United States or Caribbean Netherlands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Oscar Wilde stopped where the religion of Goethe began; he was far more of a pagan and individualist than the great German; he lived for the beautiful and extraordinary, but not for the Good and still less for the Whole; he acknowledged no moral obligation; "in commune bonis" was an ideal which never said anything to him; he cared nothing for the common weal; he held himself above the mass of the people with an Englishman's extravagant insularity and aggressive pride.
That explained his magazineless condition. He was only travelling a short way. "Good business," said Mike to himself. He had all the Englishman's love of a carriage to himself. The train was just moving out of the station when his eye was suddenly caught by the stranger's bag, lying snugly in the rack. And here, I regret to say, Mike acted from the best motives, which is always fatal.
In the West Indies, the great islands, Cuba and Hispaniola, were rendered desolate for want of inhabitants. Two great empires, Mexico and Peru, had been subdued by treachery, their kings murdered, and their people made to suffer a living death in the mines of Potosi and New Spain. Such was the Protestant Englishman's conception, in the sixteenth century, of the results of Spanish colonial policy.
After all, he had the average Englishman's reticence, and the free speech of that country still jarred upon him now and then. He knew what Gordon had meant to impress on him, and he was touched by generosity of the motive, but for all that he felt relieved when Gordon abruptly moved away.
Another second, and he would have been well upon his way, when a hand grasped him from behind and drew him back. With a half-articulated imprecation Ben turned and stood fronting Scotty Baker. The Englishman's face was very white. Behind the compound lenses his eyes glowed in a way Ben had not thought possible; but his voice was steady when he spoke. "I saw too, Ben," he said, "and I understand.
Yet all this time, with these hundreds of strong castles, bristling with turrets and towers, no Englishman's life was safe. If he dared to go out alone, even twenty rods from the castle, he was instantly killed by some angry Welshman lying in ambush. So the Normans had to lock themselves up in armor, until they looked like lobsters in their shells.
You failed in wisdom, you yielded to idle curiosity; instead of keeping away, you have entered the lion's den, and the lion will rend you." Then after an instant's silence, during which he seemed to await the Englishman's reply, he resumed, seeing that he remained silent: "Sir John Tanlay, you are condemned to death. Prepare to die!" "Ah!
You expect the British to be cool aviators, but with their phlegm, as we have seen, goes that singular love of risk, of adventure, which sends them to shoot tigers and climb mountains. Indeed, the Englishman's phlegm is a sort of leash holding in check a certain recklessness which his seeming casualness conceals.
Whin th' Prince iv Wales heerd iv it he was furyous. 'What, he says, 'is an English gintleman goin' to be pegged out iv dures be a mere American be descent? he says. 'A man, he says, 'that hasn't an entail to his name, he says. 'An American's home in London is an Englishman's castle, he says.
There was no malice in this, just an Englishman's pleasure in a desperate fight, and curiosity as to the issue. A little later I received a letter from Oscar, asking me if he could call on me that afternoon. I stayed in, and about four o'clock he came to see me. At first he used the old imperious mask, which he had lately accustomed himself to wear.
Word Of The Day