Edwin Franklin Roberts

Name: Once a Week
Author: Edwin Franklin Roberts

Once a Week (1864)

Summary

“Once a Week”, published in 1864, is a work by Edwin Franklin Roberts. It explores elements such as Steve Lidyard, listeners and frontage.

Quotes from Once a Week (Edwin Franklin Roberts)

Edwin Franklin Roberts, Once a Week (1864)

“ I turned and fled, regaining the streets of the catacombs, where, at least, I had no sufficiency of fresh terrors to feast upon. Hurrying on, almost deliriously, I emerged at last by a narrow way leading to a ravine, and presently stood panting in the open air, inhaling gratefully the refreshing coolness of the passing breeze. I then sat down to think—to try to think, rather; but I could not. All seemed like a dream, a nightmare; all surely must be a dream, but a dream out of which I found it impossible to awaken; and which therefore must, with all its phantasy, partake of reality. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edwin Franklin Roberts, Once a Week (1864)

“ Some considerable distance from the city of Palermo there lies a region of wild and sterile mountains for the most part, the interior of which is traversed by a valley almost parallel to one much better known as the Valley of Ispica, the former being shunned by the dwellers of the region from superstitions of a most formidable character, and which, in fact, are its especial property, thus rendering its precincts unapproachable ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edwin Franklin Roberts, Once a Week (1864)

“ I give the following as I heard it from Steve’s own lips, as I and half a dozen of us sat in a garden one sunny afternoon,—a fine cedar lifting up its stately and spreading branches between us and the ardent sun above, and forming a very welcome shade. Cigars and sherry were within easy reach, and among our listeners, besides the City “fogies,” there were their matrons and one or two very pretty girls: admirable listeners these last, when they did not, with their own pleasant prattle and musical laughter, break upon the more serious progress of the conversation. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edwin Franklin Roberts, Once a Week (1864)

“ Grasping my rifle, after seeing that the charges were right, I strode out by an aperture so narrow that I could scarcely discern a faint glimmer of light at the extremity, and went on, slowly feeling my way, for I knew not what awful pitfall might yawn before me till in the blessed sun shine once more. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edwin Franklin Roberts, Once a Week (1864)

“ I stood in a great square, the four sides of which, in pillar and cornice, in frieze, pediment, and every imaginable form of architectural splendour, all rose upon a scale of dimensions which quite baffled the powers of calculation ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edwin Franklin Roberts, Once a Week (1864)

“ To my surprise, to my dismay rather, I soon found that what I had taken for a dwelling was only the section of a vast catacomb, and the real ancient city, whose (once) living had peopled the grand and gloomy receptacle of the dead, must be contiguous to this spot, but which, as yet, I had not fallen upon ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edwin Franklin Roberts, Once a Week (1864)

“ The ample tide and flow of descending hair, flying too in every direction, had, under the skill of the workman, become a petrifaction quite as wonderful; for the highest, if distorted, form of art was evident. Tt was as fantastic in design as it seemed to be revelling in a phantasy of Gorgonian horrors, and which it may be the province of a particular age and clime to introduce, but which really seems to belong to insanity alone to invent.
"This, and such as this, formed the frontage facing where I stood. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edwin Franklin Roberts, Once a Week (1864)

“ The ghostly towering frontage to my right might have represented a 'Macaber' dance—a Dance of Death, but after an antique fashion far more appalling than Holbein's, and utterly destitute of his sinister humour.
"The frontage to the left consisted of one vast human face, its dimensions being only to be guessed at. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edwin Franklin Roberts, Once a Week (1864)

“ At this juncture of the narrative, and naturally so,—for during a short pause ever so many minor events may occur, such as a glass of wine, a fresh cigar, &c,—the lady listeners gave utterance to a suppressed scream, and the gentlemen turned pale, each one shifting uneasily in his seat. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edwin Franklin Roberts, Once a Week (1864)

“ Here Steve slightly changed colour.
"I heard that horrid crash which succeeds the fall of a human being from some great height,—a sound that, I venture to say, has not its equivalent in nature: it carries a horror beyond words; and I fainted. * * *
"How I got back to Palermo safe and sound needs further details ”

Edwin Franklin Roberts

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Quotes from Once a Week (Edwin Franklin Roberts)

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