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Excerpt: William Shakespeare, the protagonist on the great arena of modern poetry, and the glory of the human intellect, was born at Stratford-upon- Avon, in the county of Warwick, in the year 1564, and upon some day, not precisely ascertained, in the month of April. It is certain that he was baptized on the 25th; and from that fact, combined with some shadow of a tradition, Malone has inferred that he was born on the 23d. There is doubtless, on the one hand, no absolute necessity deducible from law or custom, as either operated in those times, which obliges us to adopt such a conclusion; for children might be baptized, and were baptized, at various distances from their birth: yet, on the other hand, the 23d is as likely to have been the day as any other; and more likely than any earlier day, upon two arguments. First, because there was probably a tradition floating in the seventeenth century, that Shakespeare died upon his birthday: now it is beyond a doubt that he died upon the 23d of April....

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Contents SHAKSPEARE ........................................................................................................................4 POPE ................................................................................................................................... 73 CHARLES LAMB ............................................................................................................... 121 GOETHE........................................................................................................................... 163 SCHILLER......................................................................................................................... 187...

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Excerpt: Essays of Michel de Montaigne, Book the Second translated by Charles Cotton, ed. William Carew Hazilitt.

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Contents CHAPTER I OF THE INCONSTANCY OF OUR ACTIONS ...................................................... 5 CHAPTER II OF DRUNKENNESS .............................................................................................. 14 CHAPTER III A CUSTOM OF THE ISLE OF CEA .................................................................. 24 CHAPTER IV TO-MORROW?S A NEW DAY............................................................................ 40 CHAPTER V OF CONSCIENCE .................................................................................................. 43 CHAPTER VI USE MAKES PERFECT ...................................................................................... 47 CHAPTER VII OF RECOMPENSES OF HONOUR.................................................................. 59 CHAPTER VIII OF THE AFFECTION OF FATHERS TO THEIR CHILDREN................... 63 CHAPTER IX OF THE ARMS OF THE PARTHIANS .............................................................. 84 CHAPTER X OF BOOKS .............................................................................................................. 87 CHAPTER XI OF CRUELTY.....

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Excerpt: Puck of Pook?s Hill by Rudyard Kipling.

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Contents Puck of Pook?s Hill ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 4 WELAND?S SWORD......................................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Puck?s Song ......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 4 A Tree Song ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 20 YOUNG MEN AT THE MANOR .................................................................................................................................................................... 21 Sir Richard?s Song .........................................................................................

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Excerpt: Of the Legendary Past. ?LITTLE WARS? is the game of kings--for players in an inferior social position. It can be played by boys of every age from twelve to one hundred and fifty--and even later if the limbs remain sufficiently supple--by girls of the better sort, and by a few rare and gifted women. This is to be a full History of Little Wars from its recorded and authenticated beginning until the present time, an account of how to make little warfare, and hints of the most priceless sort for the recumbent strategist ?....

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Introduction: Lysimachus, the son of Aristides the Just, and Melesias, the son of the elder Thucydides, two aged men who live together, are desirous of educating their sons in the best manner. Their own education, as often happens with the sons of great men, has been neglected; and they are resolved that their children shall have more care taken of them, than they received themselves at the hands of their fathers....

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Excerpt: Easter Holidays; Hail! festal Easter that dost bring Approach of sweetly-smiling spring, When Nature?s clad in green: When feather?d songsters through the grove With beasts confess the power of love And brighten all the scene. Now youths the breaking stages load That swiftly rattling o?er the road To Greenwich haste away: While some with sounding oars divide Of smoothly-flowing Thames the tide All sing the festive lay. With mirthful dance they beat the ground, Their shouts of joy the hills resound And catch the jocund noise: Without a tear, without a sigh Their moments all in transports fly Till evening ends their joys....

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Table of Contents: Easter Holidays, 1 -- Dura Navis, 2 -- Nil Pejus est Caelibe Vit‘, 4 -- Sonnet to the Autumnal Moon, 5 -- Anthem for the Children of Christ?s Hospital, 6 -- Julia, 7 -- Quae Nocent Docent, 8 -- The Nose, 9 -- To the Muse, 11 -- Destruction of the Bastile, 12 -- Life, 14 -- Progress of Vice, 15 -- Monody on the Death of Chatterton, 16 -- An Invocation, 19 -- Anna and Harland, 20 -- To the Evening Star, 21 -- Pain, 22 -- On a Lady Weeping: Imitation from the Latin of Nicolaus Archius, 23 -- Monody on a Tea-kettle, 24 -- Genevieve, 26 -- On Receiving an Account that his Only Sister?s Death was Inevitable, 27 -- On Seeing a Youth Affectionately Welcomed by a Sister, 28 -- A Mathematical Problem, 29 -- Honour, 32 -- On Imitation, 34 -- Inside the Coach, 35 -- Devonshire Roads, 36 -- Music, 37 -- Sonnet: On Quitting School for College, 38 -- Absence: A Farewell Ode on Quitting School for Jesus College, Cambridge, 39 -- Happiness, 40 -- A Wish: Written in Jesus Wood, Feb. 10, 1792, 43 -- An Ode in the Manner of Anacreon, 44 -- To Disappointment, 45 -- A Fragment Found in a Lecture-Room, 46 -- Ode, 47 -- A Lover?s Complai...

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. Pro and con monsieur de manerville, the father, was a worthy Norman gentleman, well known to the Marechael de Richelieu, who married him to one of the richest heiresses of Bordeaux in the days when the old duke reigned in Guienne as governor. The Norman then sold the estate he owned in Bessin, and became a Gascon, allured by the beauty of the chateau de Lanstrac, a delightful residence owned by his wife. During the last days of the reign of Louis XV., he bought the post of major of the Gate Guards, and lived till 1813, having by great good luck escaped the dangers of the Revolution in the following manner....

