Anno Domini 2000; or, Woman's Destiny

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Julius Vogel. Anno Domini 2000; or, Woman's Destiny

PROLOGUE. A.D. 1920

CHAPTER I. THE YEAR 2000—UNITED BRITAIN

CHAPTER II. THE EMPEROR AND HILDA FITZHERBERT

CHAPTER III. LORD REGINALD PARAMATTA

CHAPTER IV. PARTIAL VICTORY

CHAPTER V. CABINET NEGOTIATIONS

CHAPTER VI. BAFFLED REVENGE

CHAPTER VII. HEROINE WORSHIP

CHAPTER VIII. AIR-CRUISERS

CHAPTER IX. TOO STRANGE NOT TO BE TRUE

CHAPTER X. LORD REGINALD AGAIN

CHAPTER XI. GRATEFUL IRELAND

CHAPTER XII. THE EMPEROR PLANS A CAMPAIGN

CHAPTER XIII. LOVE AND WAR

CHAPTER XIV. THE FOURTH OF JULY RETRIEVED

CHAPTER XV. CONCLUSION

EPILOGUE

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George Claude Sonsius in his early youth appeared to have before him a fair, prosperous future. His father and mother were of good family, but neither of them inherited wealth. When young Sonsius finished his university career, the small fortune which his father possessed was swept away by the failure of a large banking company. All that remained from the wreck was a trifling annuity payable during the lives of his father and mother, and this they did not live long to enjoy. They died within a year of each other, but they had been able to obtain for their son a fairly good position in a large mercantile house as foreign correspondent. At twenty-five the young man married; and three years afterwards he unfortunately met with a serious accident, that made him for two years a helpless invalid and at the end of the time left him with his right hand incapable of use. Meanwhile his appointment had lapsed, his wife's small fortune had disappeared, and during several years his existence had been one continual struggle with ever-increasing want and penury. The end was approaching. The father and mother and their one crippled son, twelve years old, dwelt in the miserable attic of a most dilapidated house in one of the poorest neighbourhoods of London. The roof over their heads did not even protect them from the weather. The room was denuded of every article of furniture with the exception of two worthless wooden cases and a horsehair mattress on which the unhappy boy stretched his pain-wrung limbs.

Early in life this child suffered only from weakness of the spine, but his parents could afford no prolonged remedial measures. Not that they were unkind to him. On the contrary, they devoted to him every minute they could spare, and lavished on him all the attention that affection comparatively powerless from want of means could dictate. But the food they were able to give him was scant instead of, as his condition demanded, varied and nutritious. At length chronic disease of the spine set in, and his life became one long misery.

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He resumed in slower and apparently more mastered words. "I wish I could put it to you sufficiently strongly that our houses would not have considered any good that could result to them and to you a sufficient excuse for inviting such a combination. We hold that the only cause that could justify it is the conviction that for the good of mankind a vast power requires to be wielded which is not to be found in the ordinary machinery of government."

A murmur of applause went round the table; and Mr. Demetrius, with much feeling, said, "You make me very happy by the assurance you have given. I will not conceal from you that our house anticipated as much, or it would not have been represented. We are too largely concerned with States in which free institutions are permanent not to avoid anything which might savour of a disposition to combine financial forces for the benefit of financial houses."

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