“Dear Basil! I have not laid eyes on him for a week. It is rather horrid of me, as he has sent me my portrait in the most wonderful frame, specially designed by himself, and, though I am a little jealous of the picture for being a whole month younger than I am, I must admit that I delight in it. Perhaps you had better write to him. I don’t want to see him alone. He says things that annoy me. He gives me good advice.”
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“I am too fond of reading books to care to write them, Mr. Erskine. I should like to write a novel certainly, a novel that would be as lovely as a Persian carpet and as unreal. But there is no literary public in England for anything except newspapers, primers, and encyclopaedias. Of all people in the world the English have the least sense of the beauty of literature.”
Miss Bingley was not so entirely satisfied with this reply as to continue the subject.
“We sailed hence, always in much distress, till we came to the land of the lawless and inhuman Cyclopes. Now the Cyclopes neither plant nor plough, but trust in providence, and live on such wheat, barley, and grapes as grow wild without any kind of tillage, and their wild grapes yield them wine as the sun and the rain may grow them. They have no laws nor assemblies of the people, but live in caves on the tops of high mountains; each is lord and master in his family, and they take no account of their neighbours.
Whether it was that this undulating tester rolled the savage away to far distant scenes, I know not, but he now spoke of his native island; and, eager to hear his history, I begged him to go on and tell it. He gladly complied. Though at the time I but ill comprehended not a few of his words, yet subsequent disclosures, when I had become more familiar with his broken phraseology, now enable me to present the whole story such as it may prove in the mere skeleton I give.
“Well, what does thou think then of seeing the world? Do ye wish to go round Cape Horn to see any more of it, eh? Can’t ye see the world where you stand?”
He said. The challenge Hector heard with joy, Then with his spear restrain’d the youth of Troy, Held by the midst, athwart; and near the foe Advanced with steps majestically slow: While round his dauntless head the Grecians pour Their stones and arrows in a mingled shower.
“Do you prefer reading to cards?” said he; “that is rather singular.”
THE BREACH OF THE TRUCE, AND THE FIRST BATTLE.
“Thank you--but I always mend my own.”
“Who is she?”
Moby-Dick — Chapter 17: The Ship (part 1/2)
Miss Bingley’s attention was quite as much engaged in watching Mr. Darcy’s progress through his book, as in reading her own; and she was perpetually either making some inquiry, or looking at his page. She could not win him, however, to any conversation; he merely answered her question and read on. At length, quite exhausted by the attempt to be amused with her own book, which she had only chosen because it was the second volume of his, she gave a great yawn and said, “How pleasant it is to spend an evening in this way! I declare, after all, there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”
As he was passing out of the door, Dorian Gray touched him on the arm. “Let me come with you,” he murmured.
THE BREACH OF THE TRUCE, AND THE FIRST BATTLE.
As he was passing out of the door, Dorian Gray touched him on the arm. “Let me come with you,” he murmured.
Beneath a beech, Jove’s consecrated shade, His mournful friends divine Sarpedon laid: Brave Pelagon, his favourite chief, was nigh, Who wrench’d the javelin from his sinewy thigh. The fainting soul stood ready wing’d for flight, And o’er his eye-balls swam the shades of night; But Boreas rising fresh, with gentle breath, Recall’d his spirit from the gates of death.
“Is Miss Darcy much grown since the spring?” said Miss Bingley: “will she be as tall as I am?”
Miss Bingley saw, or suspected, enough to be jealous; and her great anxiety for the recovery of her dear friend Jane received some assistance from her desire of getting rid of Elizabeth.
Moby-Dick — Chapter 12: Nightgown