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Introduction: In the MENO, Anytus had parted from Socrates with the significant words: ?That in any city, and particularly in the city of Athens, it is easier to do men harm than to do them good;? and Socrates was anticipating another opportunity of talking with him. In the Euthyphro, Socrates is awaiting his trial for impiety. But before the trial begins, Plato would like to put the world on their trial, and convince them of ignorance in that very matter touching which Socrates is accused. An incident which may perhaps really have occurred in the family of Euthyphro, a learned Athenian diviner and soothsayer, furnishes the occasion of the discussion....

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Excerpt: Volume One of the life and adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, containing a Faithful Account of the Fortunes, Misfortunes, Uprisings, Downfallings and Complete Career of the Nickelby Family by Charles Dickens....

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Excerpt: How much is conveyed in those two short words--?The Parish!? And with how many tales of distress and misery, of broken fortune and ruined hopes, too often of unrelieved wretchedness and successful knavery, are they associated! A poor man, with small earnings, and a large family, just manages to live on from hand to mouth, and to procure food from day to day; he has barely sufficient to satisfy the present cravings of nature, and can take no heed of the future....

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Excerpt: The pages which follow have been extracted from a pile of manuscript which was apparently meant for the eye of one woman only. She seems to have been the writer?s childhood?s friend. They had parted as children, or very little more than children. Years passed. Then something recalled to the woman the companion of her young days and she wrote to him: ?I have been hearing of you lately. I know where life has brought you. You certainly selected your own road. But to us, left behind, it always looked as if you had struck out into a pathless desert....

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Excerpt: Preface To The American Edition. On the death of Fleeming Jenkin, his family and friends determined to publish a selection of his various papers; by way of introduction, the following pages were drawn up; and the whole, forming two considerable volumes, has been issued in England. In the States, it has not been thought advisable to reproduce the whole; and the memoir appearing alone, shorn of that other matter which was at once its occasion and its justification, so large an account of a man so little known may seem to a stranger out of all proportion....

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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: For the long nights you lay awake And watched for my unworthy sake: For your most comfortable hand That led me through the uneven land: For all the story-books you read: For all the pains you comforted:...

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Contents A Child?s Garden of Verses .............................................................................................................................................. 7 Bed in Summer ............................................................................................................................................................... 7 A Thought ...................................................................................................................................................................... 7 At the Sea-side ................................................................................................................................................................ 7 Young Night-Thought .................................................................................................................................................... 8 Whole Duty of Children................................................................................................................................................. 8 Rain ............................................................................................

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Preface: It may save misunderstanding if a word or so be said here of the aim and scope of this book. It is written in relation to a previous work, Anticipations,* and together with that and a small pamphlet, ?The Discovery of the Future,?** presents a general theory of social development and of social and political conduct. It is an attempt to deal with social and political questions in a new way and from a new starting-point....

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Excerpt: My dear mother--I have kept you posted as far as Tuesday week last, and, although my letter will not have reached you yet, I will begin another before my news accumulates too much. I am glad you show my letters round in the family, for I like them all to know what I am doing, and I can?t write to every one, though I try to answer all reasonable expectations. But there are a great many unreasonable ones, as I suppose you know--not yours, dear mother, for I am bound to say that you never required of me more than was natural. You see you are reaping your reward: I write to you before I write to any one else....

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Excerpt: EXCELLENT LORD: Salomon saies; A good Name is as a precious oyntment; And I assure my selfe, such wil your Graces Name bee, with Posteritie. For your Fortune, and Merit both, have been Eminent. And you have planted Things, that are like to last. I doe now publish my Essayes; which, of all my other workes, have beene most Currant: For that, as it seemes, they come home, to Mens Businesse, and Bosomes....

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THE ESSAYS 5 ?Of Truth 7 ?Of Death 9 ?Of Unity in Religion 12 ?Of Revenge 13 ?Of Adversity 14 ?Of Simulation and Dissimulation 17 ?Of Parents and Children 18 ?Of Marriage and Single Life 20 ?Of Envy 24 ?Of Love 25 ?Of Great Place 28 ?Of Boldness 29 ?Of Goodness and Goodness of Nature 31 ?Of Nobility 33 ?Of Seditions and Troubles...

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Excerpt: ONE THING was certain, that the white kitten had had nothing to do with it: --it was the black kitten?s fault entirely. For the white kitten had been having its face washed by the old cat for the last quarter of an hour (and bearing it pretty well, considering); so you see that it couldn?t have had any hand in the mischief. Through the Looking Glass The way Dinah washed her children?s faces was this: first she held the poor thing down by its ear with one paw, and then with the other paw she rubbed its face all over, the wrong way, beginning at the nose: and just now, as I said, she was hard at work on the white kitten, which was lying quite still and trying to purr --no doubt feeling that it was all meant for its good. But the black kitten had been finished with earlier in the afternoon, and so, while Alice was sitting curled up in a corner of the great arm-chair, half talking to herself and half asleep, the kitten had been having a grand game of romps with the ball of worsted Alice had been trying to wind up, and had been rolling it up and down till it had all come undone again; and there it was, spread over the hearth-rug...

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Table of Contents: I. Looking-Glass House, 1 -- II. The Garden of Live Flowers, 14 -- III. Looking-Glass Insects, 23 -- IV. Tweedledum and Tweedledee, 33 -- V. Wool and Water, 47 -- VI. Humpty Dumpty, 57 -- VII. The Lion and the Unicorn, 68 -- VIII. ?It?s my own Invention?, 78 -- IX. Queen Alice, 92 -- X. Shaking, 107 -- XI. Waking, 108 -- XII. Which Dreamed it?, 110...

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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...

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

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