Turtle Reader

Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Getting in the Halloween spirit a bit early I guess. Coincidentally both stories start written in the form of correspondence. (Also in the Halloween vein don’t forget Lovecraft’s Cthulu stories)
T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom. I just watched the movie Lawrence of Arabia and enjoyed it so [...]

“Oh, it is not thus–not thus,” interrupted the being. “Yet such must
be the impression conveyed to you by what appears to be the purport of
my actions. Yet I seek not a fellow feeling in my misery. No sympathy
may I ever find. When I first sought it, it was the love of [...]

Margaret, what comment can I make on the untimely extinction of this
glorious spirit? What can I say that will enable you to understand the
depth of my sorrow? All that I should express would be inadequate and
feeble. My tears flow; my mind is overshadowed by a cloud of
disappointment. But I journey towards [...]

“Do you, then, really return?”

“Alas! Yes; I cannot withstand their demands. I cannot lead them
unwillingly to danger, and I must return.”

“Do so, if you will; but I will not. You may give up your purpose, but
mine is assigned to me by heaven, and I dare not. I am weak, but
surely the [...]

But you have a husband and lovely children; you may be happy. Heaven
bless you and make you so!

My unfortunate guest regards me with the tenderest compassion. He
endeavours to fill me with hope and talks as if life were a possession
which he valued. He reminds me how often the same accidents have
happened to [...]

His tale is connected and told with an appearance of the simplest
truth, yet I own to you that the letters of Felix and Safie, which he
showed me, and the apparition of the monster seen from our ship,
brought to me a greater conviction of the truth of his narrative than
his asseverations, however earnest and connected. [...]

On hearing this information I suffered a temporary access of despair.
He had escaped me, and I must commence a destructive and almost endless
journey across the mountainous ices of the ocean, amidst cold that few
of the inhabitants could long endure and which I, the native of a
genial and sunny climate, could not hope to survive. [...]

Amidst the wilds of Tartary and Russia, although he still evaded me, I
have ever followed in his track. Sometimes the peasants, scared by
this horrid apparition, informed me of his path; sometimes he himself,
who feared that if I lost all trace of him I should despair and die,
left some mark to guide me. The [...]

“Man,” I cried, “how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom! Cease;
you know not what it is you say.”

I broke from the house angry and disturbed and retired to meditate on
some other mode of action.

Chapter 24

My present situation was one in which all voluntary thought was
swallowed up and lost. I was hurried [...]

There were no horses to be procured, and I must return by the lake; but
the wind was unfavourable, and the rain fell in torrents. However, it
was hardly morning, and I might reasonably hope to arrive by night. I
hired men to row and took an oar myself, for I had always experienced
relief from mental [...]