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Preface: An affair which might be deemed worthy of a note of a few lines in any general history has been here expanded to the size of a volume or large pamphlet. The smallness of the scale, and the singularity of the manners and events and many of the characters, considered, it is hoped that, in spite of its outlandish subject, the sketch may find readers. It has been a task of difficulty. Speed was essential, or it might come too late to be of any service to a distracted country....

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Excerpt: A Reading of Life by George Meredith.

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Contents Poem: A Reading of Life?The Vital Choice .................................................................................. 5 Poem: A Reading of Life?With The Huntress .............................................................................. 6 Poem: A Reading of Life?With The Persuader ............................................................................ 7 Poem: A Reading of Life?The Test Of Manhood ....................................................................... 14 Poem: The Cageing Of Ares ........................................................................................................... 19 Poem: The Night-Walk .................................................................................................................... 22 Poem: The Hueless Love ................................................................................................................. 24 Poem: Song In The Songless .......................................................................................................... 25 Poem: Union In Disseverance .......................................................................

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Excerpt: It is no easy task in this world to distinguish between what is great in it, and what is mean; and many and many is the puzzle that I have had in reading History (or the works of fiction which go by that name), to know whether I should laud up to the skies, and endeavor, to the best of my small capabilities, to imitate the remarkable character about whom I was reading, or whether I should fling aside the book and the hero of it, as things altogether base, unworthy, laughable, and get a novel, or a game of billiards, or a pipe of tobacco, or the report of the last debate in the House, or any other employment which would leave the mind in a state of easy vacuity, rather than pester it with a vain set of dates relating to actions which are in themselves not worth a fig, or with a parcel of names of people whom it can do one no earthly good to remember....

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Excerpt: The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling by Henry Fielding: Volume Two, Containing Books IX through XVIII.

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Excerpt: The Divine Comedy, Volume Three, Paradise [Paradiso] by Dante Aligheri, trans Charles Eliot Norton.

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Contents CANTO I. Proem.?Invocation.?Beatrice and Dante ascend to the Sphere of Fire.?Beatrice explains the cause of their ascent.......................................................................................................................................................... 6 CANTO II. Proem.?Ascent to the Moon.?The cause of Spots on the Moon.?Influence of the Heavens. ........ 10 CANTO III. The Heaven of the Moon.?Spirits whose vows had been broken.?Piccarda Donati.?The Empress Constance. ............................................................................................................................................................. 13 CANTO IV. Doubts of Dante, respecting the justice of Heaven and the abode of the blessed, solved by Beatrice.? Question of Dante as to the possibility of reparation for broken vows. .............................................................. 16 CANTO V. The sanctity of vows, and the seriousness with which they are to be made or changed.?Ascent to the Heaven of Mercury.?The shade of Justinian. .........................................................................................

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Excerpt: They, who to states and governors of the Commonwealth direct their speech, High Court of Parliament, or, wanting such access in a private condition, write that which they foresee may advance the public good; I suppose them, as at the beginning of no mean endeavour, not a little altered and moved inwardly in their minds: some with doubt of what will be the success, others with fear of what will be the censure; some with hope, others with confidence of what they have to speak....

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Contents Areopagitica ? 3 John Milton: A Brief Bio, 1608 - 74 ? 49 L?ALLEGRO ? 50 IL PENSEROSO ? 54 COMUS ? 58 LYCIDAS ? 86

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Excerpt: Are these the only works of Providence within us? What words suffice to praise or set them forth? Had we but understanding, should we ever cease hymning and blessing the Divine Power, both openly and in secret, and telling of His gracious gifts? Whether digging or ploughing or eating, should we not sing the hymn to God....

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Excerpt: Narrative of the Live of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglas.

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Excerpt: Young Folks? History of England by Charlotte M. Yonge.

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Contents Young Folks? History of England ..................................... 6 CHAPTER I JULIUS CAESAR. B.C. 55 ........................................................................................ 6 CHAPTER II THE ROMANS IN BRITAIN. A.D. 41?418.......................................................... 8 CHAPTER III THE ANGLE CHILDREN A.D. 597.................................................................... 10 CHAPTER IV THE NORTHMEN. A.D. 858?958...................................................................... 12 CHAPTER V THE DANISH CONQUEST. A.D. 958?1035 ...................................................... 15 CHAPTER VI THE NORMAN CONQUEST. A.D. 1035?1066 ................................................ 17 CHAPTER VII WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. A.D. 1066?1087 ......................................... 19 CHAPTER VIII WILLIAM II., RUFUS. A.D. 1087-1100 ........................................................... 22 CHAPTER IX HENRY I., BEAU-CLERC. A.D. 1100?1135 ..................................................... 24 CHAPTER X STEPHEN. A.D. 1135?1154 .........................................................................

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Excerpt: Wild Apples by Henry David Thoreau.

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Excerpt: Introduction and Analysis. The critias is a fragment which breaks off in the middle of a sentence. It was designed to be the second part of a trilogy, which, like the other great Platonic trilogy of the Sophist, Statesman, Philosopher, was never completed. Timaeus had brought down the origin of the world to the creation of man, and the dawn of history was now to succeed the philosophy of nature....

