Excerpt: The Tragedie of Romeo and Juliet; Actus Primus -- Scoena Prima -- Enter Sampson and Gregory, with Swords and Bucklers, of the House of Capulet. Sampson. Gregory: A my word wee?l not carry coales. Greg. No, for then we should be Colliars. Samp. I mean, if we be in choller, wee?l draw. Greg. I, While you live, draw your necke out o?th Collar. Samp. I strike quickly, being mov?d. Greg. But thou art not quickly mov?d to strike. Samp. A dog of the house of Mountague, moves me. Greg. To move, is to stir: and to be valiant, is to stand: Therefore, if thou art mov?d, thou runst away. Samp. A dogge of that house shall move me to stand. I will take the wall of any Man or Maid of Mountagues. Greg. That shewes thee a weake slave, for the wea-kest goes to the wall. Samp. True, and therefore women being the weaker Vessels, are ever thrust to the wall: therefore I will push Mountagues men from the wall, and thrust his Maides to the wall. Greg. The Quarrell is betweene our Masters, and us |(their men. Samp. ?Tis all one, I will shew my selfe a tyrant: when I have fought with the men, I will bee civill with the Maids, and cut off their head...

Table of Contents: The Tragedie of Romeo and Juliet, 1 -- Actus Primus. Scoena Prima., 1

Excerpt: Le Morte Darthur -- Glossary to volume one -- by Sir Thomas Malory.

Excerpt: Here are not many people three-fourths and as it is desirable that a story-teller and a story-reader should establish a mutual understanding as soon as possible, I beg it to be noticed that I confine this observation neither to young people nor to little people, but extend it to all conditions of people: little and big, young and old: yet growing up, or already growing down again ? there are not, I say, many people who would care to sleep in a church. I don?t mean at sermon- time in warm weather (when the thing has actually been done, once or twice), but in the night, and alone....

Excerpt: Louis Lambert was born at Montoire, a little town in the Vendomois, where his father owned a tannery of no great magnitude, and intended that his son should succeed him; but his precocious bent for study modified the paternal decision. For, indeed, the tanner and his wife adored Louis, their only child, and never contradicted him in anything....

Excerpt: The Merry Wives of Windsor; Actus Primus -- Scena Prima -- Enter Justice Shallow, Slender, Sir Hugh Evans, Master Page, Falstoffe, Bardolph, Nym, Pistoll, Anne Page, Mistresse Ford, Mistresse Page, Simple. Shallow. Sir Hugh, perswade me not: I will make a Star-Chamber matter of it, if hee were twenty Sir John Falstoffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow Esquire....

Table of Contents: The Merry Wiues of Windsor, 1 -- Actus primus, Scena prima., 1 -- Scena Secunda., 7 -- Scena Tertia., 7 -- Scoena Quarta., 10 -- Actus Secundus. Scoena Prima., 13 -- Scoena Secunda., 18 -- Scena Tertia., 24 -- Actus Tertius. Scoena Prima., 26 -- Scena Secunda., 29 -- Scena Tertia., 31 -- Scoena Quarta., 35 -- Scena Quinta., 38 -- Actus Quartus. Scoena Prima., 41 -- Scena Secunda., 43 -- Scena Tertia., 47 -- Scena Quarta., 48 -- Scena Quinta., 50 -- Scena Sexta., 53 -- Actus Quintus. Scoena Prima., 54 -- Scena Secunda., 55 -- Scena Tertia., 55 -- Scena Quarta., 56 -- Scena Quinta., 56...

Excerpt: Volumes, almost libraries, have been written about Balzac; and perhaps of very few writers, putting aside the three or four greatest of all, is it so difficult to select one or a few short phrases which will in any way denote them, much more sum them up. Yet the five words quoted above, which come from an early letter to his sister when as yet he had not ?found his way,? characterize him, I think, better than at least some of the volumes I have read about him, and supply, when they are properly understood, the most valuable of all keys and companions for his comprehension....

Contents HONORE DE BALZAC ................................................................................................................... 4 APPENDIX...................................................................................................................................... 32 THE BALZAC PLAN OF THE COMEDIE HUMAINE ............................................................ 32 Comedie Humaine ............................................................................................................................ 33 Author?s Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 43...

Excerpt: The Wreck of the Golden Mary by Charles Dickens.

Excerpt: Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Contents INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 4 CHAPTER I ? DOMESTIC ANNALS...........................................................................................11 CHAPTER II ? THE SERVICE OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS I ......................................... 32 CHAPTER III ? THE BUILDING OF THE BELL ROCK ....................................................... 57...

Washington Square is a short novel by Henry James. Originally published in 1880 as a serial in Cornhill Magazine and Harper's New Monthly Magazine, it is a structurally simple tragicomedy that recounts the conflict between a dull but sweet daughter and her brilliant, domineering father. The book is often compared to Jane Austen's work for the clarity and grace of its prose and its intense focus on family relationships. James was hardly a great admirer of Jane Austen, so he might not have regarded the comparison as flattering. In fact, James was not a great fan of Washington Square itself. He tried to read it over for inclusion in the New York Edition of his fiction (1907-1909) but found that he couldn't, and the novel was not included. Other readers, though, have sufficiently enjoyed the book to make it one of the more popular works of the Jamesian canon....

