The narrator a young man called Edward Eden meets a strange old gentleman who says he wants him to be his heir, this strange meeting produces stranger results.....
Lord of the World is a 1907 novel by Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson that centers upon the reign of the Anti-Christ and the End of the World. It has been called prophetic by Dale Ahlquist, Joseph Pearce, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.
It is a collection of fictitious dialogues between kings, queens, philosophers, etc, who were separated by centuries. Several consist of one person being brow-beaten by a supposedly wiser figure, so there are usually clear winners in the debates.
In this collection of essays, the author takes a look at the state of the study of early religion, ritual, magic, and myth. He begins by looking at science and superstition, and the dangers of allowing belief unsupported by fact to seep into science. He then discusses the origin or religion, and "loan gods," or borrowed religion, a theory advanced by E.B. Tylor. Then moves on to look at William Frazer's theory of the origin of the divine character of Christ, and more.
A time-traveler, Julian West, a young Bostonian who is put into a hypnotic sleep in the late 19th century, and awakens in the year 2000 in a socialist utopia. In conversations with the doctor who awakened him, he discovers a brilliantly realized vision of an ideal future, one that seemed unthinkable in his own century. Crime, war, personal animosity, and want are nonexistent. Equality of the sexes is a fact of life. In short, a messianic state of brotherly love is in effect.
The simple truth, and everybody knows it really, is that collars squeak for some people and not for others. A squeaky collar round the neck of a man is a comment, not upon the collar, but upon the man. That man is unlucky. Things are against him. Nature may have done all for him that she could, have given him a handsome outside and a noble inside, but the world of inanimate objects is against him.
The dominion which astronomy has always held over the minds of men is akin to that of poetry; when the former becomes merely instructive and the latter purely didactic, both lose their power over the imagination. Astronomy is known as the oldest of the sciences, and it will be the longest-lived because it will always have arcana that have not been penetrated....
The Romance of Modern Invention Contains Interesting Descriptions in Non-Technical Language of Wireless Telegraphy, Liquid Air, Modern Artillery, Submarines, Dirigible Torpedoes, Solar Motors, Airships, &c. &c.
I was-you shall hear immediately why I am not now-Egbert Craddock Cummins. The name remains. I am still Dramatic Critic to the Fiery Cross. What I shall be in a little while I do not know. I write in great trouble and confusion of mind. I will do what I can to make myself clear in the face of terrible difficulties. You must bear with me a little. When a man is rapidly losing his own identity, he naturally finds a difficulty in expressing himself.
Suspecting that the moon is just like the earth, and that its inhabitants have visited us, the adventurer devises several means of paying a return visit. His first attempt is based on the fact that dew is attracted to the morning sun. "I attached to myself a few bottles of dew, and the heat of the sun, which attracted it, drew me so high that I finally emerged above the highest clouds." This has him headed for the sun, not the moon! He realizes his error and release enough dew to return to earth