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Excerpt: The Second Part of Henry the Sixth with the Death of the Good Duke Humfrey; Actus Primus -- Scoena Prima -- Flourish of Trumpets: Then Hoboyes. Enter King, Duke Humfrey, Salisbury, Warwicke, and Beau-ford on the one side. The Queene, Suffolke, Yorke, Somerset, and Buckingham, on the other. Suffolke. As by your high Imperiall Majesty, I had in charge at my depart for France, As Procurator to your Excellence, To marry Princes Margaret for your Grace; So in the Famous Ancient City, Toures, In presence of the Kings of France, and Sicill, The Dukes of Orleance, Calaber, Britaigne, and Alanson, Seven Earles, twelve Barons, & twenty reverend Bishops I have perform?d my Taske, and was espous?d, And humbly now upon my bended knee, In sight of England, and her Lordly Peeres, Deliver up my Title in the Queene To your most gracious hands, that are the Substance Of that great Shadow I did represent: The happiest Gift, that ever Marquesse gave, The Fairest Queene, that ever King receiv?d. King. Suffolke arise. Welcome Queene Margaret, I can expresse no kinder signe of Love Then this kinde kisse: O Lord, that lends me life, Lend me a hear...

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Table of Contents: The second Part of Henry the Sixt, 1 -- Actus Primus. Scoena Prima., 1

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Excerpt: When, in March, 1832, the first volume of the now famous Contes Drolatiques was published by Gosselin of Paris, Balzac, in a short preface, written in the publisher?s name, replied to those attacks which he anticipated certain critics would make upon his hardy experiment....

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Contents Translators Preface............................................................................................................................ 4 PROLOGUE ..................................................................................................................................... 6 THE FAIR IMPERIA........................................................................................................................ 8 THE VENIAL SIN........................................................................................................................... 21 HOW THE GOOD MAN BRUYN TOOK A WIFE. ......................................................................................... 21 HOW THE SENESCHAL STRUGGLED WITH HIS WIFE?S MODESTY. ................................................. 31 THAT WHICH IS ONLY A VENIAL SIN. ........................................................................................................ 38 HOW AND BY WHOM THE SAID CHILD WAS PROCURED. ................................................................... 44 HOW THE SAID LOVE-SIN WAS REPENTED OF AND LED TO GREAT MOURNING. ................

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Excerpt: King Richard II by William Shakespeare.

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. How Sir Agravaine and Sir Mordred were busy upon Sir Gawaine for to disclose the love between Sir Launcelot and Queen Guenever In May when every lusty heart flourisheth and bourgeoneth, for as the season is lusty to behold and comfortable, so man and woman rejoice and gladden of summer coming with his fresh flowers: for winter with his rough winds and blasts cause a lusty man and woman to cower and sit fast by the fire. So in this season, as in the month of May, it befell a great anger and unhap that stinted not till the flower of chivalry of all the world was destroyed and slain; and all was long upon two unhappy knights the which were named Agravaine and Sir Mordred, that were brethren unto Sir Gawaine....

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. Of the joy King Arthur and the queen had of the achievement of the Sangreal; and how Launcelot fell to his old love again. So after the quest of the Sangreal was fulfilled, and all knights that were left alive were come again unto the Table Round, as the book of the Sangreal maketh mention, then was there great joy in the court; and in especial King Arthur and Queen Guenever made great joy of the remnant that were come home, and passing glad was the king and the queen of Sir Launcelot and of Sir Bors, for they had been passing long away in the quest of the Sangreal....

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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: William Shakespeare?s Titus Andronicus.

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Excerpt: How Sir Tristram jousted, and smote down King Arthur, because he told him not the cause why he bare that shield. And if so be ye can descrive what ye bear, ye are worthy to bear the arms. As for that, said Sir Tristram, I will answer you; this shield was given me, not desired, of Queen Morgan le Fay; and as for me, I can not descrive these arms, for it is no point of my charge, and yet I trust to God to bear them with worship. Truly, said King Arthur, ye ought not to bear none arms but if ye wist what ye bear: but I pray you tell me your name....

