The Complete Works of Nellie Bly: Ten Days in a Mad-House, Around the World in Seventy-Two Days and More

by Nellie Bly

if I had found the elixir of life I should not have felt better than I did when I conceived a hope that a tour of the world might be made in even less than eighty days.

there is no use talking about it; no one but a man can do this." "Very well," I said angrily, "Start the man, and I'll start the same day for some other newspaper and beat him." "I believe you would,"

always have a comfortable feeling that nothing is impossible if one applies a certain amount of energy in the right direction. When I want things done, which is always at the last moment, and I am met with such an answer: "It's too late. I hardly think it can be done;" I simply say: "Nonsense! If you want to do it, you can do it. The question is, do you want to do it?" I have never met the man or woman yet who was not aroused by that answer into doing their very best.

I had been doing newspaper work for almost three years, during which time I had not enjoyed one day's vacation. It is not surprising then that I looked on this trip as a most delightful and much needed rest.

Someone suggested that a revolver would be a good companion piece for the passport, but I had such a strong belief in the world's greeting me as I greeted it, that I refused to arm myself.

I half promised myself that on my return I would pretend sometime that it was urgent that I should get up so I could taste the pleasure of a stolen nap without actually losing anything by it.

the world lost its roundness and seemed a long distance with no end, and-well, I never turn back.

The morning was beautiful and the bay never looked lovelier. The ship glided out smoothly and quietly,

I felt that I should not get hungry if I did not see food for seven days; in fact, I had a great, longing desire not to see it, nor to smell it, nor to eat of it, until I could reach land or a better understanding with myself.

I slept that night as well as people are commonly supposed to sleep after long exercise in the open air.

She was a girl who talked a great deal and she always said something. I have rarely, if ever, met her equal. In German as well as English, she could ably discuss anything from fashions to politics.

One family who were removing from New York to Paris, had with them a little silver skye terrier, which bore the rather odd name of "Home, Sweet Home." Fortunately for the dog, as well as for those who were compelled to speak to him, they had shortened the name into "Homie."

not half liking the idea of being locked in a box like an animal in a freight train.

"They are not bad," I said with a patronizing air, thinking shamefacedly of the dreadful streets of New York, although determined to hear no word against them.

watched the sea-gulls, or what I thought were these useful birds-useful for millinery purposes-and

a little English sailor, who always dropped his h's and never forgot his "sir,"

he began to order in French. The waiter looked blankly at him until, at last, more in a spirit of fun than anything else, I suggested that he give the order in English. The waiter glanced at me with a smile and answered in English.

I also decided that the reason why we think nothing of starting out on long trips, is because our comfort is so well looked after, that living on a first-class railway train is as comfortable as living at a first-class hotel.

Small wonder the American girl is fearless. She has not been used to so called private compartments in English railway carriages, but to large crowds, and every individual that helps to swell that crowd is to her a protector.

There were no stiff formalities to freeze the kindness in all our hearts, but a cordiality expressed with such charming grace that before I had been many minutes in their company, they had won my everlasting respect and devotion.

All the chairs artistically upholstered in brocaded silks, were luxuriously easy.

A fine white Angora cat came rubbing up against my knee, then seeing its charming mistress on the opposite side, went to her and boldly crawled up in her lap as if assured of a cordial welcome.

Imagine a youthful face with a spotless complexion, crowned with the whitest hair, dressed in smooth, soft folds on the top of a dainty head that is most beautifully poised on a pair of plump shoulders.

I try to keep a knowledge of everything that is going on in America and greatly appreciate the hundreds of letters I receive yearly from Americans who read my books. There is one man in California who has been writing to me for years. He writes all the news about his family and home and country as if I were a friend and yet we have never met. He has urged me to come to America as his guest. I know of nothing that I long to do more than to see your land from New York to San Francisco."

Had it not been for the denouement I don't think that I should ever have written the book."

"Why do you not go to Bombay as my hero Phileas Fogg did?" M. Verne asked. "Because I am more anxious to save time than a young widow," I answered. "You may save a young widower before you return," M. Verne said with a smile.

I have thought it small wonder that amid such surroundings authors were able to dream fancies that brought them fame.

I had traveled many miles out of my way for the privilege of meeting M. and Mme. Verne, and I felt that if I had gone around the world for that pleasure, I should not have considered the price too high.

The train that I intended to take for Brindisi is a weekly mail train that runs to accommodate the mails and not passengers.

the rays are just the opposite to being near the ground, but they spread between the ground and the sky like the laths of an unfinished partition.

I never object to cigar smoke when there is some little ventilation, but when it gets so thick that one feels as if it is molasses instead of air that one is inhaling, then I mildly protest.

I was actually startled by the hard, determined light on her face. In everything else she was the sweetest, most gentle girl I ever met, but her religion was of the hard, uncompromising kind, that condemns everything, forgives nothing, and swears the heathen is forever damned because he was not born to know the religion of her belief.

Catherine Elsmere,

Heroine of ROBERT ELSMERE by Victorian novelist Mrs. Humphry Ward.

I might have seen more while traveling through France if the car windows had been clean. From their appearance I judged that they had never been washed.

I dressed with some haste determined to find the guard and demand an explanation of him.

and a smooth bay dotted with boats bearing oddly-shaped and brightly-colored sails, which somehow looked to me like mammoth butterflies, dipping, dipping about in search of honey. Most of the sails were red, and as the sun kissed them with renewed warmth, just before leaving us in darkness, the sails looked as if they were composed of brilliant fire.

As it was after one in the morning, I hardly expected the trial of facing them at once. The crowds of men on the deck dispelled my fond hope. I think every man on board that boat was up waiting to see the new passengers. They must have felt but illy paid for their loss of sleep, for besides the men who came on board, there were only the two large English women and my own plain, uninteresting self.

"Can you run?" the guard asked in a husky voice. I said I could, and he taking a close grasp of my hand, we started down the dark street with a speed that would have startled a deer. Down the dark streets, past astonished watchmen and late pedestrians, until a sudden bend brought us in full view of my ship still in port.

I had gone to sleep with the port-hole open, and as my berth was just beneath it, I received the full force of the scrub-water as it came pouring over the sides.

the smooth, velvety looking water, the bluest I had ever seen, softly gurgling against the side of the ship as it almost imperceptibly steamed on its course, and the balmy air, soft as a rose leaf, and just as sweet, air such as one dreams about but seldom finds;

We had just been served, when four women ranging from twenty-four to thirty-five came in, and with indignant snorts of surprise, seated themselves at the same table. They were followed by a short, fat woman with a sweeping walk and air of satisfied assurance, who eyed us in a supercilious way and then turned to the others with an air of injured dignity that was intensely amusing.

One never realizes, until they face such contingencies, what an important part dinner plays in one's life.

The passengers formed two striking contrasts. There were some of the most refined and lovely people on board, and there were some of the most ill-bred and uncouth.

One Irishwoman, with a laugh that rivaled her face in sweetness,

Sometimes, in the evenings, we had singing, and other times we went to the second-class deck and listened to better music given by second-class passengers.

She sang in a sweet, pathetic voice a little melody about "Who'll buy my silver herrings?" until, I know, if she had tried to sell any, we should all have bought.

it was both ridiculous and pathetic that they should be required to cultivate two such inharmonious arts!

and I never knew of anything that would make one more quickly feel that there are things in life much worse than death, if I may use the expression, than to

the men armed themselves with canes, to keep off the beggars they said; and the women carried parasols for the same purpose.

I never in my life saw such an exhibition of hungry greed for the few pence they expected to earn by taking the passengers ashore.