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Excerpt: Annajanska is frankly a bravura piece. The modern variety theatre demands for its ?turns? little plays called sketches, to last twenty minutes or so, and to enable some favorite performer to make a brief but dazzling appearance on some barely passable dramatic pretext. Miss Lillah McCarthy and I, as author and actress, have helped to make one another famous on many serious occasions, from Man and Superman to Androcles; and Mr. Charles Ricketts has not disdained to snatch moments from his painting and sculpture to design some wonderful dresses for us. We three unbent as Mrs Siddons, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr. Johnson might have unbent, to devise a turn for the Coliseum variety theatre. Not that we would set down the art of the variety theatre as something to be condescended to, or our own art as elephantine. We should rather crave indulgence as three novices fresh from the awful legitimacy of the highbrow theatre....

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Excerpt: The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung?s Ring by George Bernard Shaw.

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Contents Preface to the First German Edition................................................................................................ 5 Preface to the Second Edition ........................................................................................................... 9 Preface to the First Edition ..............................................................................................................11 THE PERFECT WAGNERITE ..................................................................................................... 12 Preliminary Encouragements ...................................................................................................................................... 12 The Ring of the Niblungs ............................................................................................................................................. 14 The Rhine Gold ............................................................................................................................................................ 14 First Scene ...............................................................................

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Excerpt: This publication of The Divine Comedy of Dante - Purgatory, Translated by H.F. Cary.

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Preface: This book comes from the reflections and experience of more than forty years spent in court. Aside from the practice of my profession, the topics I have treated are such as have always held my interest and inspired a taste for books that discuss the human machine with its manifestations and the causes of its varied activity. I have endeavored to present the latest scientific thought and investigation bearing upon the question of human conduct. I do not pretend to be an original investigator, nor an authority on biology, psychology or philosophy. I have simply been a student giving the subject such attention as I could during a fairly busy life. No doubt some of the scientific conclusions stated are still debatable and may finally be rejected. The scientific mind holds opinions tentatively and is always ready to reexamine, modify or discard as new evidence comes to light....

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Excerpt: My dear Walkley, you once asked me why I did not write a Don Juan play. The levity with which you assumed this frightful responsibility has probably by this time enabled you to forget it; but the day of reckoning has arrived: here is your play! I say your play, because qui facit per alium facit per se. Its profits, like its labor, belong to me: its morals, its manners, its philosophy, its influence on the young, are for you to justify. You were of mature age when you made the suggestion; and you knew your man. It is hardly fifteen years since, as twin pioneers of the New Journalism of that time, we two, cradled in the same new sheets, made an epoch in the criticism of the theatre and the opera house by making it a pretext for a propaganda of our own views of life. So you cannot plead ignorance of the character of the force you set in motion. Yon meant me to epater le bourgeois; and if he protests, I hereby refer him to you as the accountable party....

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Excerpt: Heartbreak house is not merely the name of the play which follows this preface. It is cultured, leisured Europe before the war. When the play was begun not a shot had been fired; and only the professional diplomatists and the very few amateurs whose hobby is foreign policy even knew that the guns were loaded. A Russian playwright, Tchekov, had produced four fascinating dramatic studies of Heartbreak House, of which three, The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya, and The Seagull, had been performed in England. Tolstoy, in his Fruits of Enlightenment, had shown us through it in his most ferociously contemptuous manner....

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. At the end of the winter, in the Shtcherbatskys? house, a consultation was being held, which was to pronounce on the state of Kitty?s health and the measures to be taken to restore her failing strength. She had been ill, and as spring came on she grew worse. The family doctor gave her cod liver oil, then iron, then nitrate of silver, but as the first and the second and the third were alike in doing no good, and as his advice when spring came was to go abroad, a celebrated physician was called in. The celebrated physician, a very handsome man, still youngish, asked to examine the patient. He maintained, with peculiar satisfaction, it seemed, that maiden modesty is a mere relic of barbarism, and that nothing could be more natural than for a man still youngish to handle a young girl naked. He thought it natural because he did it every day, and felt and thought, as it seemed to him, no harm as he did it and consequently he considered modesty in the girl not merely as a relic of barbarism, but also as an insult to himself....

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Prologue: Nennius, the lowly minister and servant of the servants of God, by the grace of God, disciple of St. Elbotus, to all the followers of truth sendeth health. Be it known to your charity, that being dull in intellect and rude of speech, I have presumed to deliver these things in the Latin tongue, not trusting to my own learning, which is little or none at all, but partly from traditions of our ancestors, partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans, and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymus, Prosper, Eusebius, and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons, although our enemies, not following my own inclinations, but, to the best of my ability, obeying the commands of my seniors; I have lispingly put together this history from various sources, and have endeavored, from shame, to deliver down to posterity the few remaining ears of corn about past transactions, that they might not be trodden under foot, seeing that an ample crop has been snatched away already by the hostile reapers of foreign nations. For many things have been in my way, and I...