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. How Sir Tristram de Liones was born, and how his mother died at his birth, wherefore she named him Tristram. It was a king that hight Meliodas, and he was lord and king of the country of Liones, and this Meliodas was a likely knight as any was that time living. And by fortune he wedded King Mark?s sister of Cornwall, and she was called Elizabeth, that was called both good and fair. And at that time King Arthur reigned, and he was whole king of England, Wales, and Scotland, and of many other realms: howbeit there were many kings that were lords of many countries, but all they held their lands of King Arthur; for in Wales were two kings, and in the north were many kings; and in Cornwall and in the west were two kings; also in Ireland were two or three kings, and all were under the obeissance of King Arthur....

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Excerpt: Dedication. These to His Memory--since he held them dear, Perchance as finding there unconsciously Some image of himself--I dedicate, I dedicate, I consecrate with tears-- These Idylls....

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Contents Idylls of the King ............................................................................................................................... 4 Dedication ......................................................................................................................................... 4 The Coming of Arthur ...................................................................................................................... 5 Gareth and Lynette ......................................................................................................................... 16 The Marriage of Geraint ............................................................................................................... 45 Geraint and Enid ............................................................................................................................. 61 Balin and Balan ............................................................................................................................... 81 Merlin and Vivien ............................................................................................................

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Excerpt: Rumour: Open your ears; for which of you will stop The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks? I, from the orient to the drooping west, Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold The acts commenced on this ball of earth: Upon my tongues continual slanders ride, The which in every language I pronounce, Stuffing the ears of men with false reports. I speak of peace, while covert enmity Under the smile of safety wounds the world: And who but Rumour, who but only I, Make fearful musters and prepared defence, Whiles the big year, sworn with some other grief, Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war, And no such matter? Rumour is a pipe Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures And of so easy and so plain a stop That the blunt monster with uncounted heads, The still-discordant wavering multitude....

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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: The Poems of Goethe, translated by Edgar Alfred Bowring.

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Contents The Translator?s Original Dedication to the Countess Granville. ..................................................................................... 17 Original Preface. ......................................................................................................................................................... 18 Preface to the Second Edition. ..................................................................................................................................... 21 The Poems of Goethe. ................................................................................................................................................... 22 Dedication. .................................................................................................................................................................. 22 Songs............................................................................................................................................................................ 26 To the Kind Reader. .................................................................................................

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. How Sir Launcelot and Sir Lionel departed from the court, and how Sir Lionel left him sleeping and was taken. Soon after that King Arthur was come from Rome into England, then all the knights of the Table Round re sorted unto the king, and made many jousts and tournaments, and some there were that were but knights, which increased so in arms and worship that they passed all their fellows in prowess and noble deeds, and that was well proved on many; but in especial it was proved on Sir Launcelot du Lake, for in all tournaments and jousts and deeds of arms, both for life and death, he passed all other knights, and at no time he was never overcome but if it were by treason or enchantment; so Sir Launcelot increased so marvellously in worship, and in honour, therefore is he the first knight that the French book maketh mention of after King Arthur came from Rome....

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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: 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: 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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This novel is subtitled The Mellstock Quire, A Rural Painting of the Dutch School. The Quire is the group of musicians who accompany the hymns at the local church and we follow the fortunes of one member, Dick Dewy, who falls in love with the new school mistress, Fancy Day. Another element of the book is the battle between the traditional musicians of the Quire and the local vicar, Parson Maybold, who installs a church organ. This battle illustrates the developing technology being introduced in the Victorian era and its threat to traditional country ways. The novel was published anonymously in 1872 and is often seen as Thomas Hardy's most gentle and pastoral novel. In 2005 Under the Greenwood Tree was adapted for a television version by Ashley Pharoah. (Summary by Rachel Lintern)...