Literature

Jude the Obscure is the last of Thomas Hardy's novels, begun as a magazine serial and first published in book form in 1895. Its hero Jude Fawley is a lower-class young man who dreams of becoming a scholar. The two other main characters are his earthy wife, Arabella, and his intellectual cousin, Sue. Themes include class, scholarship, religion, marriage, and the modernization of thought and society. (from Wikipedia)...

Literature

Excerpt: Mugby Junction by Charles Dickens.

Excerpt: New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson (1918 ed.).

Contents PRAYER ........................................................................................................................................................................ 8 LO! IN THINE HONEST EYES I READ ..................................................................................................................... 9 THOUGH DEEP INDIFFERENCE SHOULD DROWSE............................................................................................ 9 MY HEART, WHEN FIRST THE BLACK-BIRD SINGS ......................................................................................... 10 I DREAMED OF FOREST ALLEYS FAIR ................................................................................................................ 10 ST. MARTIN?S SUMMER ......................................................................................................................................... 12 DEDICATION ............................................................................................................................................................. 12 THE OLD CHIMAERAS, OLD RECEIPTS .................................

Excerpt: ?My dear John,? cried Lucy, with a very wise look indeed, ?it must and shall be so. As for Doughty Street, with our means, a house is out of the question. We must keep three servants, and Aunt Biggs says the taxes are one-and-twenty pounds a year.?...

Excerpt: Book First; Introduction -- Childhood and School-time -- OH, there is blessing in this gentle breeze, That blows from the green fields and from the clouds And from the sky; it beats against my cheek, And seems half conscious of the joy it gives. O welcome messenger! O welcome friend! A captive greets thee, coming from a house Of bondage, from yon city?s walls set free, A prison where he hath been long immured. Now I am free, enfranchised and at large, May fix my habitation where I will. What dwelling shall receive me, in what vale Shall be my harbour, underneath what grove Shall I take up my home, and what sweet stream Shall with its murmurs lull me to my rest? The earth is all before me--with a heart Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty, I look about, and should the guide I chuse Be nothing better than a wandering cloud I cannot miss my way. I breathe again--Trances of thought and mountings of the mind Come fast upon me. It is shaken off, As by miraculous gift ?tis shaken off, That burthen of my own unnatural self, The heavy weight of many a weary day Not mine, and such as were not made for me. Long months of peace--if su...

Table of Contents: Book First Introduction: Childhood and School-time, 1 -- Book Second Childhood and School-time (Continued), 20 -- Book Third Residence at Cambridge, 34 -- Book Fourth Summer Vacation, 53 -- Book Fifth Books, 67 -- Book Sixth Cambridge and the Alps, 85 -- Book Seventh Residence in London, 105 -- Book Eighth Retrospect: Love of Nature Leading to Love of Mankind, 126 -- Book Ninth Residence in France, 150 -- Book Tenth Residence in France and French Revolution, 176 -- Book Eleventh Imagination, How Impaired and Restored, 205 -- Book Twelfth Same Subject (Continued), 217 -- Book Thirteenth Conclusion, 228...

Excerpt: ?Let the boys have it if they like it,? said Mrs. Garrow, pleading to her only daughter on behalf of her two sons. ?Pray don?t, mamma,? said Elizabeth Garrow. ?It only means romping. To me all that is detestable, and I am sure it is not the sort of thing that Miss Holmes would like.? ?We always had it at Christmas when we were young.? ?But, mamma, the world is so changed.?...

Excerpt: About thirty years ago Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet?s lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income. All Huntingdon exclaimed on the greatness of the match, and her uncle, the lawyer, himself, allowed her to be at least three thousand pounds short of any equitable claim to it....

Excerpt: No Thoroughfare by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins.

Excerpt: The year 1866 was signalised by a remarkable inci dent, a mysterious and puzzling phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten. Not to mention rumours which agitated the maritime population and excited the public mind, even in the interior of continents, seafaring men were particularly excited. Merchants, common sailors, captains of vessels, skippers, both of Europe and America, naval officers of all countries, and the Governments of several States on the two continents, were deeply interested in the matter....

Excerpt: El Verdugo by Honore de Balzac, translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley.

Excerpt: A young Irish gentleman of the numerous clan O?Donnells, and a Patrick, hardly a distinction of him until we know him, had bound himself, by purchase of a railway-ticket, to travel direct to the borders of North Wales, on a visit to a notable landowner of those marches, the Squire Adister, whose family-seat was where the hills begin to lift and spy into the heart of black mountains. Examining his ticket with an apparent curiosity, the son of a greener island debated whether it would not be better for him to follow his inclinations, now that he had gone so far as to pay for the journey, and stay. But his inclinations were also subject to question, upon his considering that he had expended pounds English for the privilege of making the journey in this very train....