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Grant Allen was a late 19th century Canadian author best known for writing about both science and novels. This is one of his horror tales.
A distinguished Positivist friend of mine, who is in most matters a practical man of the world, astonished me greatly the other day at Venice, by the grave remark that Italian was destined to be the language of the future. I found on inquiry he had inherited the notion direct from Auguste Comte, who justified it on the purely sentimental and unpractical ground that the tongue of Dante had never yet been associated with any great national defeat or disgrace. The idea surprised me not a little; because it displays such a profound misconception of what language is, and why people use it.
The speech of the world will not be decided on mere grounds of sentiment: the tongue that survives will not survive because it is so admirably adapted for the manufacture of rhymes or epigrams. Stern need compels. Frenchmen and Germans, in congress assembled, and looking about them for a means of intercommunication, might indeed agree to accept Italian then and there as an international compromise. But congresses don't make or unmake the habits of everyday life; and the growth or spread of a language is a thing as much beyond our deliberate human control as the rise or fall of the barometer.
My friend's remark, however, set me thinking and watching what are really the languages now gaining and spreading over the civilised world; it set me speculating what will be the outcome of this gain and spread in another half century. And the results are these: Vastly the most growing and absorbing of all languages at the present moment is the English, which is almost everywhere swallowing up the overflow of German, Scandinavian, Dutch, and Russian. Next to it, probably, in point of vitality, comes Spanish, which is swallowing up the overflow of French, Italian, and the other Latin races. Third, perhaps, ranks Russian, destined to become in time the spoken tongue of a vast tract in Northern and Central Asia. Among non-European languages, three seem to be gaining fast: Chinese, Malay, Arabic. Of the doomed tongues, on the other hand, the most hopeless is French, which is losing all round; while Italian, German, and Dutch are either quite at a standstill or slightly retrograding. The world is now round. By the middle of the twentieth century, in all probability, English will be its dominant speech; and the English-speaking peoples, a heterogeneous conglomerate of all nationalities, will control between them the destinies of mankind. Spanish will be the language of half the populous southern hemisphere. Russian will spread over a moiety of Asia. Chinese, Malay, Arabic, will divide among themselves the less civilised parts of Africa and the East. But French, German, and Italian will be insignificant and dwindling European dialects, as numerically unimportant as Flemish or Danish in our own day.
And why? Not because Shakespeare wrote in English, but because the English language has already got a firm hold of all those portions of the earth's surface which are most absorbing the overflow of European populations. Germans and Scandinavians and Russians emigrate by the thousand now to all parts of the United States and the north-west of Canada. In the first generation they may still retain their ancestral speech; but their children have all to learn English. In Australia and New Zealand the same thing is happening. In South Africa Dutch had got a footing, it is true; but it is fast losing it. The newcomers learn English, and though the elder Boers stick with Boer conservatism to their native tongue, young Piet and young Paul find it pays them better to know and speak the language of commerce-the language of Cape Town, of Kimberley, of the future. The reason is the same throughout. Whenever two tongues come to be spoken in the same area one of them is sure to be more useful in business than the other. Every French-Canadian who wishes to do things on a large scale is obliged to speak English. So is the Creole in Louisiana; so earlier were the Knickerbocker Dutch in New York. Once let English get in, and it beats all competing languages fairly out of the field in a couple of generations.
Like influences favour Spanish in South America and elsewhere. English has annexed most of North America, Australia, South Africa, the Pacific; Spanish has annexed South America, Central America, the Philippines, Cuba, and a few other places. For the most part these areas are less suited than the English-speaking districts for colonisation by North Europeans; but they absorb a large number of Italians and other Mediterranean races, who all learn Spanish in the second generation. As to the other dominant languages, the points in their favour are different. Conquest and administrative needs are spreading Russian over the steppes of Asia; the Arab merchant and the growth of Mahommedanism are importing Arabic far into the heart of Africa; the Chinaman is carrying his own monosyllables with him to California, Australia, Singapore. These tongues in future will divide the world between them.
