A Tale
p>--NEQUE SEMPER ARCUM TENDIT APOLLO. HOR. LONDON: PRINTED FOR T. HOOKHAM, AT HIS CIRCULATING LIBRARY, NEW BOND-STREET, CORNER OF BRUTON-STREET. M,DCC,LXXXIV. CONTENTS PART the FIRST. CHAPTER I. Containing introductory Matter. CHAPTER II. A Ball CHAPTER III. A Ghost. CHAPTER IV. A love Scene. CHAPTER V. A Man of Humor. CHAPTER VI. Containing some Specimens of Heroism. CHAPTER VII. Containing that with which the Reader will be acquainted when he has read it. CHAPTER VIII. Two Persons of Fashion. CHAPTER IX. A tragical Resolution. CONTENTS. PART the SECOND. CHAPTER I. In which th... (From : Gutenberg.org.)
From: William Godwin . Imogen: A Pastoral Romance From the Ancient British. BOOK THE SECOND THUNDER STORM.--THE RAPE OF IMOGEN.--EDWIN ARRIVES AT THE GROTTO OF ELWY.--CHARACTER OF THE MAGICIAN.--THE END OF THE FIRST DAY. THE song of Llewelyn was heard by the shepherds with reverence and mute attention. Their blameless hearts were lifted to the skies with the sentiment of gratitude; their honest bosoms overflowed with the fervor of devotion. They proved their sympathy with the feelings of the bard, not by licentious shouts and wild huzzahes, but by the composure of their spirits, the serenity of their countenances' and the deep and unutterable silence which universally prevailed. And now the hoary minstrel rose from the little eminence, beneath the aged oak, from whose branches depended the ivy and the honeysuckle, on which the veneration of the multitude had placed him. He came into the midst of the plain, and the sons and the daughters...
No one at all capable of an intense conscious inner life need ever hope to escape mental anguish and suffering. Sorrow and often despair over the so-called eternal fitness of things are the most persistent companions of our life. But they do not come upon us from the outside, through the evil deeds of particularly evil people. They are conditioned in our very being; indeed, they are interwoven through a thousand tender and coarse threads with our existence. It is absolutely necessary that we realize this fact, because people who never get away from the notion that their misfortune is due to the wickedness of their fellows never can outgrow the petty hatred and malice which constantly blames, condemns, and hounds others for something that is... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
“All of us, men and women, are brought up in these aberrations of feeling that we call love. I from childhood had prepared myself for this thing, and I loved, and I loved during all my youth, and I was joyous in loving. It had been put into my head that it was the noblest and highest occupation in the world. But when this expected feeling came at last, and I, a man, abandoned myself to it, the lie was pierced through and through. Theoretically a lofty love is conceivable; practically it is an ignoble and degrading thing, which it is equally disgusting to talk about and to remember. It is not in vain that nature has made ceremonies, but people pretend that the ignoble and the shameful is beautiful and lofty. “I will tell you brutally and briefly what were the first signs of my love. I abandoned myself to beastly excesses, not only not ashamed of them, but proud of them, giving no thought to the intellectual life of my wife. And not only did I not think of her in...
WILLIAM GODWIN GODWIN'S OWN ACCOUNT OF CALEB WILLIAMS As written for insertion in the edition of FLEETWOOD when that novel was reprinted in Bentley's "Standard Novels' as No. XXII London, November 20, 1832 CALEB WILLIAMS has always been regarded by the public with an unusual degree of favor. The proprietor of "THE STANDARD NOVELS" has therefore imagined, that even an account of the concoction and mode of writing the work would be viewed with some interest. I had always felt in myself some vocation towards the composition of a narrative of fictitious adventure; and among the things of obscure note, which I have above referred to, were two or three pieces of this nature. It is not therefore extraordinary that some project of the sort should have suggested itself on the present occasion [after the publication of Political Justice] I formed a conception of a book of fictitious adv...
We boast of the age of advancement, of science, and progress. Is it not strange, then, that we still believe in fetish worship? True, our fetishes have different form and substance, yet in their power over the human mind they are still as disastrous as were those of old. Our modern fetish is universal suffrage. Those who have not yet achieved that goal fight bloody revolutions to obtain it, and those who have enjoyed its reign bring heavy sacrifice to the altar of this omnipotent deity. Woe to the heretic who dare question that divinity! Woman, even more than man, is a fetish worshiper, and though her idols may change, she is ever on her knees, ever holding up her hands, ever blind to the fact that her god has feet of clay. Thus woman has b... (From : Anarchy Archives.)