The New Gulliver, and Other Stories

_(The first few pages of the account of his travels by Mr Lemuel Gulliver, junior, have unfortunately been damaged by fire and are for the most part illegible. They contain refe...

When I awoke, it seemed to me that I must have slept for some six or eight hours, yet it had been but one hour only. I felt perfectly refreshed and well. I had shut off nearly a...

"And now," said the Professor, "before we go any further there is one point on which I wish to be assured. You came from the house of MZ04 just now?"

"This," said the Professor, "is the hour at which on fine and warm days we go out and bask in the sun. Sunlight is the enemy of disease and the friend of longevity. You would pe...

I passed a wretched night. I cannot assign this to the small size of my sleeping-room, for I was able to stretch myself at full length and the admirable system of ventilation ke...

The Professor had been well within the mark in stating that the breadth of the island was not less than eight miles. By sundown I must have covered thirty miles at least and enc...

The air was clear and from the crest of the hill I obtained a fine view. Beneath me lay a forest that covered, I should imagine, some four or five miles. Beyond was the blue sea...

"How should I? Sometimes for two years, sometimes for three--as the gods decide--the child remains with its parents. After that it is taken away from its parents and brought up...

The side of the brown sandstone cliff was perforated like a gigantic rabbit warren. I judged the cliffs to be natural in character, but in the labyrinth of passages and rooms up...

There followed sixteen days of such great and idyllic happiness that for that alone it seems worth while to have lived my life. Dream lost her terror of the sea and every mornin...

My London garden is not really mine. I have it for a period of years on conditions arranged between two legal gentlemen, the tenant paying the landlord's cost. Obviously the per...

There is also a tradition about the smuts in London, and it may be as well to differentiate the facts and the tradition. According to tradition, everywhere within a six-mile rad...

The terminology of the botanist is a standard joke, but as a matter of fact, the botanist blunders into a good thing sometimes. It was rather a fine idea to have in plants an or...

I will admit that I very nearly erected a sun-dial in my garden. There was a kind of snobbery about it. So many artistic people have erected sun-dials in their gardens, that I s...

The garden is peaceful, and this is the more extraordinary because it is really the perpetual scene of the bloodiest warfare, and this warfare is the more acute in a London gard...

There are many things that may bring a man, normally sociable, into that state of mind when it is not desirable that he shall dine out. Too many wrong numbers on the telephone,...

James Smith was a trainer and exhibitor of performing dogs. His age was forty-five, but on the stage he looked less, moving always with an alertness suggestive of youth. His fac...

Staines was a partner in succession to his father in an old-established firm of stockbrokers with a good connection. He had a small flat in St James's Place, and thither he brou...

Richard was best-man at his partner's wedding. He afterwards attended a crowded reception. It was too crowded; and there were far too many people there who wanted to talk to Jan...

And then they both laughed, being somewhat easily pleased at that time. Zero was offered to Mr Murray temporarily as an election mascot, but Mr Murray was not taking any risks--...

Six years had passed; and Zero had got a new master, a somewhat dictatorial gentleman, but with genuine goodness of heart, aged five, bearing the same name as his father, Richar...

Miss Caterham was forty-five, and said so, and looked it. She wore black cashmere in the afternoon, and black silk in the evening. She was methodical, and professed a hatred of...

Like most lazy and good-tempered men, George could show a good deal of energy and decision, when the occasion arose. He began work that night, after Ruth had gone up to bed.

Miss Markham in certain respects was a fortunate lady. She had a flat in town and had recently acquired a little bungalow for week-end purposes on a cliff that overlooked the se...