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Literature, Romance

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Rome having been stormed and sacked by the Goths under Alaric their king, the worshippers of false gods, or pagans, as we commonly call them, made an attempt to attribute this calamity to the Christian religion, and began to blaspheme the true God with even more than their wonted bitterness and acerbity. It was this which kindled my zeal for the house of God, and prompted me to undertake the defence of the city of God against the charges and misrepresentations of its assailants. This work was in my hands for several years, owing to the interruptions occasioned by many other affairs which had a prior claim on my attention, and which I could not defer. However, this great undertaking was at last completed in twenty-two books. Of these, the first five refute those who fancy that the polytheistic worship is necessary in order to secure worldly prosperity, and that all these overwhelming calamities have befallen us in consequence of its prohibition. In the following five books I address myself to those who admit that such calamities have at all times attended, and will at all times attend, the human race, and that they constantly recur i...

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Literature, Philosophy, Religion

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Excerpt: THE PREFACE; If ever the story of any private Man?s Adventures in the World were worth making Publick, and were acceptable when Publish?d, the Editor of this Account thinks this will be so. The Wonders of this Man?s Life exceed all that (he thinks)is to be found extant; the Life of one Man being scarce capable of a greater Variety. The Story is told with Modesty, with Seriousness, and with a religious Application of Events to the Uses to which wise Men always apply them (viz.) to the Instruction of others by this Example, and to justify and honour the Wisdom of Providence in all the Variety of our Circumstances, let them happen how they will. The Editor believes the thing to be a just History of Fact; neither is there any Appearance of Fiction in it: And however thinks, because all such things are dispatch?d, that the Improvement of it, as well to the Diversion, as to the Instruction of the Reader, will be the same; and as such, he thinks, without father Compliment to the World, he does them a great Service in the Publication....

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Table of Contents: THE PREFACE, 1 -- THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE, &c., 2 -- THE JOURNAL., 51

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. The Foreigner At Home. ?This is no my ain house; I ken by the biggin? o?t.? Two recent books* one by Mr. Grant White on England, one on France by the diabolically clever Mr. Hillebrand, may well have set people thinking on the divisions of races and nations. Such thoughts should arise with particular congruity and force to inhabitants of that United Kingdom, peopled from so many different stocks, babbling so many different dialects, and offering in its extent such singular contrasts, from the busiest over-population to the unkindliest desert, from the Black Country to the Moor of Rannoch. It is not only when we cross the seas that we go abroad; there are foreign parts of England; and the race that has conquered so wide an empire has not yet managed to assimilate the islands whence she sprang. Ireland, Wales, and the Scottish mountains still cling, in part, to their old Gaelic speech. It was but the other day that English triumphed in Cornwall, and they still show in Mousehole, on St. Michael?s Bay, the house of the last Cornish-speaking woman. English itself, which will now frank the traveller through the most of...

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Contents CHAPTER I: THE FOREIGNER AT HOME ..................................................................................... 5 CHAPTER II: SOME COLLEGE MEMORIES................................................................................ 14 CHAPTER III: OLD MORTALITY .................................................................................................. 20 CHAPTER IV: A COLLEGE MAGAZINE ...................................................................................... 28 CHAPTER V: AN OLD SCOTCH GARDENER ............................................................................. 36 CHAPTER VI: PASTORAL .............................................................................................................. 41 CHAPTER VII: THE MANSE .......................................................................................................... 48 CHAPTER VIII: MEMOIRS OF AN ISLET .................................................................................... 53 CHAPTER IX: THOMAS STEVENSON ? CIVIL ENGINEER...................................................... 58 CHAPTER X: TALK AND TALKERS ....................

