The_Lost_World_NT.pdf

(696 KB) Pobierz
The Lost World
The Lost World
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
This eBook was designed and published by Planet PDF. For more free
eBooks visit our Web site at http://www.planetpdf.com/ . To hear
about our latest releases subscribe to the Planet PDF Newsletter.
111180918.001.png
The Lost World
I have wrought my simple plan
If I give one hour of joy
To the boy who’s half a man,
Or the man who’s half a boy.
2 of 353
111180918.002.png
The Lost World
Foreword
Mr. E. D. Malone desires to state that both the
injunction for restraint and the libel action have been
withdrawn unreservedly by Professor G. E. Challenger,
who, being satisfied that no criticism or comment in this
book is meant in an offensive spirit, has guaranteed that he
will place no impediment to its publication and
circulation.
3 of 353
The Lost World
CHAPTER I
‘There Are Heroisms All Round
Us’
Mr. Hungerton, her father, really was the most tactless
person upon earth,—a fluffy, feathery, untidy cockatoo of
a man, perfectly good-natured, but absolutely centered
upon his own silly self. If anything could have driven me
from Gladys, it would have been the thought of such a
father-in-law. I am convinced that he really believed in his
heart that I came round to the Chestnuts three days a
week for the pleasure of his company, and very especially
to hear his views upon bimetallism, a subject upon which
he was by way of being an authority.
For an hour or more that evening I listened to his
monotonous chirrup about bad money driving out good,
the token value of silver, the depreciation of the rupee,
and the true standards of exchange.
‘Suppose,’ he cried with feeble violence, ‘that all the
debts in the world were called up simultaneously, and
immediate payment insisted upon,—what under our
present conditions would happen then?’
4 of 353
111180918.003.png
The Lost World
I gave the self-evident answer that I should be a ruined
man, upon which he jumped from his chair, reproved me
for my habitual levity, which made it impossible for him
to discuss any reasonable subject in my presence, and
bounced off out of the room to dress for a Masonic
meeting.
At last I was alone with Gladys, and the moment of
Fate had come! All that evening I had felt like the soldier
who awaits the signal which will send him on a forlorn
hope; hope of victory and fear of repulse alternating in his
mind.
She sat with that proud, delicate profile of hers outlined
against the red curtain. How beautiful she was! And yet
how aloof! We had been friends, quite good friends; but
never could I get beyond the same comradeship which I
might have established with one of my fellow-reporters
upon the Gazette,—perfectly frank, perfectly kindly, and
perfectly unsexual. My instincts are all against a woman
being too frank and at her ease with me. It is no
compliment to a man. Where the real sex feeling begins,
timidity and distrust are its companions, heritage from old
wicked days when love and violence went often hand in
hand. The bent head, the averted eye, the faltering voice,
the wincing figure— these, and not the unshrinking gaze
5 of 353

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika:

Zgłoś jeśli naruszono regulamin