I was left alone to battle with the world as best I might. The struggles which it cost me to succeed in life were sometimes very trying; nor have they ended yet. But I have always turned a bold front to fortune
-Mary Seacole, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands
I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte...Later I heard men who could manage their r’s give it the same pronunciation...A few years later I went to Personville and learned better.
...No matter where its seed falls, it makes a tree which struggles to reach the sky. It grows lushly...survives without sun, water...It would be considered beautiful except that there are too many of it.
"We would be ruled by a magic lord," they said. "So be it," said the lord. "It is five hundred years since my people have spoken thus in parliament, and it shall always be as your parliament saith. You have spoken. So be it."
"For seven hundred years the chiefs of your race have ruled us well; and their deeds are remembered by the minor minstrels, living on yet in their little tinkling songs. And yet the generations stream away, and there is no new thing." "What would you?" said the lord.
In their ruddy jackets of leather that reached to their knees the men of Erl appeared before their lord, the stately whitehaired man in his long red room. He leaned in his carven chair and heard their spokesman. And thus their spokesman said.
I stared, stupidly, at the door which had just been banged in my face. I could scarcely believe that the thing was possible. I had hardly expected to figure as a tramp; but, supposing it conceivable that I could become a tramp, that I should be refused admission to...the tramp’s ward
To have tramped about all day looking for work; to have begged even for a job which would give me money enough to buy a little food; and to have tramped and to have begged in vain...
what a sight for a father’s eyes!—he beheld his child...almost buried under an enormous helmet...and shaded with...black feathers...without mentioning the unhappy princesses, his wife and daughter, the first sounds that dropped from Manfred’s lips were, “Take care of the Lady Isabella.”
Manfred...despatched one of his attendants to summon the young Prince. The servant...came running back breathless, in a frantic manner, his eyes staring, and foaming at the mouth.
The fellow made no answer, but...pointing towards the courtyard; and at last...cried out, “Oh! the helmet! the helmet!”
Manfred had contracted a marriage for his son with the Marquis of Vicenza’s daughter, Isabella...Young Conrad’s birthday was fixed for his espousals. The company was assembled in the chapel of the Castle, and everything ready for beginning the divine office, when Conrad himself was missing.
During the winter of 1927–28 officials of the Federal government made a strange and secret investigation...in the ancient Massachusetts seaport of Innsmouth...when a vast series of raids...followed by the deliberate burning and dynamiting...of crumbling, worm-eaten, and supposedly empty houses...
Manfred, Prince of Otranto, had one son and one daughter: the latter...was called Matilda. Conrad, the son, was three years younger, a homely youth, sickly, and of no promising disposition; yet he was the darling of his father, who never showed any symptoms of affection to Matilda.
The following work was found in the library of an ancient Catholic family in the north of England. It was printed...in the year 1529...Such a work as the following would enslave a hundred vulgar minds...Miracles, visions, necromancy, dreams, and other preternatural events
Oh! guard the marvels I relate Of fell ambition scourg’d by fate, From reason’s peevish blame. Blest with thy smile, my dauntless sail I dare expand to Fancy’s gale, For sure thy smiles are Fame.
