Category: Humour
The magnificent ocean-steamer the _Australasian_ was bound for England, on her homeward voyage from Melbourne, carrying Her Majesty's mails and ninety-eight first-class passengers. Never did vessel start under happier auspices. The skies were cloudless; the sea was smooth as g...
The magnificent ocean-steamer the _Australasian_ was bound for England, on her homeward voyage from Melbourne, carrying Her Majesty's mails and ninety-eight first-class passenge...
2. CHAPTER II.Miss St. John had, for at least six years, been the most renowned woman in Europe. In Paris and St. Petersburg, no less than in London, her name was equally familiar both to pri...
3. CHAPTER III.The sensation created by the presence of these two celebrities was profound beyond description; and the passengers were never weary of watching the gleaming spectacles and the s...
4. CHAPTER IV.No sooner were the ship's damages in a fair way to be repaired than the Professor resumed his sermon. He climbed into the cutter, which was still full of the passengers' baggage...
5. CHAPTER V.The scene that met Paul's eyes was one of extreme loveliness. He found himself in a little fairy bay, full of translucent waters, and fringed with silvery sands. On either side...
6. CHAPTER VI.Next morning he was up betimes; and the prospects of Humanity looked more glorious than ever. He gathered some of the finest pats from the butter-tree, and some fresh French rol...
7. CHAPTER VII.Things now took a better turn. The Professor ceased to feel shy; and proposed, when the curate had finished an enormous breakfast, that they should go down to the cutter, and br...
8. CHAPTER VIII.Next morning the curate began studying a number of essays that the Professor lent him, all written by exact thinkers, who disbelieved in God, and thought Humanity adorable, and...
9. CHAPTER IX.At last,' said the Professor, as they began dinner that evening, 'the fulness of time has come. All the evils of Humanity are removed, and progress has come to an end because it...
10. CHAPTER X.The Professor, like most serious thinkers, knew but little of that trifle commonly called 'the world.' He had never kissed any one except his wife; even that he did as seldom as...
11. CHAPTER XI.At dinner, however, things wore a more promising aspect. The curate had been so terrified by the Professor's threats, that he hardly dared to so much as look at Virginia; and to...
12. CHAPTER XII.He soon put his resolve into practice. He got a bottle of brandy, he sat himself down under a palm-tree, and told the Professor he was going to make an afternoon of it.
13. CHAPTER XIII.'The supreme moment is come,' said Paul solemnly, as they sat down to dinner. 'Let us prepare ourselves for realising to the full the essential dignity of Humanity--that _grand...
14. CHAPTER XIV.Matters now went on charmingly. All existence seemed to take a richer colouring, and there was something, Paul said, which, in Professor Tyndall's words, 'gave fulness and tone...
15. CHAPTER XV.Paul came back, to Virginia's extreme relief, without the missing link. But he was still radiant in spite of his failure; for he had discovered, he said, a place where the creat...
16. CHAPTER XVI.No one now could possibly be more emancipated than Virginia. She tittered all day long and whenever the Professor asked her why, she always told him she was thinking of 'an inte...
17. CHAPTER XVII.Virginia was preparing, with a rueful face, to resume her enjoyment of the higher pleasures, when a horrible smell, like that of an open drain, was suddenly blown in through the...
18. CHAPTER XVIII.'Alas!' cried Paul, 'what can be done to convince one half of Humanity that it is really devoted to the higher pleasures and does not care for the lower--at least nothing to spe...