response 10 of 195:

Jan 8 17:16 UTC 1999

Yep, Lew Wallace would've been my guess too, based on the last
entry. Gloria beat me to it. I look forward to her quote.

Simon is quite right that the film version (actually, both films:
the silent one and the C. Heston version) are better known that
the original novel nowadays.

response 12 of 195:

Jan 8 18:12 UTC 1999

Okay - here it is:

"The rain continued.  It was a hard rain, a perpetual rain, a sweating and
steaming rain; it was a mizzle, a downpour, a fountain, a whipping at the
eyes, an undertow at the ankles; it was a rain to drown all rains and the
memory of rains.  It came by the pound and the ton, it hacked at the jungle
and cut the trees like scissors and shaved the grass and tunneled the soil
and molted the bushes.  It shrank's men's hands into the hands of wrinkled
apes; it rained a solid glassy rain, and it never stopped."

response 14 of 195:

Jan 8 19:12 UTC 1999

Not Maugham.  Here's the next paragraph:

"The Lieutenant looked up.  He had a face that had once been brown and now
the rain had washed it pale, and the rain had washed the color from his eyes
and they were white, as were his teeth, and as was his hair.  He was all
white.  Even his uniform was beginning to turn white, and perhaps a little
green with fungus."
. 

response 16 of 195:

Jan 8 23:18 UTC 1999

John Fowles?  The French Lieutenant's Woman?

response 18 of 195:

Jan 9 03:24 UTC 1999

(In any case, I vehemently disagree with that critic about Salman Rushie.)

response 20 of 195:

Jan 11 14:40 UTC 1999

Sorry it took me a few days.  I don't log in much on the 
weekends.

Here's a new quote:

"I don't often speak of myself," said John, "but as you are going away 
from us out into the world to shift for yourself I'll just tell you how 
I look on these things.  I was just as old as Joseph when my father and 
mother died of the fever within ten days of each other, and left me and 
my cripple sister Nelly alone in the world, without a relation that we 
could look to for help.  I was a farmer's boy, not earning enough to 
keep myself, much less both of us, and she must have gone to the 
workhouse but for our mistress (Nelly calls her her angel, and she has 
good right to do so).  She went and hired a room for her with old Widow 
Mallet, and she gave her knitting and needlework when she was able to do 
it; and when she was ill she sent her dinners and many nice, comfortable 
things, and was like a mother to her.  Then the master he took me into 
the stable under old Norman, the coachman that was then.  I had my food 
at the house and my bed in the loft, and a suit of clothes, and three 
shillings a week, so that I could help Nelly.  Then there was Norman;
he might have turned round and said at his age he could not be troubled
with a raw boy from the plow-tail, but he was like a father to me, and 
took no end of pains with me.  When the old man died some years after I 
stepped into his place, and now of course I have top wages, and can lay 
by for a rainy day or a sunny day, as it may happen, and Nelly is as 
happy as a bird.  So you see, James, I am not the man that should turn 
up his nose at a little boy and vex a good, kind master.  No, no! I 
shall miss you very much, James, but we shall pull through, and there's 
nothing like doing a kindness when 'tis put in your way, and I am glad I 
can do it."

response 22 of 195:

Jan 11 22:32 UTC 1999

Nope.  I almost posted something from "Oliver Twist", though!  I 
couldn't find a passage that didn't immediately identify the novel.

You have the right rough time period, though.

response 24 of 195:

Jan 12 14:47 UTC 1999

Not Jane Austen, but you have the right gender of the author.

response 26 of 195:

Jan 12 18:03 UTC 1999

Not George Eliot/Mary Ann Evans.

Here's another quote which will more closely identify the book:

I shall never forget the first train that ran by.  I was feeding quietly 
near the pales which separated the meadow from the railway, when I heard 
a strange sound at a distance, and before I knew whence it came -- with 
a rush and a clatter, and a puffing out of smoke -- a long black train 
of something flew by, and was gone almost before I could draw my 
breath.  I turned and galloped to the further side of the meadow as fast 
as I could go, and there I stood snorting with astonishment and fear.

In the course of the day many other trains went by, some more slowly; 
these drew up at the station close by, and sometimes made an awful 
shriek and groan before they stopped.  I thought it very dreadful, but 
the cows went on eating very quietly, and hardly raised their heads as 
the black frightful thing came puffing and grinding past.

For the first few days I could not feed in peace; but as I found that 
this terrible creature never came into the field, or did me any harm, I 
began to disregard it, and very soon I cared as little about the passing 
of a train as the cows and sheep did.

response 28 of 195:

Jan 12 18:56 UTC 1999

  Willa Cather?

response 30 of 195:

Jan 12 20:37 UTC 1999

Mary Shelly?

response 32 of 195:

Jan 13 06:22 UTC 1999

hmm, sounds like thomas hardy, Tess I think. that would be my guess except 
Hardy is male. how about Charlotte Bronte?