and he could not withstand the temptation, but went in, and forgot the golden bird and his country in the same manner.
Time passed on again, and the youngest son too wished to set out into the wide world to seek for the golden bird; but his father would not listen to it for a long while, for he was very fond of his son, and was afraid that some ill luck might happen to him also, and prevent his coming back. However, at last it was agreed he should go, for he would not rest at home; and as he came to the wood, he met the fox, and heard the same good counsel. But he was thankful to the fox, and did not attempt his life as his brothers had done; so the fox said, ‘Sit upon my tail, and you will travel faster.’ So he sat down, and the fox began to run, and away they went over stock and stone so quick that their hair whistled in the wind.
When they came to the village, the son followed the fox’s counsel, and without looking about him went to the shabby inn and rested there all night at his ease. In the morning came the fox again and met him as he was beginning his journey, and said, ‘Go straight forward, till you come to a castle, before which lie a whole troop of soldiers fast asleep and snoring: take no notice of them, but go into the castle and pass on and on till you come to a room, where the golden bird sits in a wooden cage; close by it stands a beautiful golden cage; but do not try to take the bird out of the shabby cage and put it into the handsome one, otherwise you will repent it.’ Then the fox stretched out his tail again, and the young man sat himself down, and away they went over stock and stone till their hair whistled in the wind.
Before the castle gate all was as the fox had said: so the son went in and found the chamber where the golden bird hung in a wooden cage, and below stood the golden cage, and the three golden apples that had been lost were lying close by it. Then thought he to himself, ‘It will be a very droll thing to bring away such a fine bird in this shabby cage’; so he opened the door and took hold of it and put it into the golden cage. But the bird set up such a loud scream that all the soldiers awoke, and they took him prisoner and carried him before the king. The next morning the court sat to judge him; and when all was heard, it sentenced him to die, unless he should bring the king the golden horse which could run as swiftly as the wind; and if he did this, he was to have the golden bird given him for his own.
So he set out once more on his journey, sighing, and in great despair, when on a sudden his friend the fox met him, and said, ‘You see now what has happened on account of your not listening to my counsel. I will still, however, tell you how to find the golden horse, if you will do as I bid you. You must go straight on till you come to the castle where the horse stands in his stall: by his side will lie the groom fast asleep and snoring: take away the horse quietly, but be sure to put the old leathern saddle upon him, and not the golden one that is close by it.’ Then the son sat down on the fox’s tail, and away they went over stock and stone till their hair whistled in the wind.
All went right, and the groom lay snoring with his hand upon the golden saddle. But when the son looked at the horse, he thought it a great pity to put the leathern saddle upon it. ‘I will give him the good one,’ said he; ‘I am sure he deserves it.’ As he took up the golden saddle the groom awoke and cried out so loud, that all the guards ran in and took him prisoner, and in the morning he was again brought before the court to be judged, and was sentenced to die. But it was agreed, that, if he could bring thither the beautiful princess, he should live, and have the bird and the horse given him for his own. etc...

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Dacula - Bram Stroker

Chapter 1

Jonathan Harker’s Journal
3 May. Bistritz.—Left Munich at 8:35 P.M., on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late. Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the streets. I feared to go very far from the station, as we had arrived late and would start as near the correct time as possible.
The impression I had was that we were leaving the West and entering the East; the most western of splendid bridges over the Danube, which is here of noble width and depth, took us among the traditions of Turkish rule.
We left in pretty good time, and came after nightfall to Klausenburgh. Here I stopped for the night at the Hotel Royale. I had for dinner, or rather supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which was very good but thirsty.
(Mem. get recipe for Mina.) I asked the waiter, and he said it was called ‘paprika hendl,’ and that, as it was a national dish, I should be able to get it anywhere along the Carpathians.
I found my smattering of German very useful here, indeed, I don’t know how I should be able to get on without it.
Having had some time at my disposal when in London, I had visited the British Museum, and made search among the books and maps in the library regarding Transylvania;
it had struck me that some foreknowledge of the country could hardly fail to have some importance in dealing with a nobleman of that country.
I find that the district he named is in the extreme east of
the country, just on the borders of three states, Transylvania, Moldavia, and Bukovina, in the midst of the Carpathian mountains; one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe.
I was not able to light on any map or work giving the exact locality of the Castle Dracula, as there are no maps of this country as yet to compare with our own Ordance Survey
Maps; but I found that Bistritz, the post town named by Count Dracula, is a fairly well-known place. I shall enter here some of my notes, as they may refresh my memory
when I talk over my travels with Mina.
In the population of Transylvania there are four distinct nationalities: Saxons in the South, and mixed with them the Wallachs, who are the descendants of the Dacians; Magyars in the West, and Szekelys in the East and North. I am going among the latter, who claim to be descended from Attila and the Huns. This may be so, for when the Magyars conquered the country in the eleventh century they found the
Huns settled in it.
I read that every known superstition in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool; if so my stay may be very interesting. (Mem., I must ask the Count all about them.) etc..


