LITTLE WOMEN

CHAPTER ONE

‘Christmas won’t be  Christmas without any presents,’ grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. ‘It’s so dreadful to be poor!’ sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress. ‘I don’t think it’s fair for some girls to have plenty of pret-ty things, and other girls nothing at all,’ added little Amy, with an injured sniff. ‘We’ve got Father and Mother, and each other,’ said Beth contentedly from her corner. The four young faces on which the firelight shone bright-ened at the cheerful words, but darkened again as Jo said sadly, ‘We haven’t got Father, and shall not have him for a long time.’ She didn’t say ‘perhaps never,’ but each silent-ly added it, thinking of Father far away, where the fighting was.

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PARADISE LOST

Book I

Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste Brought death into the World, and all our woe,With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,

Sing, Heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire. That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed In the beginning how the heavens and earth Rose out of Chaos: or, if Sion hill

Delight thee more, and Siloa’s brook that flowed Fast by the oracle of God, I thence Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song, That with no middle flight intends to soar. Above th’ Aonian mount, while it pursues 

Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.

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OLIVER TWIST

CHAPTER I

TREATS OF THE PLACE WHERE OLIVER TWIST WAS BORN AND OF THE IRCUMSTANCES

ATTENDING HIS BIRTH

A mong other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from men-tioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born; on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inas-much as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all events; the item of mortal-ity whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter.

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BLEAK- HOUSE

PREFACE

A Chancery judge once had the kindness to inform me, as one of a company of some hundred and fifty men and women not labouring under any suspicions of lunacy, that the Court of Chancery, though the shining subject of much popular prejudice (at which point I thought the judge’s eye had a cast in my direction), was almost immaculate. There had been, he admitted, a trivial blemish or so in its rate of progress, but this was exaggerated and had been entirely owing to the ‘parsimony of the public,’ which guilty public, it appeared, had been until lately bent in the most deter-mined manner on by no means enlarging the number of Chancery judges appointed—I believe by Richard the Sec-ond, but any other king will do as well.

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