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Excerpt: All?s Well, that Ends Well; Actus Primus -- Scoena Prima -- Enter yong Bertram Count of Rossillion, his Mother, and Helena, Lord Lafew, all in blacke. Mother. In delivering my sonne from me, I burie a second husband. Ros. And I in going Madam, weep ore my fathers death anew; but I must attend his majesties command, to whom I am now in Ward, evermore in subjection. Laf. You shall find of the King a husband Madame, you sir a father. He that so generally is at all times good, must of necessitie hold his vertue to you, whose worthinesse would stirre it up where it wanted rather then lack it where there is such abundance. Mo. What hope is there of his Maiesties amendment? Laf. He hath abandon?d his Phisitions Madam, under whose practises he hath persecuted time with hope, and finds no other advantage in the processe, but onely the loosing of hope by time. Mo. This yong Gentlewoman had a father, O that had, how sad a passage tis, whose skill was almost as great as his honestie, had it stretch?d so far, would have made nature immortall, and death should have play for lacke of worke. Would for the Kings sake hee were living, I thin...

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Table of Contents: All?s Well, that Ends Well, 1 -- Actus primus. Scoena Prima., 1 -- Actus Secundus., 14 -- Actus Tertius., 31 -- Actus Quartus., 42 -- Actus Quintus., 57...

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Excerpt: CHAPTER I; DEPARTURE -- The fourteenth of August was the day fixed upon for the sailing of the brig Pilgrim on her voyage from Boston round Cape Horn to the western coast of North America. As she was to get under weigh early in the afternoon, I made my appearance on board at twelve o?clock, in full sea-rig, and with my chest, containing an outfit for a two or three years? voyage, which I had undertaken from a determination to cure, if possible, by an entire change of life, and by a long absence from books and study, a weakness of the eyes, which had obliged me to give up my pursuits, and which no medical aid seemed likely to cure....

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Table of Contents: CHAPTER I ? DEPARTURE, 1 -- CHAPTER II ? FIRST IMPRESSIONS???SAIL HO!??, 3 -- CHAPTER III ? SHIP?S DUTIES?TROPICS, 6 -- CHAPTER IV ? A ROGUE?TROUBLE ON BOARD???LAND -- HO!???POMPERO?CAPE HORN, 9 -- CHAPTER V ? CAPE HORN?A VISIT, 13 -- CHAPTER VI ? LOSS OF A MAN?SUPERSTITION, 18 -- CHAPTER VII ? JUAN FERNANDEZ?THE PACIFIC, 21 -- CHAPTER VIII ? ??TARRING DOWN???DAILY LIFE???GOING AFT???CALIFORNIA -- ., 25 -- CHAPTER IX ? CALIFORNIA?A SOUTH-EASTER, 28 -- CHAPTER X ? A SOUTH-EASTER?PASSAGE UP THE COAST, 32 -- CHAPTER XI ? PASSAGE UP THE COAST?MONTEREY, 35 -- CHAPTER XII ? LIFE AT MONTEREY, 38 -- CHAPTER XIII ? TRADING?A BRITISH SAILOR, 40 -- CHAPTER XIV ? SANTA BARBARA?HIDE-DROGHING?HARBOR -- DUTIES?DISCONTENT?SAN PEDRO, 46 -- CHAPTER XV ? A FLOGGING?A NIGHT ON SHORE?THE STATE OF THINGS ON -- BOARD?SAN DIEGO, 52 -- CHAPTER XVI ? LIBERTY-DAY ON SHORE, 59 -- CHAPTER XVII ? SAN DIEGO?A DESERTION?SAN PEDRO AGAIN?BEATING UP -- COAST, 63 -- CHAPTER XVIII ? EASTER SUNDAY???SAIL HO!???WHALES?SAN -- JUAN?ROMANCE OF HIDE-DROGHING?SAN DIEGO AGAIN, 67 -- CHAPTER XIX ? THE SANDWICH -- ISLANDERS?HIDE-CURING?WOOD-CUTTING? RATTLE-SNA...