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Excerpt: The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf.

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Excerpt: This is a publication of The Pennsylvania State University

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. What determined the speech that startled him in the course of their encounter scarcely matters, being probably but some words spoken by himself quite without intention--spoken as they lingered and slowly moved together after their renewal of acquaintance. He had been conveyed by friends an hour or two before to the house at which she was staying; the party of visitors at the other house, of whom he was one, and thanks to whom it was his theory, as always, that he was lost in the crowd, had been invited over to luncheon....

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Excerpt: The Winter?s Tale by William Shakespeare.

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Excerpt: Of all the spots on the world?s surface that I, George Walker, of Friday Street, London, have ever visited, Suez in Egypt, at the head of the Red Sea, is by far the vilest, the most unpleasant, and the least interesting. There are no women there, no water, and no vegetation. It is surrounded, and indeed often filled, by a world of sand. A scorching sun is always overhead; and one is domiciled in a huge cavernous hotel, which seems to have been made purposely destitute of all the comforts of civilized life. Nevertheless, in looking back upon the week of my life which I spent there I always enjoy a certain sort of triumph;--or rather, upon one day of that week, which lends a sort of halo not only to my sojourn at Suez, but to the whole period of my residence in Egypt....

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Preface: In which it is proved that, notwithstanding their names? ending in os and is, the heroes of the story which we are about to have the honor to relate to our readers have nothing mythological about them....

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. Introduces Mr. Lewisham. The opening chapter does not concern itself with Love-- indeed that antagonist does not certainly appear until the third--and Mr. Lewisham is seen at his studies. It was ten years ago, and in those days he was assistant master in the Whortley Proprietary School, Whortley, Sussex, and his wages were forty pounds a year, out of which he had to afford fifteen shillings a week during term time to lodge with Mrs. Munday, at the little shop in the West Street....

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

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Excerpt: King Richard II by William Shakespeare.

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Excerpt: The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac, translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley.

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Excerpt: In a Spanish city on an island in the Mediterranean, there stands a convent of the Order of Barefoot Carmelites, where the rule instituted by St. Theresa is still preserved with all the first rigour of the reformation brought about by that illustrious woman. Extraordinary as this may seem, it is none the less true....

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Excerpt: Mugby Junction by Charles Dickens.

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Excerpt: The Recruit by Honore de Balzac, translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley.

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Excerpt: On Being Human by Woodrow Wilson.

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Excerpt: Lucien had gone to Paris; and David Sechard, with the courage and intelligence of the ox which painters give the Evangelist for accompanying symbol, set himself to make the large fortune for which he had wished that evening down by the Charente, when he sat with Eve by the weir, and she gave him her hand and her heart. He wanted to make the money quickly, and less for himself than for Eve?s sake and Lucien?s....

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Preface: As the most striking lines of poetry are the most hackneyed, because they have grown to be the common inheritance of all the world, so many of the most noble deeds that earth can show have become the best known, and enjoyed their full meed of fame. Therefore it may be feared that many of the events here detailed, or alluded to, may seem trite to those in search of novelty; but it is not for such that the collection has been made....

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Excerpt: ACT I. SCENE I. Athens. The palace of THESEUS. [Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and Attendants.] THESEUS: Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour Draws on apace; four happy days bring in Another moon: but, O, methinks, how slow This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires, Like to a step-dame or a dowager Long withering out a young man revenue. HIPPOLYTA: Four days will quickly steep themselves in night; Four nights will quickly dream away the time; And then the moon, like to a silver bow New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night Of our solemnities....

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Excerpt: ACT I. SCENE I. Windsor. Before PAGE?s house. [Enter SHALLOW, SLENDER, and SIR HUGH EVANS.] SHALLOW: Sir Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star-chamber matter of it: if he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, esquire. SLENDER: In the county of Gloucester, justice of peace and ?Coram.? SHALLOW: Ay, cousin Slender, and ?Custalorum. SLENDER: Ay, and ?Rato-lorum? too; and a gentleman born, master parson; who writes himself ?Armigero,? in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation, ?Armigero.? SHALLOW: Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three hundred years....

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Excerpt: How Sir Launcelot came to a chapel, where he found dead, in a white shirt, a man of religion, of an hundred winter old. When the hermit had kept Sir Launcelot three days, the hermit gat him an horse, an helm, and a sword. And then he departed about the hour of noon. And then he saw a little house. And when he came near he saw a chapel, and there beside he saw an old man that was clothed all in white full richly; and then Sir Launcelot said: God save you. God keep you, said the good man, and make you a good knight. Then Sir Launcelot alighted and entered into the chapel, and there he saw an old man dead, in a white shirt of passing fine cloth....

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Excerpt: Under the Storm, or Steadfast?s Charge by Charlotte M. Yonge.