Death -
Emily Brontë
Time's withered branch dividing
From the fresh root of Eternity!
Leaves, upon Time's branch, were growing brightly,
Full of sap, and full of silver dew;
Birds beneath its shelter gathered nightly;
Daily round its flowers the wild bees flew.
Sorrow passed, and plucked the golden blossom;
Guilt stripped off the foliage in its pride
But, within its parent's kindly bosom,
Flowed for ever
Darkness -
Lord George Gordon Byron
nder darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went -and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light;
And they did live by watchfires -and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings -the hut
Despair In Love -
Honoré de Balzac
ey came with him certain workmen, master sculptors, good painters, and masons, or architects, who ornamented the galleries with splendid works, which, through neglect, have since been much spoiled.
At that time the court was staying in this beautiful locality, and, as everyone knows, the king took great pleasure in watching his people work out their ideas. Among these foreign gentlemen was an I
Difficult People -
Anton Chekhov
ed a gift of three hundred acres of land from Madame Kuvshinnikov, a general's widow, was standing in a corner before a copper washing-stand, washing his hands. As usual, his face looked anxious and ill-humoured, and his beard was uncombed.
"What weather!" he said. "It's not weather, but a curse laid upon us. It's raining again!"
He grumbled on, while his family sat waiting at table for hi
Dreams -
Anton Chekhov
that if you looked at him from behind it seemed as though his legs began much lower down than in other people; the other, long, thin, and straight as a stick, with a scanty beard of dark reddish colour -- were escorting to the district town a tramp who refused to remember his name. The first waddled along, looking from side to side, chewing now a straw, now his own sleeve, slapping himself on the
Darkness -
Anton Chekhov
black felt overboots, waited till the Zemstvo doctor had finished seeing his patients and came out to go home from the hospital; then he went up to him, diffidently.
"Please, your honour," he said.
"What do you want?"
The young man passed the palm of his hand up and over his nose, looked at the sky, and then answered:
"Please, your honour. . . . You've got my brother Vaska the bla
Drunk -
Anton Chekhov
n his eyes, and Almer, his lawyer, an elderly man with a big rough head, were drinking in one of the public rooms of a restaurant on the outskirts of the town. They had both come to the restaurant straight from a ball and so were wearing dress coats and white ties. Except them and the waiters at the door there was not a soul in the room; by Frolov's orders no one else was admitted.
They began
Dejection: An Ode -
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
er dear!
We shall have a deadly storm.
Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence.
I
Well! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made
The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence,
This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence
Unroused by winds, that ply a busier trade
Than those which mould yon cloud in lazy flakes,
Or the dull sobbing draft, that moans and rakes
Upon the strings of this Aeolian lute
Descent of Man -
Charles Darwin
ROM SOME LOWER FORM.
HE WHO wishes to decide whether man is the modified descendant of some pre-existing form, would probably first enquire whether man varies, however slightly, in bodily structure and in mental faculties; and if so, whether the variations are transmitted to his offspring in accordance with the laws which prevail with the lower animals. Again, are the variations the result, as f
Death Sets A Thing -
Emily Dickinson
erly
To ponder little workmanships
In crayon or in wool,
With "This was last her fingers did,"
Industrious until
The thimble weighed too heavy,
The stitches stopped themselves,
And then 't was put among the dust
Upon the closet shelves.
A book I have, a friend gave,
Whose pencil, here and there,
Had notched the place that pleased him,--
At rest his fingers are.
Now, when I read,
Did The Harebell Loose Her Girdle -
Emily Dickinson
merly?
Did the paradise, persuaded,
Yield her moat of pearl,
Would the Eden be Eden,
Or the earl an earl?
David Copperfield -
Charles Dickens
Dombey and Son -
Charles Dickens
Dracula -
Bram Stoker
iving 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
