... the Mousmes of Japan, as playthings, and insisted on one thing only—that they must be pretty. A Frenchman, despite his unusual intellectual power, he was not wholly emancipated from the la petite femme tradition, which will never be outmoded in Paris while Paris hums with life, and, therefore, when he was informed that he was to take in to dinner the tall, solidly built, big-waisted, rugged-faced woman, whom he had been observing from a distance ever since he came into the drawing-room, he felt that he was being ... — The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... supporting role. That is The Sky Pirate (1909), which is an adventure story laid in the year 1936. Its plot revolves around an abduction for ransom in a period which is visualized as rampant with piracy because of the general adoption of air transportation. As usual, fact has outmoded prophecy, for long before 1936 airplane speeds exceeded the 140 miles per hour Serviss predicted. We still need, though, his invention which enables badly damaged aircraft to drift slowly down to a ... — Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
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