The German who leaves Germany becomes an Anglo-American. The Italian who leaves Italy becomes a Spanish-American.
There is another and still more striking way of looking at the rapid increase of English. No other language will carry you through so many ports in the world. It suffices for London, Liverpool, Glasgow, Belfast, Southampton, Cardiff; for New York, Boston, Montreal, Charleston, New Orleans, San Francisco; for Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, Hong Kong, Yokohama, Honolulu; for Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Kurrachi, Singapore, Colombo, Cape Town, Mauritius. Spanish with Cadiz, Barcelona, Havana, Callao, Valparaiso, cannot touch that record; nor can French with Marseilles, Bordeaux, Havre, Algiers, Antwerp, Tahiti. The most commercially useful language in the world, thus widely diffused in so many great mercantile and shipping centres, is certain to win in the struggle for existence among the tongues of the future.
The old Mediterranean civilisation teaches us a useful lesson in this respect. Two languages dominated the Mediterranean basin. The East spoke Greek, not because Plato and ?schylus spoke Greek, but because Greek was the tongue of the great commercial centres-of Athens, Syracuse, Alexandria, Antioch, Byzantium. The West spoke Latin, not because Catullus and Virgil spoke Latin, but because Latin was the administrative tongue, the tongue of Rome, of Italy, and later of Gaul, of Spain, of the great towns in Dacia, Pannonia, Britain. Whoever wanted to do anything on the big scale then, had to speak Greek or Latin; so much so that the native languages of Gaul and Spain died utterly out, and Latin dialects are now the spoken tongue in all southern Europe. In our own time, again, educated Hindoos from different parts of India have to use English as a means of intercommunication; and native merchants must write their business correspondence with distant houses in English. To put an extreme contrast: in the last century French was spoken by far more people than English; at the present day French is only just keeping up its numbers in France, is losing in Canada and the United States, is not advancing to any extent in Africa. English is spoken by a hundred million people in Europe and America; is over-running Africa; has annexed Australasia and the Pacific Isles; has ousted, or is ousting, Dutch at the Cape, French in Louisiana, even Spanish itself in Florida, California, New Mexico. In Egyptian mud villages, the aspiring Copt, who once learnt French, now learns English. In Scandinavia, our tongue gains ground daily. Everywhere in the world it takes the lead among the European languages, and by the middle of the next century will no doubt be spoken over half the globe by a cosmopolitan mass of five hundred million people.
And all on purely Darwinian principles! It is the best adapted tongue, and therefore it survives in the struggle for existence. It is the easiest to learn, at least orally. It has got rid of the effete rubbish of genders; simplified immensely its declensions and conjugations; thrown overboard most of the nonsensical ballast we know as grammar. It is only weighted now by its grotesque and ridiculous spelling-one of the absurdest among all the absurd English attempts at compromise. The pressure of the newer speakers will compel it to make jetsam of that lumber also; and then the tongue of Shelley and Newton will march onward unopposed to the conquest of humanity.
I pen these remarks, I hope, "without prejudice." Patriotism is a vulgar vice of which I have never been guilty.
* * *
Charles Grant Blairfindie Allen was born on February 24th, 1848 at Alwington, near Kingston, Canada West (now part of Ontario). Home schooled until 13 when his family moved to England, Grant was to become a highly regarded science writer who branched out to a fiction career and became enormously popular. His work helped propel several genres of fiction and whilst his career was short it was enormously productive. Grant's scientific background enabled him to root much of his work in a plausibility that was denied to others. He had little fear in challenging a society that treated women as second class citizens and creating best sellers from such works. On October 25th 1899 Grant Allen died at his home in Hindhead, Haslemere, Surrey, England. He died just before finishing Hilda Wade. The novel's final episode, which he dictated to his friend, doctor and neighbour Sir Arthur Conan Doyle from his bed appeared under the appropriate title The Episode of the Dead Man Who Spoke in 1900.
