For my own part,' said Captain Aubrey, 'I have no notion of disliking a man for his beliefs, above all if he was born with them. I find I can get along very well with Jews or even...' The P of Papists...
But it did not much care for hunting, and then like so many geldings it spent much of its time mourning for its lost stones: a discontented horse.
Although his intimacy with Stephen Maturin did not allow him to ask questions that might be judged impertinent, it was of such a rare kind that he could ask for money without the least hesitation. Hav...
Up and up they went, still a cable's length apart; but slowly, for the ape was footsore and despondent. As for Stephen, by the sixth-hundred step his calves and thighs were ready to burst, and at each...
– and in the din Stephen cried, 'I insist upon a boat – I protest…Jack took him by the elbow and propelled him with affectionate violence into the cabin. 'My dear sir,' he said, 'I am afraid you must...
But I confess that much as I love them, I could wish them both to the Devil, with their high-flown, egocentrical points of honour and their purblind spurring one another on to remarkable exploits that...
Within himself Jack had not the slightest doubt of victory, but it would never do to let this conviction take the form of even unspoken words; it must remain in the state of that inward glow which had...
Well, as for slavery…it is true that I should not like to be one myself, yet Nelson was in favour of it and he said that the country’s shipping would be ruined if the trade were put down. Perhaps it c...
Two weevils crept from the crumbs. ‘You see those weevils, Stephen?’ said Jack solemnly. ‘I do.’ ‘Which would you choose?’ ‘There is not a scrap of difference. Arcades ambo. They are the same species...
There was something disagreeable, and somehow reptilian, about the cold, contained way Stephen took up his stance, raised his pistol, looked along the barrel with his pale eyes, and shot the head off...
The operation, performed on an immensely obese, timid patient, was far more intricate than they had expected; yet finally it was done, and not only was it successful in itself, but there was a real li...
Smell is of all senses by far the most evocative: perhaps because we have no vocabulary for it – nothing but a few poverty-stricken approximations to describe the whole vast complexity of odour – and...
Profane oaths, cursings and execrations (forbidden in any event by the second Article of War) were laid aside or modified, and it was pleasant to hear the bosun cry 'Oh you . . . unskilful fellow' whe...
Oh, what is that bird?''It is a wheatear. We have seen between two and three hundred since we set out, and I have told you their name twice, nay, three times.
Man is a deeply illogical being, and must be ruled illogically. Whatever that frigid prig Bentham may say, there are innumerable motives that have nothing to do with utility.
Let me look to your pistols,' said Jack, as the trees came closer to the road. 'You have no notion of hammering your flints.''They are very well,' said Stephen, unwilling to open his holsters (a terat...
Killick,’ he cried, folding and sealing it. ‘That’s for the post. Is the Doctor ready?’‘Ready and waiting these fourteen minutes,’ said Stephen in a loud, sour voice. ‘What a wretched tedious slow han...
Jack, Harding and all those who had any pride in the ship’s beauty and her seamanlike appearance had done virtually everything in human power to make it impossible for any candid eye, however severe,...
I am so happy,’ observed Jack, after a moment; and indeed he could be seen swelling with it. ‘But what was that about beer?’ ‘I asked whether we were still in the beer region, or domain, that part of...
He considered old age and its mutilations and wondered what it would do for him: examples presented themselves to his mind, not only of mental decay, physical weakness, gout, stone and rheumatism, but...