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Around The World In 80 Days - Jules Verne

Chapter I

IN WHICH PHILEAS FOGG AND PASSEPARTOUT ACCEPT EACH OTHER, THE ONE AS MASTER, THE OTHER AS MAN

Mr. Phileas Fogg lived, in 1872, at No. 7, Saville Row, Burlington Gardens, the house in which Sheridan died in 1814. He was one of the most noticeable members of the Reform Club, though he seemed always to avoid attracting attention; an enigmatical personage, about whom little was known, except that he was a polished man of the world. People said that he resembled Byron—at least that his head was Byronic; but he was a bearded, tranquil Byron, who might live on a thousand years without growing old.
Certainly an Englishman, it was more doubtful whether Phileas Fogg was a Londoner. He was never seen on ‘Change, nor at the Bank, nor in the counting-rooms of the ‘City"; no ships ever came into London docks of which he was the owner; he had no public employment; he had never been entered at any of the Inns of Court, either at the Temple, or Lincoln’s Inn, or Gray’s Inn; nor had his voice ever resounded in the Court of Chancery, or in the Exchequer, or the Queen’s Bench, or the Ecclesiastical Courts. He certainly was not a manufacturer; nor was he a merchant or a gentleman farmer. His name was strange to the scientific and learned societies, and he never was known to take part in the sage deliberations of the Royal Institution or the London Institution, the Artisan’s Association, or the Institution of Arts and Sciences. He belonged, in fact, to none of the numerous societies which swarm in the English capital, from the Harmonic to that of the Entomologists, founded mainly for the purpose of abolishing pernicious insects.
Phileas Fogg was a member of the Reform, and that was all.
The way in which he got admission to this exclusive club was simple enough.
He was recommended by the Barings, with whom he had an open credit. His cheques were regularly paid at sight from his account current, which was always flush.
Was Phileas Fogg rich? Undoubtedly. But those who knew him best could not imagine how he had made his fortune, and Mr. Fogg was the last person to whom to apply for the information. He was not lavish, nor, on the contrary, avaricious; for, whenever he knew that money was needed for a noble, useful, or benevolent purpose, he supplied it quietly and sometimes anonymously. He was, in short, the least communicative of men. He talked very little, and seemed all the more mysterious for his taciturn manner. His daily habits were quite open to observation; but whatever he did was so exactly the same thing that he had always done before, that the wits of the curious were fairly puzzled.
Had he travelled? It was likely, for no one seemed to know the world more familiarly; there was no spot so secluded that he did not appear to have an intimate acquaintance with it. He often corrected, with a few clear words, the thousand conjectures advanced by members of the club as to lost and unheard-of travellers, pointing out the true probabilities, and seeming as if gifted with a sort of second sight, so often did events justify his predictions. He must have travelled everywhere, at least in the spirit.
It was at least certain that Phileas Fogg had not absented himself from London for many years. Those who were honoured by a better acquaintance with him than the rest, declared that nobody could pretend to have ever seen him anywhere else. His sole pastimes were reading the papers and playing whist. He often won at this game, which, as a silent one, harmonised with his nature; but his winnings never went into his purse, being reserved as a fund for his charities. Mr. Fogg played, not to win, but for the sake of playing. The game was in his eyes a contest, a struggle with a difficulty, yet a motionless, unwearying struggle, congenial to his tastes.
Phileas Fogg was not known to have either wife or children, which may happen to the most honest people; either relatives or near friends, which is certainly more unusual. He lived alone in his house in Saville Row, whither none penetrated. A single domestic sufficed to serve him. He breakfasted and dined at the club, at hours mathematically fixed, in the same room, at the same table, never taking his meals with other members, much less bringing a guest with him; and went home at exactly midnight, only to retire at once to bed. He never used the cosy chambers which the Reform provides for its favoured members. He passed ten hours out of the twenty-four in Saville Row, either in sleeping or making his toilet. When he chose to take a walk it was with a regular step in the entrance hall with its mosaic flooring, or in the circular gallery with its dome supported by twenty red porphyry Ionic columns, and illumined by blue painted windows. When he breakfasted or dined all the resources of the club—its kitchens and pantries, its buttery and dairy—aided to crowd his table with their most succulent stores; he was served by the gravest waiters, in dress coats, and shoes with swan-skin soles, who proffered the viands in special porcelain, and on the finest linen; club decanters, of a lost mould, contained his sherry, his port, and his cinnamon-spiced claret; while his beverages were refreshingly cooled with ice, brought at great cost from the American lakes. etc..

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Aesop's Fables

The Cock and the Pearl

A cock was once strutting up and down the farmyard among the hens when suddenly he espied something shinning amid the straw. ‘Ho! ho!’ quoth he, ‘that’s for me,’ and soon rooted it out from beneath the straw. What did it turn out to be but a Pearl that by some chance had been lost in the yard? ‘You may be a treasure,’ quoth Master Cock, ‘to men that prize you, but for me I would rather have a single barley-corn than a peck of pearls.’
Precious things are for those that can prize them.


The Wolf and the Lamb

Once upon a time a Wolf was lapping at a spring on a hillside, when, looking up, what should he see but a Lamb just beginning to drink a little lower down. ‘There’s my supper,’ thought he, ‘if only I can find some excuse to seize it.’ Then he called out to the Lamb, ‘How dare you muddle the water from which I am drinking?’
‘Nay, master, nay,’ said Lambikin; ‘if the water be muddy up there, I cannot be the cause of it, for it runs down from you to me.’
‘Well, then,’ said the Wolf, ‘why did you call me bad names this time last year?’
‘That cannot be,’ said the Lamb; ‘I am only six months old.’
‘I don’t care,’ snarled the Wolf; ‘if it was not you it was your father;’ and with that he rushed upon the poor little Lamb and .WARRA WARRA WARRA WARRA WARRA .ate her all up. But before she died she gasped out .’Any excuse will serve a tyrant.’


The Dog and the Shadow

It happened that a Dog had got a piece of meat and was carrying it home in his mouth to eat it in peace. Now on his way home he had to cross a plank lying across a running brook. As he crossed, he looked down and saw his own shadow reflected in the water beneath. Thinking it was another dog with another piece of meat, he made up his mind to have that also. So he made a snap at the shadow in the water, but as he opened his mouth the piece of meat fell out, dropped into the water and was never seen more.
Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.


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Musashi (Indonesian Version)

Buku 1 : TANAH

bagian 1

Takezo terbaring di antara mayat-mayat itu. Ribuan jumlahnya.
“Dunia sudah gila,” pikirnya samar. “Manusia seperti daun kering, yang hanyut ditiup angin musim gugur.” Ia sendiri seperti satu di antara tubuh-tubuh tak bernyawa yang berserakan di sekitarnya. Ia mencoba mengangkat kepala, tapi hanya dapat mengangkatnya beberapa inci dari tanah. Ia tak ingat, apakah pernah merasa begitu lemah. “Sudah berapa lama aku di sini?” ia bertanya-tanya.

Lalat-lalat mendengung di sekitar kepalanya. Ia ingin mengusirnya, tapi mengerahkan tangan untuk mengangkat tangan pun ia tak sanggup. Tangan itu kaku, hampir-hampir rapuh, seperti halnya bagian tubuh yang lain. “Tentunya sudah beberapa lama tadi aku pingsan,” pikirnya sambil menggerak-gerakkan jemarinya satu demi satu. Ia belum begitu sadar bahwa dirinya sudah terluka. Dua peluru bersarang erat di dalam pahanya.

Awan gelap mengerikan berlayar rendah di langit. Malam sebelumnya, kira-kira antara tengah malam dan fajar, hujan deras mengguyur daratan Sekigahara. Sekarang ini lewat tengah hari, tanggal lima belas bulan sembilan tahun 1600. Sekalipun topan telah berlalu, sekali-kali siraman hujan segar masih menimpa mayat-mayat itu, termasuk wajah Takezo yang tengadah. Tiap kali hujan menyiram, ia membuka dan menutup mulutnya seperti ikan, mencoba mereguk titik-titik air itu. “Seperti air yang dipakai mengusap bibir orang
sekarat,” kenangnya sambil melahap setiap titik air yang datang. Kepalanya sudah hilang rasa, sedangkan pikirannya seperti bayang-bayang igauan yang melintas.

Pihaknya telah kalah. Ia tahu betul itu. Kobayakawa Hideaki, yang dikiranya sekutu, ternyata diam-diam telah bergabung dengan Tentara Timur. Ketika ia menyerang pasukan Ishida Mitsunari pada senja hari, jalan pertempuran pun berubah. Ia kemudian menyerang tentara panglima-panglima yang lain – Ukita, Shimazu, dan Konishi. Maka sempurnalah keruntuhan Tentara Barat. Hanya dalam setengah hari pertempuran sudah dapat dipastikan siapa yang sejak itu akan memerintah negeri. Dialah Tokugawa Ieyasu, daimyo Edo yang perkasa.

Bayangan kakak perempuannya dan penduduk desa yang sudah tua-tua mengambang di depan matanya.
“Aku akan mati,” pikirnya tanpa rona sedih. “Jadi, beginikah rasanya?” Dan ia pun merasa tertarik ke arah


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Frankenstein

Letter 1
To Mrs. Saville, England
St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17—
You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. I arrived here yesterday, and my first task is to assure my dear sister of my welfare and increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking.
I am already far north of London, and as I walk in the streets of Petersburgh, I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves and fills me with delight. Do you understand this feeling? This breeze, which has travelled from the regions towards which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes. Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent and vivid. I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight. There, Margaret, the sun is forever visible, its broad disk just skirting the horizon and diffusing a perpetual splendour. There—for with your leave, my sister, I will put some trust in preceding navigators— there snow and frost are banished; and, sailing over a calm sea, we may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable globe. Its productions and features may be without example, as the phenomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in those undiscovered solitudes. What may not be expected in a country of eternal light? I may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle and may regulate a thousand celestial observations that require only this voyage to render their seeming eccentricities consistent forever. I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man. These are my enticements, and they are sufficient to conquer all fear of danger or death and to induce me to commence this labourious voyage with the joy a child feels when he embarks in a little boat, with his holiday mates, on an expedition of discovery up his native river. But supposing all these conjectures to be false, you cannot contest the inestimable benefit which I shall confer on all mankind, to the last generation, by discovering a passage near the pole to those countries, to reach which at present so many months are requisite; or by ascertaining the secret of the magnet, which, if at all possible, can only be effected by an undertaking such as mine.
These reflections have dispelled the agitation with which I began my letter, and I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven, for nothing contributes so much to tranquillize the mind as a steady purpose—a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. This expedition has been the favourite dream of my early years. I have read with ardour the accounts of the various voyages which have been made in the prospect of arriving at the North Pacific Ocean through the seas which surround the pole. You may remember that a history of all the voyages made for purposes of discovery composed the whole of our good Uncle Thomas’ library. My education was neglected, yet I was passionately fond of reading. These volumes were my study day and night, and my familiarity with them increased that regret which I had felt, as a child, on learning that my father’s dying injunction had forbidden my uncle to allow me to embark in a seafaring life.
These visions faded when I perused, for the first time, those poets whose effusions entranced my soul and lifted it to heaven. I also became a poet and for one year lived in a paradise of my own creation; I imagined that I also might obtain a niche in the temple where the names of Homer and Shakespeare are consecrated. You are well acquainted with my failure and how heavily I bore the disappointment. But just at that time I inherited the fortune of my cousin, and my thoughts were turned into the channel of their earlier bent.
Six years have passed since I resolved on my present undertaking. I can, even now, remember the hour from which I dedicated myself to this great enterprise. I commenced by inuring my body to hardship. I accompanied the whale-fishers on several expeditions to the North Sea; I voluntarily endured cold, famine, thirst, and want of sleep; I often worked harder than the common sailors during the day and devoted my nights to the study of mathematics, the theory of medicine, and those branches of physical science from which a naval adventurer might derive the greatest practical advantage. Twice I actually hired myself as an under-mate in a Greenland whaler, and acquitted myself to admiration. I must own I felt a little proud when my captain offered me the second dignity in the vessel and entreated me to remain with the greatest earnestness, so valuable did he consider my services. etc


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Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

CHAPTER I: Down the Rabbit-Hole
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, ‘and what is the use of a book,’ thought Alice ‘without pictures or conversation?’
So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, ‘Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!’ (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.
Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was labelled ‘ORANGE MARMALADE’, but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.
’Well!’ thought Alice to herself, ‘after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they’ll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!’ (Which was very likely true.)
Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end! ‘I wonder how many miles I’ve fallen by this time?’ she said aloud. ‘I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think—’ (for, you see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the schoolroom, and though this was not a VERY good opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, still it was good practice to say it over) ‘—yes, that’s about the right distance—but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I’ve got to?’ (Alice had no idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but thought they were nice grand words to say.)
Presently she began again. ‘I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downward! The Antipathies, I think—’ (she was rather glad there WAS no one listening, this time, as it didn’t sound at all the right word) ‘—but I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know. Please, Ma’am, is this New Zealand or Australia?’ (and she tried to curtsey as she spoke—fancy curtseying as you’re falling through the air! Do you think you could manage it?) ‘And what an ignorant little girl she’ll think me for asking! No, it’ll never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.’
Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began talking again. ‘Dinah’ll miss me very much to-night, I should think!’ (Dinah was the cat.) ‘I hope they’ll remember her saucer of milk at tea-time. Dinah my dear! I wish you were down here with me! There are no mice in the air, I’m afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that’s very like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?’ And here Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way, ‘Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?’ and sometimes, ‘Do bats eat cats?’ for, you see, as she couldn’t answer either question, it didn’t much matter which way she put it. She felt that she was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she was walking hand in hand with Dinah, and saying to her very earnestly, ‘Now, Dinah, tell me the truth: did you ever eat a bat?’ when suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.
Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment: she looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her was another long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down it. There was not a moment to be lost: away went Alice like the wind, and was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner, ‘Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it’s getting!’ She was close behind it when she turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen: she found herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps hanging from the roof.
There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked; and when Alice had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying every door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to get out again.
Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid glass; there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key, and Alice’s first thought was that it might belong to one of the doors of the hall; but, alas! either the locks were too large, or the key was too small, but at any rate it would not open any of them. However, on the second time round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high: she tried the little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted!
Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head though the doorway; ‘and even if my head would go through,’ thought poor Alice, ‘it would be of very little use without my shoulders. Oh, how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only know how to begin.’ For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.
There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she went back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on it, or at any rate a book of rules for shutting people up like telescopes: this time she found a little bottle on it, (’which certainly was not here before,’ said Alice,) and round the neck of the bottle was a paper label, with the words ‘DRINK ME’ beautifully printed on it in large letters.
It was all very well to say ‘Drink me,’ but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. ‘No, I’ll look first,’ she said, ‘and see whether it’s marked ‘poison’ or not’; for she had read several nice little histories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant things, all because they would not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; and that if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked ‘poison,’ it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.
However, this bottle was not marked ‘poison,’ so Alice ventured to taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished it off.
* * * *
’What a curious feeling!’ said Alice; ‘I must be shutting up like a telescope.’
And so it was indeed: she was now only ten inches high, and her face brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going through the little door into that lovely garden. First, however, she waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to shrink any further: she felt a little nervous about this; ‘for it might end, you know,’ said Alice to herself, ‘in my going out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I should be like then?’ And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing.
After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided on going into the garden at once; but, alas for poor Alice! when she got to the door, she found she had forgotten the little golden key, and when she went back to the table for it, she found she could not possibly reach it: she could see it quite plainly through the glass, and she tried her best to climb up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slippery; and when she had tired herself out with trying, the poor little thing sat down and cried.
’Come, there’s no use in crying like that!’ said Alice to herself, rather sharply; ‘I advise you to leave off this minute!’ She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people. ‘But it’s no use now,’ thought poor Alice, ‘to pretend to be two people! Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to make ONE respectable person!’
Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table: she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which the words ‘EAT ME’ were beautifully marked in currants. ‘Well, I’ll eat it,’ said Alice, ‘and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door; so either way I’ll get into the garden, and I don’t care which happens!’
She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself, ‘Which way? Which way?’, holding her hand on the top of her head to feel which way it was growing, and she was quite surprised to find that she remained the same size: to be sure, this generally happens when one eats cake, but Alice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way.
So she set to work, and very soon finished off the cake. ...etc

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Fairy Tales of H.C Andersen

A STORY
In the garden all the apple-trees were in blossom. They had hastened to bring forth flowers before they got
green leaves, and in the yard all the ducklings walked up and down, and the cat too: it basked in the sun and
licked the sunshine from its own paws. And when one looked at the fields, how beautifully the corn stood
and how green it shone, without comparison! and there was a twittering and a fluttering of all the little birds,
as if the day were a great festival; and so it was, for it was Sunday. All the bells were ringing, and all the
people went to church, looking cheerful, and dressed in their best clothes. There was a look of cheerfulness
on everything. The day was so warm and beautiful that one might well have said: "God’s kindness to us
men is beyond all limits." But inside the church the pastor stood in the pulpit, and spoke very loudly and
angrily. He said that all men were wicked, and God would punish them for their sins, and that the wicked,
when they died, would be cast into hell, to burn for ever and ever. He spoke very excitedly, saying that their
evil propensities would not be destroyed, nor would the fire be extinguished, and they should never find
rest. That was terrible to hear, and he said it in such a tone of conviction; he described hell to them as a
miserable hole where all the refuse of the world gathers. There was no air beside the hot burning sulphur
flame, and there was no ground under their feet; they, the wicked ones, sank deeper and deeper, while
eternal silence surrounded them! It was dreadful to hear all that, for the preacher spoke from his heart, and
all the people in the church were terrified. Meanwhile, the birds sang merrily outside, and the sun was
shining so beautifully warm, it seemed as though every little flower said: "God, Thy kindness towards us all
is without limits." Indeed, outside it was not at all like the pastor’s sermon.
The same evening, upon going to bed, the pastor noticed his wife sitting there quiet and pensive.
"What is the matter with you?" he asked her.
"Well, the matter with me is," she said, "that I cannot collect my thoughts, and am unable to grasp
the meaning of what you said to-day in church—that there are so many wicked people, and that they should
burn eternally. Alas! eternally—how long! I am only a woman and a sinner before God, but I should not
have the heart to let even the worst sinner burn for ever, and how could our Lord to do so, who is so
infinitely good, and who knows how the wickedness comes from without and within? No, I am unable to
imagine that, although you say so."
It was autumn; the trees dropped their leaves, the earnest and severe pastor sat at the bedside of a
dying person. A pious, faithful soul closed her eyes for ever; she was the pastor’s wife.
..."If any one shall find rest in the grave and mercy before our Lord you shall certainly do so,"
said the pastor. He folded her hands and read a psalm over the dead woman.
She was buried; two large tears rolled over the cheeks of the earnest man, and in the parsonage it
was empty and still, for its sun had set for ever. She had gone home.
It was night. A cold wind swept over the pastor’s head; he opened his eyes, and it seemed to him
as if the moon was shining into his room. It was not so, however; there was a being standing before his bed,
and looking like the ghost of his deceased wife. She fixed her eyes upon him with such a kind and sad
expression, just as if she wished to say something to him. The pastor raised himself in bed and stretched his
arms towards her, saying, "Not even you can find eternal rest! You suffer, you best and most pious
woman?"
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The Project Gutenberg E-text of Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, by Hans Christian Andersen
The dead woman nodded her head as if to say "Yes," and put her hand on her breast.
"And can I not obtain rest in the grave for you?"
"Yes," was the answer.
"And how?"
"Give me one hair—only one single hair—from the head of the sinner for whom the fire shall
never be extinguished, of the sinner whom God will condemn to eternal punishment in hell."
"Yes, one ought to be able to redeem you so easily, you pure, pious woman," he said.
"Follow me," said the dead woman. "It is thus granted to us. By my side you will be able to fly
wherever your thoughts wish to go. Invisible to men, we shall penetrate into their most secret chambers; but
with sure hand you must find out him who is destined to eternal torture, and before the cock crows he must
be found!" As quickly as if carried by the winged thoughts they were in the great city, and from the walls
the names of the deadly sins shone in flaming letters: pride, avarice, drunkenness, wantonness—in short, the
whole seven-coloured bow of sin.
