| 183 | Author: | Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924 | Requires cookie* | | Title: | Falk; Amy Foster; To-Morrow | | | Published: | 1996 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | Description: | Several of us, all more or less connected with the sea, were dining
in a small river-hostelry not more than thirty miles from London, and
less than twenty from that shallow and dangerous puddle to which our
coasting men give the grandiose name of "German Ocean." And through
the wide windows we had a view of the Thames; an enfilading view down
the Lower Hope Reach. But the dinner was execrable, and all the
feast was for the eyes. | | Similar Items: | Find |
185 | Author: | Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924 | Requires cookie* | | Title: | The Secret Sharer | | | Published: | 1993 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | Description: | On my right hand there were lines of fishing stakes
resembling a mysterious system of half-submerged
bamboo fences, incomprehensible in its division of
the domain of tropical fishes, and crazy of aspect as if
abandoned for ever by some nomad tribe of fishermen
now gone to the other end of the ocean; for there was
no sign of human habitation as far as the eye could
reach. To the left a group of barren islets, suggesting
ruins of stone walls, towers, and blockhouses, had its
foundations set in a blue sea that itself looked solid,
so still and stable did it lie below my feet; even the
track of light from the westering, sun shone smoothly,
without that animated glitter which tells of an imperceptible
ripple. And when I turned my head to take
a parting glance at the tug which had just left us
anchored outside the bar, I saw the straight line of the
flat shore joined to the stable sea, edge to edge, with
a perfect and unmarked closeness, in one leveled floor
half brown, half blue under the enormous dome of
the sky. Corresponding in their insignificance to the
islets of the sea, two small clumps of trees, one on
each side of the only fault in the impeccable joint,
marked the mouth of the river Meinam we had just
left on the first preparatory stage of our homeward
journey; and, far back on the inland level, a larger
and loftier mass, the grove surrounding the great
Paknam pagoda, was the only thing on which the eye
could rest from the vain task of exploring the monotonous sweep
of the horizon. Here and there gleams as
of a few scattered pieces of silver marked the windings
of the great river; and on the nearest of them, just
within the bar, the tug steaming right into the
land became lost
to my sight, hull and funnel and masts, as
though the impassive earth had swallowed her up
without an effort, without a tremor. My eye followed
the light cloud of her smoke, now here, now there,
above the plain, according to the devious curves of the
stream, but always fainter and farther away, till I
lost it at last behind the miter-shaped hill of the great
pagodas. And then I was left alone. with my ship,
anchored at the head of the Gulf of Siam. | | Similar Items: | Find |
187 | Author: | Cooper, James Fenimore | Requires cookie* | | Title: | The Eclipse | | | Published: | 1995 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | Description: | Note by the Editor.—During Mr. Cooper's residence at
Paris, he wrote, at the request of an English friend, his
recollections of the great eclipse of 1806. This article, which is
undated, must have been written about the year 1831, or twenty-five
years after the eclipse. His memory was at that period of his life
very clear and tenacious, where events of importance were
concerned. From some accidental cause, this article was never sent
to England, but lay, apparently forgotten, among Mr. Cooper's
papers, where it was found after his death. At the date of the
eclipse, the writer was a young sailor of seventeen, just returned
from a cruise. At the time of writing these recollections, he had
been absent from his old home in Otsego County some fifteen years,
and his affectionate remembrance of the ground may be traced in
many little touches, which would very possibly have been omitted
under other circumstances. | | Similar Items: | Find |
191 | Author: | Crane, Stephen, 1871-1900 | Requires cookie* | | Title: | "An Ominous Baby" | | | Published: | 1996 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | Description: | A BABY was wandering in a strange country. He was a tattered
child with a frowsled wealth of yellow hair. His dress, of a
checked stuff, was soiled and showed the marks of many conflicts
like the chain-shirt of a warrior. His sun-tanned knees shone
above wrinkled stockings which he pulled up occasionally with an
impatient movement when they entangled his feet. From a gaping
shoe there appeared an array of tiny toes. | | Similar Items: | Find |
193 | Author: | Crane, Stephen, 1871-1900 | Requires cookie* | | Title: | The Great Boer Trek | | | Published: | 1996 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | Description: | WHEN, in 1806, Cape Colony finally passed into the hands of the
British government, it might well have seemed possible for the
white inhabitants to dwell harmoniously together. The Dutch
burghers were in race much the same men who had peopled England and
Scotland. There was none of that strong racial and religious
antipathy which seems to make forever impossible any lasting
understanding between Ireland and her dominating partner. | | Similar Items: | Find |
194 | Author: | Crane, Stephen, 1871-1900 | Requires cookie* | | Title: | The Red Badge of Courage | | | Published: | 1994 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | Description: | The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring
fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.
As the landscape changed from brown to green, the army awakened,
and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumors.
It cast its eyes upon the roads, which were growing from long
troughs of liquid mud to proper thoroughfares. A river,
amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks, purled at the army's
feet; and at night, when the stream had become of a sorrowful
blackness, one could see across it the red, eyelike gleam of
hostile camp-fires set in the low brows of distant hills. | | Similar Items: | Find |
195 | Author: | Crane, Stephen, 1871-1900 | Requires cookie* | | Title: | Desertion | | | Published: | 1996 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | Description: | THE gas-light that came with an effect of difficulty through the
dust-stained windows on either side of the door gave strange hues
to the faces and forms of the three women who stood gabbling in the
hallway of the tenement. They made rapid gestures, and in the
background their enormous shadows mingled in terrific effect. | | Similar Items: | Find |
198 | Author: | Crane, Stephen, 1871-1900 | Requires cookie* | | Title: | The Kicking Twelfth | | | Published: | 1996 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | Description: | THE Spitzenberg army was backed by traditions of centuries of victory.
In its chronicles, occasional defeats were not printed in italics, but were
likely to appear as glorious stands against overwhelming odds. A
favorite way to dispose of them was to attribute them frankly to the
blunders of the civilian heads of government. This was very good for the
army, and probably no army had more self-confidence. | | Similar Items: | Find |
200 | Author: | Crane, Stephen, 1871-1900 | Requires cookie* | | Title: | `God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.' | | | Published: | 1996 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | Description: | LITTLE NELL, sometimes called the Blessed Damosel, was a war
correspondent for the New York Eclipse, and at sea on the
despatch boats he wore pyjamas, and on shore he wore whatever fate
allowed him, which clothing was in the main unsuitable to the climate.
He had been cruising in the Caribbean on a small tug, awash always,
habitable never, wildly looking for Cervera's fleet; although what he was
going to do with four armoured cruisers and two destroyers in the event
of his really finding them had not been explained by the managing editor.
The cable instructions read: 'Take tug; go find Cervera's fleet.' If his
unfortunate nine-knot craft should happen to find these great twenty-knot
ships, with their two spiteful and faster attendants, Little Nell had
wondered how he was going to lose them again. He had marvelled, both
publicly and in secret, on the uncompromising asininity of managing
editors at odd moments, but he had wasted little time. The Jefferson
G. Johnson was already coaled, so he passed the word to his skipper,
bought some tinned meats, cigars, and beer, and soon the Johnson
sailed on her mission, tooting her whistle in graceful farewell to some
friends of hers in the bay. | | Similar Items: | Find |
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