Great Sea Stories

Forsideomslag
Joseph Lewis French
Brentano's, 1921 - 332 sider

...It is one of the curiosities of literature, a fact that old Isaac Disraeli might have delighted to linger over, that there have been no collectors of sea-tales; that no man has ever, as in the present instance, dwelt upon the topic with the purpose of gathering some of the best work into a single volume. And yet men have written of the sea since 2500 B.C. when an unknown author set down on papyrus his account of a struggle with a sea-serpent. This account, now in the British Museum, is the first sea-story on record. Our modern sea-stories begin properly with the chronicles of the early navigators-in many of which there is an unconscious art that none of our modern masters of fiction has greatly surpassed. For delightful reading the lover of sea stories is referred to Best's account of Frobisher's second voyage-to Richard Chancellor's chronicle of the same period-to Hakluyt, an immortal classic-and to Purchas' "Pilgrimage."...

 

Indhold

I
1
II
26
III
36
IV
75
V
99
VII
129
VIII
145
X
169
XI
191
XII
214
XIV
238
XV
251
XVI
270
XVII
294
XVIII
312
Copyright

Andre udgaver - Se alle

Almindelige termer og sætninger

Populære passager

Side 98 - ... as I could, in hopes of assistance; but they had already secured the officers who were not of their party, by placing sentinels at their doors. There were three men at my cabin door, besides the four within; Christian had only a cutlass in his hand, the others had muskets and bayonets. I was hauled out of bed, and forced on deck in my shirt, suffering great pain from the tightness with which they had tied my hands. I demanded the reason of such violence, but received no other answer than abuse,...
Side 151 - ... good angels mobbing thee with warnings: — what more wouldst thou have? — Shall we keep chasing this murderous fish till he swamps the last man? Shall we be dragged by him to the bottom of the sea? Shall we be towed by him to the infernal world?
Side 149 - Dick now lay at a little distance, vertically thrusting his oblong white head up and down in the billows; and at the same time slowly revolving his whole spindled body; so that when his vast wrinkled forehead rose — some twenty or more feet out of the water — the now rising swells, with all their confluent waves, dazzlingly broke against it...
Side 147 - ... of his jaw. But soon the fore part of him slowly rose from the water; for an instant his whole marbleized body formed a high arch, like Virginia's Natural Bridge, and warningly waving his bannered flukes in the air, the grand god revealed himself, sounded, and went out of sight. Hoveringly halting, and dipping on the wing, the white sea-fowls longingly lingered over the agitated pool that he left. With oars apeak, and paddles down, the sheets of their sails adrift, the three boats now stilly...
Side 109 - Holland, and gave them every information in my power, that in case any accident should happen to me, those who survived might have some idea of what they were about, and be able to find their way to Timor, which at present...
Side 100 - It will very naturally be asked, what could be the reason for such a revolt ? In answer to which I can only conjecture that the mutineers had flattered themselves with the hopes of a more happy life among the Otaheitans than they could possibly enjoy in England ; and this, joined to some female connexions, most probably occasioned the whole transaction.
Side 146 - A gentle joyousness — a mighty mildness of repose in swiftness, invested the gliding whale. Not the white bull Jupiter swimming away with ravished F.uropa clinging to his graceful horns! his lovely, leering eyes sideways intent upon the maid; with smooth bewitching fleetness, rippling straight for the nuptial bower in Crete; not Jove, not that great majesty Supreme! did surpass the glorified White Whale as he so divinely swam.
Side 150 - Channel billows only recoil from the base of the Eddystone, triumphantly to overleap its summit with their scud. But soon resuming his horizontal attitude, Moby Dick swam swiftly round and round the wrecked crew; sideways churning the water in his vengeful wake, as if lashing himself up to still another and more deadly assault. The sight of the splintered boat seemed to madden him, as the blood of grapes and mulberries cast before Antiochus's elephants in the book of Maccabees.
Side 165 - But as the last whelmings intermixingly poured themselves over the sunken head of the Indian at the mainmast, leaving a few inches of the erect spar yet visible, together with long streaming yards of the flag, which calmly undulated, with ironical coincidings, over the destroying billows they almost...
Side 151 - ... the boats with open jaws, and a lashing tail, offered appalling battle on every side ; and heedless of the irons darted at him from every boat, seemed only intent on annihilating each separate plank of which those boats were made. But...

Bibliografiske oplysninger