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Excerpt: Welcome to the second volume of the Best of Four. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we have enjoyed bringing it to you. The primary purpose of Best of Four is to bring the best writing produced in English 004 to the widest possible audience. Our students have important stories to tell and powerful voices waiting to be harnessed. The students who read these essays will learn that they too have permission to state what is important to them in a public voice....

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Contents 5 ............................................................................................... How to Use This Magazine 6 .................................................................................................... What Is College Writing? 7 ........................................................................................................... The Writing Process 8 ............................................................................................................. Writing for a Public 10 .............................................................................. Boston?s Treasure by Julio Rodriguez 11 ..................................................................................... Life is a Beach by Gerard Delisio 13 ................................................................................................ Dreamland by Mat Ciprich 14 ............................................................................... The Central Hotel by Jacob Gerhard 15 ....................................................................... My Hero, Uncle Bob by Deirdre Haubert 16 .............................

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Excerpt: Advertisement. The story of ?Catherine,? which appeared in Fraser?s Magazine in 1839-40, was written by Mr. Thackeray, under the name of Ikey Solomons, Jun., to counteract the injurious influence of some popular fictions of that day, which made heroes of highwaymen and burglars, and created a false sympathy for the vicious and criminal....

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Excerpt: It was about the beginning of September, 1664, that I, mong the rest of my neighbors, heard in ordinary dis course that the plague was returned again in Holland; for it had been very violent there, and particularly at Amsterdam and Rotterdam, in the year 1663, whither, they say, it was brought, some said from Italy, others from the Levant, among some goods which were brought home by their Turkey fleet; others said it was brought from Candia; others from Cyprus. It mattered not from whence it came; but all agreed it was come into Holland again....

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Excerpt: The least that Findlayson, of the Public Works Department, expected was a C.I.E.; he dreamed of a C.S.I. Indeed, his friends told him that he deserved more. For three years he had endured heat and cold, disappointment, discomfort, danger, and disease, with responsibility almost to topheavy for one pair of shoulders; and day by day, through that time, the great Kashi Bridge over the Ganges had grown under his charge....

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. The time of my end approaches. I have lately been subject to attacks of angina pectoris; and in the ordinary course of things, my physician tells me, I may fairly hope that my life will not be protracted many months. Unless, then, I am cursed with an exceptional physical constitution, as I am cursed with an exceptional mental character, I shall not much longer groan under the wearisome burthen of this earthly existence. If it were to be otherwise--if I were to live on to the age most men desire and provide for--I should for once have known whether the miseries of delusive expectation can outweigh the miseries of true provision. For I foresee when I shall die, and everything that will happen in my last moments. Just a month from this day, on September 20, 1850, I shall be sitting in this chair, in this study, at ten o?clock at night, longing to die, weary of incessant insight and foresight, without delusions and without hope. Just as I am watching a tongue of blue flame rising in the fire, and my lamp is burning low, the horrible contraction will begin at my chest. I shall only have time to reach the bell, and pul...

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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: Preface By Way Of Criticism. These studies are collected from the monthly press. One appeared in the New Quarterly, one in MacMillan?s, and the rest in the Cornhill Magazine. To the Cornhill I owe a double debt of thanks; first, that I was received there in the very best society, and under the eye of the very best of editors; and second, that the proprietors have allowed me to republish so considerable an amount of copy....

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Contents PREFACE BY WAY OF CRITICISM. ........................................................................................... 4 CHAPTER I ? VICTOR HUGO?S ROMANCES ........................................................................ 15 CHAPTER II ? SOME ASPECTS OF ROBERT BURNS.......................................................... 34 CHAPTER III ? WALT WHITMAN............................................................................................. 63 CHAPTER IV ? HENRY DAVID THOREAU: HIS CHARACTER AND OPINIONS........... 84 CHAPTER V ? YOSHIDA-TORAJIRO..................................................................................... 107 CHAPTER VI ? FRANCOIS VILLON, STUDENT, POET, AND HOUSEBREAKER.........117 CHAPTER VII ? CHARLES OF ORLEANS ............................................................................ 141 CHAPTER VIII ? SAMUEL PEPYS .......................................................................................... 170 CHAPTER IX ? JOHN KNOX AND HIS RELATIONS TO WOMEN .................................. 190...

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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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Introduction: Benjamin Franklin was born in Milk Street, Boston, on January 6, 1706. His father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler who married twice, and of his seventeen children Benjamin was the youngest son. His schooling ended at ten, and at twelve he was bound apprentice to his brother James, a printer, who published the ?New England Courant.? To this journal he became a contributor, and later was for a time its nominal editor....

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Excerpt: The least that Findlayson, of the Public Works Department, expected was a C.I.E.; he dreamed of a C.S.I.: indeed, his friends told him that he deserved more. For three years he had endured heat and cold, disappointment, discomfort, danger, and disease, with responsibility almost too heavy for one pair of shoulders; and day by day, through that time, the great Kashi Bridge over the Ganges had grown under his charge. Now, in less than three months, if all went well, his Excellency the Viceroy would open the bridge in state, an archbishop would bless it, and the first trainload of soldiers would come over it, and there would be speeches....

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Contents THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS ............................................................................................................. 4 A WALKING DELEGATE............................................................................................................. 34 THE SHIP THAT FOUND HERSELF......................................................................................... 53 THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS ............................................................................................ 68 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA ............................................................................................. 98 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR ................................................................................................ 119 PART I ........................................................................................................................................... 119 PART II.......................................................................................................................................... 132 ?007 ......................................................................................

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Excerpt: New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson.