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Grant Allen was a late 19th century Canadian author best known for writing about both science and novels. This is one of his horror tales.
This was the top-prize-winning novel from 20,000 entries in one of the richest literary awards ever offered in Britain. Its convoluted and colorful plot turns on questions of heredity and atavism: the ancestry of the Waring twin brothers and of Elma Clifford. Elma comes on her mother's side from a line of gypsy snake dancers, and she displays a periodic urge to dance wildly with a feather boa in her bedroom. A murderous judge, multiple mistaken identities and scenes of tribal life in South Africa decorate this extraordinary novel, which is certainly a testament to Grant Allen's versatility and grasp of the popular market.Excerpt: "Elma felt sure she was mad that night. And, if so, oh, how could she poison Cyril Waring's life with so unspeakable an inheritance for himself and his children? She didn't know, what any psychologist might at once have told her, that no one with the fatal taint of madness in her blood could ever even have thought of that righteous self-denial. Such scruples have no place in the selfish insane temperament; they belong only to the highest and purest types of moral nature."In his biography of Allen, Professor Peter Morton says about this book: "Twice in his career Allen finds he has a great popular success on his hands. What's Bred in the Bone (1891), a sensational thriller written to order at top speed, secures him one of the largest literary prizes ever awarded in Britain: a thousand pounds from George Newnes, the publishers of the magazine Tit-Bits. What's Bred in the Bone comes first in a field of 20,000 entrants to take the prize. It sells hugely in its first year, goes into seventeen impressions, appears in the form of a silent film in 1916, and is translated into several languages, including Icelandic. Nothing demonstrates better Allen's cold-blooded judgment in analysing and meeting the popular taste." The novel was published serially in 1890 and 1891.(Reference: Peter Morton's website about Grant Allen https://sites.google.com/site/petermortonswebsite/.)
"You're mine, little puppy," Kylan growled against my neck. A soft gasp escaped my lips as his lips brushed my skin. My mind screamed at me to push him away-the Lycan Prince who had humiliated me again and again, but my body betrayed me, leaning into him before I could stop myself. He pressed his lips against mine, and his kiss grew more aggressive, more possessive as I felt my legs weaken. What was I doing? In a split-second, I pulled away and slapped him hard across the face. Kylan's eyes darkened, but the smirk on his lips exposed his amusement. "You and I both know we can't fight this, Violet," he said, gripping my wrist. "You're my mate." "And yet you don't want me," I replied. "You told me you were ashamed of me, that l'd never be your queen, that you'd never love me. So please, accept my rejection and let me go." "Never," he whispered, his grip tightening as he pulled me closer. "Soon enough, you'll be begging for me. and when you do-I'll use you as I see fit and then I'll reject you."
My name is Katia, and I am just trying to survive until my fated mate arrives. Which may be easier said than done. Rejectection is the last straw. Whispering my acceptance of his rejection. I run through the pack house, out across the manicured lawn into the forest. "I'm sorry, my sweet girl," I say to my wolf. I'm sorry you have been stuck with me and have had to suffer everything I have. She whispers," it's not your fault, Katia. We came to a cliff with a waterfall. The hurt keeps pounding at me. I need it to stop. My sweet girl, and I just want peace, I keep running and leap off the cliff. Spreading my arms wide, with tears streaming down my face, I fall, not making a sound, waiting for sweet oblivion where we feel nothing ever again. "I love you, my sweet girl! Until we meet again, "My wolf replied just before we hit the water, "I love you too, Katia. I have never regretted a moment with you." The Snow Moon pack is having their last barbecue of the summer next to the waterfall on their land. The adults are laughing and joking while watching the pups play. The alpha, beta, and gamma are swimming with some of the older children and playing a game of Marco Polo. Someone yells, "Oh my goddess, someone just jumped over the waterfall!" Everyone is frozen as they watch what looks to be a child falling arms spread wide, no one makes a sound. The small body hits the water like a plane crashing into the side of a mountain. The alpha, beta, and gamma, spring into action, swimming towards the area the person went under. The alpha is screaming his wolf is going crazy repeating, "Find her. Find her...find her!" They dive and the beta surfaces with a small person in his arms. Alpha takes the girl from his beta, laying her on the ground. The men are shocked by what they see. She is covered in scars and injuries. Her body is twisted and broken. The Beta asks, "Who could have done this to someone so defenseless?" Alpha drops to his knees, repeating, "MATE...MATE...MATE!"
