Confessions Of Con Cregan, the Irish Gil Blas

To this very hour I am unable to say how long I remained at the village of La Noria. Time slipped away unchronicled; the seasons varied little, save for about two winter mouths,...

It was the second evening after my lion adventure, and I was stretched in my hammock in a low, half-torpid state, not a limb nor a joint in all my body that had not its own pecu...

I will not trespass on my reader's patience with the details of my journey, nor ask him to form acquaintance with any of those pleasant travelling companions whose whims, capric...

Making my way with difficulty through the crowd which filled the hall of the house, and which consisted of purchasers, newsvenders, reporters, printers' devils, and others inter...

It was not without considerable trepidation and great misgiving that I awaited the evening. What subtlety might be in store for me, I could not guess; but it seemed clear that t...

Kind-hearted reader,--you who have sympathized with so many of the rubs that Fortune has dealt us; who have watched us with a benevolent interest in our warfare with an adverse...

The crew of the "Firefly" consisted of twelve persons, natives of almost as many countries. Indeed, to see them all muster on deck, it was like a little congress of European ras...

I had walked now for nearly twelve hours without discovering any appearance of Sanchez's cabin, in which I had hoped to pass the night. My prairie experience assured me that I h...

Without further delay, the men prepared to obey the summons. The boat's chain was cast off, and, as she swung out from the wall, I could see a small standard at her stern, carry...

I had few inducements to prolong my stay at Naples. The society in which I moved had received a shock so terrible that for some time, at least, it could not hope to recover, and...

The first revulsion of feeling over, the terrible shock of that fall from the pinnacle of wealth and greatness to the lowly condition of a prisoner unfriended and destitute,--I...

For the sake of conciseness in this veracious history, I prefer making the reader acquainted at once with facts and individuals, not by the slow process in which the knowledge o...

There are few things in this world gold cannot buy: but one among their number assuredly is--"a happy dream." Now, although I went to sleep in a great bed with damask hangings a...

I was all impatience to see my prize: and scarcely had I entered the inn than I passed out into the stable-yard, now crowded with many of those equestrian-looking figures I had...

The friar ceased his efforts, and, calling the Mexican to one side, whispered something in a low, cautious manner. The other seemed to demur and hesitate, but, after a brief spa...

"The life of the prairie," with all its seeming monotony, was very far from wearisome. The chase, which to some might have presented the same unvarying aspect, to those who pass...

As regular as the day itself did I wait at the corner of Merrion Square, at three o'clock, the arrival of Captain De Courcy, who came punctual to the instant; indeed, the clatte...

When the light of the candle which the old woman carried had somewhat dissipated the darkness, I could see the whole interior of the room; and certainly, well habituated as I ha...

Steadily, and with all the vigor I could command, I pulled towards the light. My companion sat quietly watching the stars, and apparently following out some chain of thought to...

I looked very wistfully at my broad crown piece as it lay with its honest platter face in the palm of my hand, and felt, by the stirring sensations it excited within me, some in...

As for myself, my dreamy temperament aided me greatly. I could build castles forever; and certainly there was no lack of ground here for the foundation. Sometimes I fancied myse...

I was not sorry to leave the Havannah on the following day. I did not desire another interview with my "friend" the Governor, but rather felt impatient to escape a repetition of...

In less than a fortnight after the interview I have just recorded, I received a letter from De Minérale, enclosing another, addressed to himself, and whose royal seal at once pr...

It is among the strange and singular anomalies of our nature that however pleased men may be at the conviction of a noted offender, few of those instrumental to his punishment a...

It lifted him into a different sphere of companionship and suggested new habits of life. No longer necessitated to labor daily for his bread, by a very slight exercise of indust...

Joe's eyes were bent upon me, as I sat directly opposite him, with a fixedness that I could easily see was occasioned by my showy costume; his glances ranged from my buckled sho...

If I say that the Lower Town of Quebec is the St. Giles's of the metropolis, I convey but a very faint notion indeed of that terrible locality. I have seen life in some of its l...

The great rock rising above the lower town, and crowned with its batteries, all bristling with guns, seemed to my eyes the very realization of impregnability. I looked from the...

Although only a few hundred miles from Quebec, our voyage still continued for several days; the "Hampden" like all transport-ships, was only "great in a calm," and the Gulf-stre...

As we sailed proudly into the harbor of Malaga, my attention--at first directed to the striking features of the shore, where lay a city actually embowered amid orange-groves--wa...

I have often heard it observed that one has as little to do with the choice of his mode of life as with the name he receives at baptism. I rather incline to the opinion that thi...

It was still dark, on a drizzling morning in January, as we reached the Capital; the lamps shone faintly through the foggy, wet atmosphere; and the gloom was deepened as we ente...

When I woke the next morning, it was a few minutes before I could thoroughly remember where I was and how I came there; my next thought was the grateful one, that if the calling...

When we shall have become better acquainted, my worthy reader, there will be little necessity for my insisting upon a fact which at this early stage of our intimacy, I deem it r...

An eminent apothecary of my acquaintance once told me that at each increase to his family, he added ten per cent to the price of his drugs, and as his quiver was full of daughte...