Arthur R. Thompson

Among my first passions was that for exploration. The Unknown—that region of mysteries lying upon the outskirts of commonplace environment—drew me with a mighty attraction. My earliest recollections are of wanderings into the domains of the neighbors, and of excursions—not infrequently in direct contravention to parental warnings—over fences, stone-walls, and roofs, and into cobwebbed attics, fragrant hay-lofts, and swaying tree-tops. Of my favorite tree, a sugar maple, I remember that, so thoroughly did I come to know every one of its branches, I could climb up or down unhesitatingly with eyes shut. At that advanced stage of acquaintance, however, it followed naturally that the mysteriousness, and hence the subtle attractiveness, of my friend the maple was considerably lessened.

The boy receiving this unmerciful punishment had been discovered riding the blind-baggage on the long, dust-covered train of Canadian Pacific coaches that had just come to a stop.

I quite recognise the force of your objection that an invalid or a woman in weak health would get no good from stories which attempt to treat some features of medical life with a certain amount of realism. If you deal with this life at all, however, and if you are anxious to make your doctors something more than marionettes, it is quite essential that you should paint the darker side, since it is that which is principally presented to the surgeon or physician.

Hurriedly he finished brushing his hair and raced downstairs to the dining room. His father was already at the table and waiting for the children to take their places. Mrs. Armstrong in the meanwhile was adding the finishing touches in setting the table. “Before you sit down, Ken,” his mother told him, “will you please go out and call Betty. She must be outside somewhere playing.”

Thomas Love Peacock's fantastic classic novel about Robin Hood's love Maid Marian has been enjoyed around the world for over 180 years.

For the simple reason that he is confident he has put you off the scent, was my companion's reply. "He is doing the one foolish thing the criminal always does sooner or later; that is to say, he is becoming over-confident of his own powers to elude us. You and I, my friend, should be able to remember several such instances. Now, strange to say, I came across a curious one the other day. Would you care to hear it?"

Warfare has become so largely a matter of science that in order to arrive at an intelligent understanding of the naval situation or of the military campaigns in the Great European War, a knowledge of the scientific factors contributing to victory or defeat is essential.

The reading-room of the Hotel de l’Univers et de Cheltenham was none too ample, and had seemed to Mr. Dosson from the first to consist principally of a highly-polished floor on the bareness of which it was easy for a relaxed elderly American to slip. It was composed further, to his perception, of a table with a green velvet cloth, of a fireplace with a great deal of fringe and no fire, of a window with a great deal of curtain and no light, and of the Figaro, which he couldn’t read, and the New York Herald, which he had already read.

Among my first passions was that for exploration. The Unknown—that region of mysteries lying upon the outskirts of commonplace environment—drew me with a mighty attraction. My earliest recollections are of wanderings into the domains of the neighbors, and of excursions—not infrequently in direct contravention to parental warnings—over fences, stone-walls, and roofs, and into cobwebbed attics, fragrant hay-lofts, and swaying tree-tops. Of my favorite tree, a sugar maple, I remember that, so thoroughly did I come to know every one of its branches, I could climb up or down unhesitatingly with eyes shut. At that advanced stage of acquaintance, however, it followed naturally that the mysteriousness, and hence the subtle attractiveness, of my friend the maple was considerably lessened.

In a little, we crept both of us so close to the door as the chests would allow, and there we crouched, listening; but could not tell what manner of thing it might be which produced so strange a noise. For it was neither shuffling, nor treading of any kind, nor yet was it the whirr of a bat's wings, the which had first occurred to me, knowing how vampires are said to inhabit the nights in dismal places.

It was an occasion, I felt — the prospect of a large party — to look out at the station for others, possible friends and even possible enemies, who might be going. Such premonitions, it was true, bred fears when they failed to breed hopes, though it was to be added that there were sometimes, in the case, rather happy ambiguities. One was glowered at, in the compartment, by people who on the morrow, after breakfast, were to prove charming; one was spoken to first by people whose sociability was subsequently to show as bleak; and one built with confidence on others who were never to reappear at all — who were only going to Birmingham. As soon as I saw Gilbert Long, some way up the platform, however, I knew him as an element.