Katie was forced to marry Dillan, a notorious ruffian. Her younger sister mocked her, "You're just an adopted daughter. Count your blessings for marrying him!" The world anticipated Katie's tribulations, but her married life unfurled with unexpected serenity. She even snagged a lavish mansion in a raffle! Katie jumped into Dillan's arms, credited him as her lucky charm. "No, Katie, it's you who brings me all this luck," Dillan replied. Then, one fateful day, Dillan's childhood friend came to her. "You're not worthy of him. Take this 50 million and leave him!" Katie finally grasped Dillan's true stature—the wealthiest man on the planet. That night, trembling with trepidation, she broached the subject of divorce with Dillan. However, with a domineering embrace, he told her, "I'd give you everything I have. Divorce is off the table!"
COALESCENCE OF THE FIVE SERIES BOOK ONE: THE 5-TIME REJECTED GAMMA & THE LYCAN KING BOOK TWO: THE ROGUES WHO WENT ROGUE BOOK THREE: THE INDOMITABLE HUNTRESS & THE HARDENED DUKE *** BOOK ONE: After being rejected by 5 mates, Gamma Lucianne pleaded with the Moon Goddess to spare her from any further mate-bonds. To her dismay, she is being bonded for the sixth time. What’s worse is that her sixth-chance mate is the most powerful creature ruling over all werewolves and Lycans - the Lycan King himself. She is certain, dead certain, that a rejection would come sooner or later, though she hopes for it to be sooner. King Alexandar was ecstatic to meet his bonded mate, and couldn’t thank their Goddess enough for gifting him someone so perfect. However, he soon realizes that this gift is reluctant to accept him, and more than willing to sever their bond. He tries to connect with her but she seems so far away. He is desperate to get intimate with her but she seems reluctant to open up to him. He tries to tell her that he is willing to commit to her for the rest of his life but she doesn’t seem to believe him. He is pleading for a chance: a chance to get to know her; a chance to show her that he’s different; and a chance to love her. But when not-so-subtle crushes, jealous suitors, self-entitled Queen-wannabes, an old flame, a silent protector and a past wedding engagement threaten to jeopardize their relationship, will Lucianne and Xandar still choose to be together? Is their love strong enough to overcome everything and everyone? Or will Lucianne resort to enduring a sixth rejection from the one person she thought she could entrust her heart with?
There was only one man in Raegan's heart, and it was Mitchel. In the second year of her marriage to him, she got pregnant. Raegan's joy knew no bounds. But before she could break the news to her husband, he served her divorce papers because he wanted to marry his first love. After an accident, Raegan lay in the pool of her own blood and called out to Mitchel for help. Unfortunately, he left with his first love in his arms. Raegan escaped death by the whiskers. Afterward, she decided to get her life back on track. Her name was everywhere years later. Mitchel became very uncomfortable. For some reason, he began to miss her. His heart ached when he saw her all smiles with another man. He crashed her wedding and fell to his knees while she was at the altar. With bloodshot eyes, he queried, "I thought you said your love for me is unbreakable? How come you are getting married to someone else? Come back to me!"
"I heard you're going to marry Marcelo. Is this perhaps your revenge against me? It's very laughable, Renee. That man can barely function." Her foster family, her cheating ex, everyone thought Renee was going to live in pure hell after getting married to a disabled and cruel man. She didn't know if anything good would ever come out of it after all, she had always thought it would be hard for anyone to love her but this cruel man with dark secrets is never going to grant her a divorce because she makes him forget how to breathe.