"Yes, therein, as I believed, as I knew it," said the pastor, "are living those who are abandoned to
the eternal fire." And they were standing before the magnificently illuminated gate; the broad steps were
adorned with carpets and flowers, and dance music was sounding through the festive halls. A footman
dressed in silk and velvet stood with a large silver-mounted rod near the entrance.
"Our ball can compare favourably with the king’s," he said, and turned with contempt towards the
gazing crowd in the street. What he thought was sufficiently expressed in his features and movements:
"Miserable beggars, who are looking in, you are nothing in comparison to me."
"Pride," said the dead woman; "do you see him?"
"The footman?" asked the pastor. "He is but a poor fool, and not doomed to be tortured eternally
by fire!"
"Only a fool!" It sounded through the whole house of pride: they were all fools there.
Then they flew within the four naked walls of the miser. Lean as a skeleton, trembling with cold,
and hunger, the old man was clinging with all his thoughts to his money. They saw him jump up feverishly
from his miserable couch and take a loose stone out of the wall; there lay gold coins in an old stocking.
They saw him anxiously feeling over an old ragged coat in which pieces of gold were sewn, and his clammy
fingers trembled.
"He is ill! That is madness—a joyless madness—besieged by fear and dreadful dreams!"
They quickly went away and came before the beds of the criminals; these unfortunate people slept
side by side, in long rows. Like a ferocious animal, one of them rose out of his sleep and uttered a horrible
cry, and gave his comrade a violent dig in the ribs with his pointed elbow, and this one turned round in his
sleep:
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The Project Gutenberg E-text of Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, by Hans Christian Andersen
"Be quiet, monster—sleep! This happens every night!"
"Every night!" repeated the other. "Yes, every night he comes and tortures me! In my violence I
have done this and that. I was born with an evil mind, which has brought me hither for the second time; but
if I have done wrong I suffer punishment for it. One thing, however, I have not yet confessed. When I came
out a little while ago, and passed by the yard of my former master, evil thoughts rose within me when I
remembered this and that. I struck a match a little bit on the wall; probably it came a little too close to the
thatched roof. All burnt down—a great heat rose, such as sometimes overcomes me. I myself helped to
rescue cattle and things, nothing alive burnt, except a flight of pigeons, which flew into the fire, and the yard
dog, of which I had not thought; one could hear him howl out of the fire, and this howling I still hear when I
wish to sleep; and when I have fallen asleep, the great rough dog comes and places himself upon me, and
howls, presses, and tortures me. Now listen to what I tell you! You can snore; you are snoring the whole
night, and I hardly a quarter of an hour!" And the blood rose to the head of the excited criminal; he threw
himself upon his comrade, and beat him with his clenched fist in the face.
"Wicked Matz has become mad again!" they said amongst themselves. The other criminals seized
him, wrestled with him, and bent him double, so that his head rested between his knees, and they tied him,
so that the blood almost came out of his eyes and out of all his pores.
"You are killing the unfortunate man," said the pastor, and as he stretched out his hand to protect
him who already suffered too much, the scene changed. They flew through rich halls and wretched hovels;
wantonness and envy, all the deadly sins, passed before them. An angel of justice read their crimes and their
defence; the latter was not a brilliant one, but it was read before God, Who reads the heart, Who knows
everything, the wickedness that comes from within and from without, Who is mercy and love personified.
The pastor’s hand trembled; he dared not stretch it out, he did not venture to pull a hair out of the sinner’s
head. And tears gushed from his eyes like a stream of mercy and love, the cooling waters of which
extinguished the eternal fire of hell.
Just then the cock crowed.
"Father of all mercy, grant Thou to her the peace that I was unable to procure for her!"
"I have it now!" said the dead woman. "It was your hard words, your despair of mankind, your
gloomy belief in God and His creation, which drove me to you. Learn to know mankind! Even in the wicked
one lives a part of God—and this extinguishes and conquers the flame of hell!"
The pastor felt a kiss on his lips; a gleam of light surrounded him—God’s bright sun shone into
the room, and his wife, alive, sweet and full of love, awoke him from a dream which God had sent him!...etc.


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