Sinister Street, vol. 2

Next morning, when he woke, Michael made up his mind to leave Leppard Street finally in the course of this day. He could not bear the thought that he would only have to lean out...

While they were driving to Cheyne Walk, Michael extracted from Barnes an outline of his adventures since last they had met. The present narrative was probably not less cynical t...

Guy thought it would be better if he went straight back to Plashers Mead; but Michael asked him to stay until the next day. He was in no mood, he said, for a solitary evening, a...

When Michael, equipped with the prospect of reading at least fifty historical works in preparation for the more serious scholastic enterprise of his second year, came down for t...

The existence of the Seven Sisters Road had probably not occurred to Michael since in the hazel-coppices of Clere Abbey he had first made of it at Brother Aloysius’ behest the a...

It was only when he was sitting opposite to Lily in a first class compartment that Michael began to wonder if their sudden arrival would create a kind of consternation at Hardin...

Michael felt glad to think he would start the adventure of Oxford from Paddington. The simplicity of that railway station might faintly mitigate alarms which no amount of previo...

On May Morning, when the choir boys of St. Mary’s hymned the rising sun, Michael was able for the first time to behold the visible expression of his own mental image of Oxford’s...

Perhaps Michael enjoyed more than anything else during his accumulation of books the collection of as many various editions of Don Quixote as possible. He had brought up from Lo...

Michael came back to Cheyne Walk with a sense of surprise at finding that it still existed; and when he saw the parlormaid he half expected she would display some emotion at his...

The large room at 202 High Street which Michael shared with Grainger and Lonsdale was perhaps in the annals of university lodgings the most famous. According to tradition, the h...

When Michael reached the Oxford Music-hall he wondered why he had overspurred his fatigue to such a point. There was no possibility of pleasure here, and he would have done bett...

The most of Michael’s friends had availed themselves of the right of seniority to move into more dignified rooms for their second year. These “extensions of premises,” as Castle...

The Christmas vacation was spent in searching London for a new house. Mrs. Fane, when Carlington Road was with a sigh of relief at last abandoned, would obviously have preferred...

Mrs. Ross and Stella left Oxford two days after the party, and Michael was really glad to be relieved of the dread that Stella in order to assert her independence of personality...

It was strange to come up to Oxford and to find so many of the chief figures in the college vanished. For a week Michael felt that in a way he had no business still to be there,...

Stella came back from Vienna for a month in the summer. Indeed she was already arrived, when Michael reached Cheyne Walk. He was rather anxious to insist directly to her that he...

It was almost dark when Michael reached the little station at the foot of the Downs. He was half inclined to put up at the village inn and arrive at the Abbey in the morning; bu...

Roll-calls were not kept at St. Mary’s with that scrupulousness of outward exterior which, in conjunction with early rising, such a discipline may have been designed primarily t...

November fogs began soon after Michael returned to Leppard Street, and these fuliginous days could cast their own peculiar spell. To enter the house at dusk was to stand for a m...

Alan, when he met Michael at Paddington, was a great deal more cheerful than when they had gone up together for the previous term. He had managed to achieve a second class in Mo...

His first term at Oxford was for Michael less obviously a period of discovery than from his pre-figurative dreams he had expected. He had certainly pictured himself in the midst...

First of all, the Senior Tutor, Mr. Ardle, had to be visited. He was a deaf and hostile little man whose side-whiskers and twitching eyelid and manner of exaggerated respect tow...

Michael’s old rooms in college were lent to him for three or four days as he had hoped they would be. The present occupant, a freshman, was not staying up for Commemoration, and...

At sunrise when the stones of Oxford were the color of lavender, a photograph was taken of those who had been dancing at the Christ Church ball; after which, their gaiety record...

Michael meant to attend the celebration of May Morning on St. Mary’s tower, but when the moment came it was so difficult to get out of bed that he was not seen in the sun’s eye....

The train crashed southward from Paris through the night; and when dawn was quivering upon the meadows near Chambéry Michael was sure with an almost violent elation that he had...

CHAPTER PAGE I. THE FIRST DAY 3 II. THE FIRST WEEK 32 III. THE FIRST TERM 47 IV. CHEYNE WALK 63 V. YOUTH’S DOMINATION 84 VI. GRAY AND BLUE 110 VII. VENNER’S 143 VIII. THE OXFORD...

Bright memories of young poetic pleasure In free companionship, the loving stress Of all life-beauty, lull’d in studious leisure, When every Muse was jocund with excess Of fine...

CHAPTER PAGE I. OSTIA DITIS 349 II. NEPTUNE CRESCENT 371 III. THE CAFÉ D’ORANGE 401 IV. LEPPARD STREET 427 V. THE INNERMOST CIRCLE 481 VI. TINDERBOX LANE 496 VII. THE GATE OF IV...

For Fancy cannot live on real food: In youth she will despise familiar joy To dwell in mournful shades, as they grow real, Then buildeth she of joy her fair ideal. ROBERT BRIDGES.