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Contents THE SUICIDE CLUB ....................................................................................................................... 4 STORY OF THE YOUNG MAN WITH THE CREAM TARTS .......................................................................... 4 STORY OF THE PHYSICIAN AND THE SARATOGA TRUNK........................................................................ 32 THE ADVENTURE OF THE HANSOM CABS............................................................................................. 55 THE RAJAH?S DIAMOND:..................................................................................................................... 74 STORY OF THE BANDBOX ..................................................................................................................... 74 STORY OF THE YOUNG MAN IN HOLY ORDERS .................................................................................... 96 STORY OF THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN BLINDS ................................................................................110 THE ADVENTURE OF PRINCE FLORIZEL AND A DETECTIVE ...................................................

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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: Before the reader is introduced to the modest country medical practitioner who is to be the chief personage of the following tale, it will be well that he should be made acquainted with some particulars as to the locality in which, and the neighbors among whom, our doctor followed his profession....

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Excerpt: Bianchon, a physician to whom science owes a fine system of theoretical physiology, and who, while still young, made himself a celebrity in the medical school of Paris, that central luminary to which European doctors do homage, practiced surgery for a long time before he took up medicine. His earliest studies were guided by one of the greatest of French surgeons, the illustrious Desplein, who flashed across science like a meteor. By the consensus even of his enemies, he took with him to the tomb an incommunicable method. Like all men of genius, he had no heirs; he carried everything in him, and carried it away with him. The glory of a surgeon is like that of an actor: they live only so long as they are alive, and their talent leaves no trace when they are gone. Actors and surgeons, like great singers too, like the executants who by their performance increase the power of music tenfold, are all the heroes of a moment....

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Excerpt: PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION; MUCH to the author?s surprise, and (if he may say so without additional offence) considerably to his amusement, he finds that his sketch of official life, introductory to THE SCARLET LETTER, has created an unprecedented excitement in the respectable community immediately around him. It could hardly have been more violent, indeed, had he burned down the Custom House, and quenched its last smoking ember in the blood of a certain venerable personage, against whom he is supposed to cherish a peculiar malevolence. As the public disapprobation would weigh very heavily on him, were he conscious of deserving it, the author begs leave to say, that he has carefully read over the introductory pages, with a purpose to alter or expunge whatever might be found amiss, and to make the best reparation in his power for the atrocities of which he has been adjudged guilty. But it appears to him, that the only remarkable features of the sketch are its frank and genuine good-humor, and the general accuracy with which he has conveyed his sincere impressions of the characters therein described. As to enmity, or ill f...

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Table of Contents: PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION, 1 -- THE CUSTOM HOUSE INTRODUCTORY, 2 -- 1 THE PRISON DOOR, 31 -- 2 THE MARKET-PLACE, 33 -- 3 THE RECOGNITION, 40 -- 4 THE INTERVIEW, 47 -- 5 HESTER AT HER NEEDLE, 52 -- 6 PEARL, 59 -- 7 THE GOVERNOR?S HALL, 66 -- 8 THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER, 72 -- 9 THE LEECH, 79 -- 10 THE LEECH AND HIS PATIENT, 87 -- 11 THE INTERIOR OF A HEART, 95 -- 12 THE MINISTER?S VIGIL, 100 -- 13 ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTER, 108 -- 14 HESTER AND THE PHYSICIAN, 114 -- 15 HESTER AND PEARL, 119 -- 16 A FOREST WALK, 124 -- 17 THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER, 129 -- 18 A FLOOD OF SUNSHINE, 136 -- 19 THE CHILD AT THE BROOKSIDE, 141 -- 20 THE MINISTER IN A MAZE, 147 -- 21 THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY, 155 -- 22 THE PROCESSION, 162 -- 23 THE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER, 170 -- 24 CONCLUSION, 177...

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Excerpt: A Fragment of Autobiography. IN 1897, after spending five years at St Thomas?s Hospital I passed the examinations which enabled me to practise medicine. While still a medical student I had published a novel called Liza of Lambeth which caused a mild sensation, and on the strength of that I rashly decided to abandon doctoring and earn my living as a writer; so, as soon as I was ?qualified?, I set out for Spain and spent the best part of a year in Seville. I amused myself hugely and wrote a bad novel. Then I returned to London and, with a friend of my own age, took and furnished a small flat near Victoria Station. A maid of all work cooked for us and kept the flat neat and tidy. My friend was at the Bar, and so I had the day (and the flat) to myself and my work....

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Excerpt: When young Mark Robarts was leaving college, his father might well declare that all men began to say all good things to him, and to extol his fortune in that he had a son blessed with an excellent disposition. This father was a physician living at Exeter. He was a gentleman possessed of no private means, but enjoying a lucrative practice, which had enabled him to maintain and educate a family with all the advantages which money can give in this country. Mark was his eldest son and second child; and the first page or two of this narrative must be consumed in giving a catalogue of the good things which chance and conduct together had heaped upon this young man?s head....

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Excerpt: ?WHAT do you think she?d do if she caught us? We oughtn?t to have it, you know,? said Maisie. ?Beat me, and lock you up in your bedroom,? Dick answered, without hesitation. ?Have you got the cartridges?? ?Yes; they?re in my pocket, but they are joggling horribly. Do pin-fire cartridges go off of their own accord?? ?Don?t know. Take the revolver, if you are afraid, and let me carry them.? ?I?m not afraid.? Maisie strode forward swiftly, a hand in her pocket and her chin in the air. Dick followed with a small pin-fire revolver....

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Excerpt: Barnaby Rudge, A Tale of the Riots of ?Eighty by Charles Dickens.

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Excerpt: The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf.