Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - If you will carefully observe any map of the world that is divided into inches at so many miles to the inch, you will be surprised as you calculate the distance between that enchanting Paris of France and the third-precinct police-station of Washington, D. C, which is not enchanting. It is several thousand miles. Again, if you will take the pains to run your glance, no doubt discerning, over the police-blotter at the court (and frankly, I refuse to tell you the exact date of this whimsical adventure), you will note with even greater surprise that all this hubbub was caused by no crime against the commonwealth of the Republic or against the person of any of its conglomerate people. The blotter reads, in heavy simple fist, "disorderly conduct," a phrase which is almost as embracing as the word diplomacy, or society, or respectability. So far as my knowledge goes, there is no such a person as James Osborne. If, by any unhappy chance, he does exist, I trust that he will pardon the civil law of Washington, my own measure of familiarity, and the questionable taste on the part of my hero - hero, because, from the rise to the fall of the curtain, he occupies the center of the stage in this little comedy-drama, and because authors have yet to find a happy synonym for the word. The name James Osborne was given for the simple reason that it was the first that occurred to the culprit's mind, so desperate an effort did he make to hide his identity. Supposing, for the sake of an argument in his favor, supposing he had said John Smith or William Jones or John Brown? To this very day he would have been hiring lawyers to extricate him from libel and false-representation suits. Besides, had he given any of these names, would not that hound-like scent of the ever suspicious police have been aroused? Views: 173
THE CALICO CAT I Mr. peaslee looked more complacent than ever. It was Saturday noon, and Solomon had just returned from his usual morning sojourn "up-street." He had taken off his coat, and was washing his face at the sink, while his wife was "dishing up" the midday meal. There was salt codfish, soaked fresh, and stewed in milk—"picked up," as the phrase goes; there were baked potatoes and a thin, pale-looking pie. Mrs. Peaslee did not believe in pampering the flesh, and she did believe in saving every possible cent. "Well," said Mr. Peaslee, as they sat down to this feast, "I guess I\'ve got news for ye." His wife gazed at him with interest. "Are ye drawed?" she asked. "Got the notice from Whitcomb right in my pocket. Grand juror. September term. \'T ain\'t more\'n a week off." The staccato utterance was caused by the big mouthfuls of codfish and potato which, between phrases, Mr. Peaslee conveyed to his mouth. It was plain to see that he was greatly pleased with his new dignity. "What do they give ye for it?" asked his wife. Solomon should accept no office which did not bring profit. "Two dollars a day and mileage," said Mr. Peaslee, with the emphasis of one who knows he will make a sensation. "Mileage? What\'s that?" "Travelin\' expenses. State allows ye so much a mile. I get eight cents for goin\' to the courthouse." "Ye get eight cents every day?" asked his wife, her eyes snapping. She was vague about the duties of a grand juror; maybe he had to earn his two dollars; but she had exact ideas about the trouble of walking "up-street." To get eight cents for that was being paid for doing nothing at all, and she was much astonished at the idea. "Likely now, ain\'t it?" said Mr. Peaslee, with masculine scorn. "State don\'t waste money that way! Mileage\'s to get ye there an\' take ye home again when term\'s over. You\'re s\'posed to stay round \'tween whiles." "Humph!" said his wife, disappointed. "They give ye two dollars a day"—she hazarded the shot—"just for settin\' round and talkin\', don\'t they? Walkin\'s considerable more of an effort for most folks." "\'Settin\' round an\' talkin\'!\'" exclaimed Mr. Peaslee, so indignantly that he stopped eating for a moment, knife and fork upright in his rigid, scandalized hands, while he gazed at his thin, energetic, shrewish little wife. "\'Settin\' round and talkin\'!\' It\'s mighty important work, now I tell ye. I guess there wouldn\'t be much law and order if it wa\'n\'t for the grand jury. They don\'t take none but men o\' jedgment. Takes gumption, I tell ye. Ye have to pay money to get that kind." "Well," said his wife, with the air of one who concedes an unimportant point, "anyhow, it\'s good pay for a man whose time ain\'t worth anythin\'." "Ain\'t worth anythin\'!" exclaimed Mr. Peaslee, in hurt tones. "Now, Sarepty, ye know better\'n that. I don\'t know how they\'ll get along without me up to the bank. They\'ve got a pretty good idee o\' my jedgment \'bout mortgages. They don\'t pass any without my say so." Mrs. Peaslee sniffed. "I\'ve seen ye in the bank window, settin\' round with Jim Bartlett and Si Spooner and the rest of \'em.... Views: 173
He's not the man she thinks he is...And everything he knows about her is a lie! On the run with her young son, Miranda Blake must stay off the grid. That means she can't tell her would-be protector why she's fleeing her secret past. Just the same, Detective Tad Newberry can't tell Miranda why he's protecting her. Just as the two start falling in love, shocking truths explode their fragile trust. Views: 173
He had, moreover, "a most incomparable sweet breath insomuch as many times it might have been thought it had carried a perfume or sweet odoriferous smell with it. The hair of his head was of that loveliest shade, a chestnut's ruddy brown, and the ends of his locks curled and turned up very gracefully, without that frizzling which his father, Sir Henry's, was inclined to. Views: 173
This second volume of Christopher Isherwood's remarkable diaries opens on his fifty-sixth birthday, as the fifties give way to the decade of social and sexual revolution. Isherwood takes the reader from the bohemian sunshine of Southern California to a London finally swinging free of post-war gloom, to the racy cosmopolitanism of New York and to the raw Australian outback. He charts his ongoing quest for spiritual certainty under the guidance of his Hindu guru, and he reveals in reckless detail the emotional drama of his love for the American painter Don Bachardy, thirty years his junior and struggling to establish his own artistic identity.
The diaries are crammed with wicked gossip and probing psychological insights about the cultural icons of the time—Francis Bacon, Richard Burton, Leslie Caron, Marianne Faithfull, David Hockney, Mick Jagger, Hope Lange, W. Somerset Maugham, John Osborne, Vanessa Redgrave, Tony Richardson, David O. Selznick, Igor Stravinsky, Gore Vidal, and many others. But the diaries are most revealing about Isherwood himself—his fiction (including A Single Man and Down There on a Visit), his film writing, his college teaching, and his affairs of the heart. He moves easily from Beckett to Brando, from arthritis to aggression, from Tennessee Williams to foot powder, from the opening of Cabaret on Broadway (which he skipped) to a close analysis of Gide.
In the background run references to the political and historical events of the period: the anxieties of the Cold War, Yuri Gagarin's spaceflight, de Gaulle and Algeria, the eruption of violence in America's inner cities, the Vietnam War, the Summer of Love, the moon landing, and the raising and lowering of hemlines. Isherwood is well known for his prophetic portraits of a morally bankrupt Europe on the eve of World War II; in this unparalleled chronicle, The Sixties, he turns his fearless eye on the decade that more than any other has shaped the way we live now. Views: 173
Lady Georgiana Rannoch and her dashing husband, Darcy, are awaiting a bundle of joy, but an unexpected trip to Paris will thrust them straight into a tangled web of international intrigue in this all-new mystery in the New York Times bestselling Royal Spyness series from Rhys Bowen.What a delight it is to finally be able to enjoy a simple meal again! I have been in the throes of morning sickness for the last few months as Darcy and I prepare to welcome a brand-new addition to our little family. Now that I am feeling better, I have realized I am dreadfully bored! It seems that all my nearest and dearest are off leading their own busy lives while I sit at home and attempt to train our two adorably naughty puppies. Fun as it may be, it is hard not to long for a little adventure, a change of pace, before my true confinement begins when the baby comes.Happily, it seems that Darcy has read my mind. When I receive a letter from my glamorous best friend, Belinda,... Views: 173
When Private Matt Duffy wakes up in an army hospital in Iraq, he's honored with a Purple Heart. But he doesn't feel like a hero.
There's a memory that haunts him: an image of a young Iraqi boy as a bullet hits his chest. Matt can't shake the feeling that he was somehow involved in his death. But because of a head injury he sustained just moments after the boy was shot, Matt can't quite put all the pieces together.
Eventually Matt is sent back into combat with his squad—Justin, Wolf, and Charlene—the soldiers who have become his family during his time in Iraq. He just wants to go back to being the soldier he once was. But he sees potential threats everywhere and lives in fear of not being able to pull the trigger when the time comes. In combat there is no black-and-white, and Matt soon discovers that the notion of who is guilty is very complicated indeed.
National Book Award Finalist Patricia McCormick has written a visceral and compelling portrait of life in a war zone, where loyalty is valued above all, and death is terrifyingly commonplace. Views: 172
Delphine Roget, a young French journalist, gets the chance of a lifetime to travel with Secretary of State Julia Dayton who is seen as a leading contender for President of the United States. Though some of her male colleagues seem hostile, Delphine is a smart reporter and catches the eye of the Secretary who begins feeding her information. As they travel from capital to capital, Dayton promotes a Middle East peace initiative that could be a springboard for her presidential bid. And Delphine begins to fall in love with Jason, the head of the Secretary's security detail. Written by a former State Department correspondent, this book is full of authentic detail. What's it like to travel on the plane of the Secretary of State, to file stories under pressure, to attend press conferences with heads of state? Only someone who has really been there can answer these questions. As reporters and officials seen as hostile the Secretary begin to show up dead, Delphine... Views: 172
Set in the bleak Fen Country of East Anglia, and spanning some 240 years in the lives of its haunted narrator and his ancestors, Waterland is a book that takes in eels and incest, ale-making and madness, the heartless sweep of history and a family romance as tormented as any in Greek tragedy.
"Waterland, like the Hardy novels, carries with all else a profound knowledge of a people, a place, and their interweaving.... Swift tells his tale with wonderful contemporary verve and verbal felicity.... A fine and original work."--Los Angeles Times Views: 172
