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Excerpt: The French Revolution. A History (Volume Three).

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Contents VOLUME III. THE GUILLOTINE................................................................................................................................. 6 BOOK 3.I. SEPTEMBER .............................................................................................................................................. 6 Chapter 3.1.I. The Improvised Commune. ........................................................................................................................ 6 Chapter 3.1.II. Danton. ................................................................................................................................................. 17 Chapter 3.1.III. Dumouriez. ........................................................................................................................................... 21 Chapter 3.1.IV. September in Paris. ............................................................................................................................... 24 Chapter 3.1.V. A Trilogy. ..........................................................................................................................

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Excerpt: Introduction to Chronicles of the Canongate. The preceding volume of this Collection concluded the last of the pieces originally published under the Nominis umbra of The Author of Waverley; and the circumstances which rendered it impossible for the writer to continue longer in the possession of his incognito were communicated in 1827, in the Introduction to the first series of Chronicles of the Canongate, consisting (besides a biographical sketch of the imaginary chronicler) of three tales, entitled ?The Highland Widow,? ?The Two Drovers,? and ?The Surgeon?s Daughter.? In the present volume the two first named of these pieces are included, together with three detached stories which appeared the year after, in the elegant compilation called ?The Keepsake.? ?The Surgeon?s Daughter? it is thought better to defer until a succeeding volume?...

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Contents INTRODUCTION TO CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. .......................................................................... 4 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................................... 6 APPENDIX TO INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 19 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE ..................................................................................................................... 41 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW ................................................................................................................................... 109 MR. CROFTANGRY INTRODUCES ANOTHER TALE. .................................................................................. 173 THE TWO DROVERS. .......................................................................................................................................... 176 NOTES............................................................................................................

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Excerpt: Part 1. One Wednesday afternoon in late September, Ann Veronica Stanley came down from London in a state of solemn excitement and quite resolved to have things out with her father that very evening. She had trembled on the verge of such a resolution before, but this time quite definitely she made it. A crisis had been reached, and she was almost glad it had been reached. She made up her mind in the train home that it should be a decisive crisis. It is for that reason that this novel begins with her there, and neither earlier nor later, for it is the history of this crisis and its consequences that this novel has to tell....

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Excerpt: The writer of a book which copies the manners and language of Queen Anne?s time, must not omit the Dedication to the Patron; and I ask leave to inscribe this volume to your Lordship, for the sake of the great kindness and friendship which I owe to you and yours. My volume will reach you when the Author is on his voyage to a country where your name is as well known as here. Wherever I am, I shall gratefully regard you; and shall not be the less welcomed in America because I am....

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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: I would wish to declare, at the beginning of this story, that I shall never regard that cluster of islets which we call Bermuda as the Fortunate Islands of the ancients. Do not let professional geographers take me up, and say that no one has so accounted them, and that the ancients have never been supposed to have gotten themselves so far westwards. What I mean to assert is this--that, had any ancient been carried thither by enterprise or stress of weather, he would not have given those islands so good a name. That the Neapolitan sailors of King Alonzo should have been wrecked here, I consider to be more likely....

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Excerpt: I am Buffalo Bill?s horse. I have spent my life under his saddle -- with him in it, too, and he is good for two hundred pounds, without his clothes; and there is no telling how much he does weigh when he is out on the war-path and has his batteries belted on. He is over six feet, is young, hasn?t an ounce of waste flesh, is straight, graceful, springy in his motions, quick as a cat, and has a handsome face, and black hair dangling down on his shoulders, and is beautiful to look at; and nobody is braver than he is, and nobody is stronger, except myself. Yes, a person that doubts that he is fine to see should see him in his beaded buck-skins, on my back and his rifle peeping above his shoulder, chasing a hostile trail, with me going like the wind and his hair streaming out behind from the shelter of his broad slouch. Yes, he is a sight to look at then -- and I?m part of it myself....

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Contents A Horse?s Tale CHAPTER I SOLDIER BOY - PRIVATELY TO HIMSELF............................................................................. 4 CHAPTER II LETTER FROM ROUEN - TO GENERAL ALISON........................................................................7 CHAPTER III GENERAL ALISON TO HIS MOTHER.........9 CHAPTER IV CATHY TO HER AUNT MERCEDES........10 CHAPTER V GENERAL ALISON TO MERCEDES........13 CHAPTER VI SOLDIER BOY AND THE MEXICAN PLUG..........................................................................19 CHAPTER VII SOLDIER BOY AND SHEKELS.............27...

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Excerpt: The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling by Henry Fielding: Volume One, Containing Books I through VIII.

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Excerpt: How Sir Launcelot rode on his adventure, and how he holp a dolorous lady from her pain, and how that he fought with a dragon. Now leave we Sir Tristram de Liones, and speak we of Sir Launcelot du Lake, and of Sir Galahad, Sir Launcelot?s son, how he was gotten, and in what manner, as the book of French rehearseth. Afore the time that Sir Galahad was gotten or born, there came in an hermit unto King Arthur upon Whitsunday, as the knights sat at the Table Round. And when the hermit saw the Siege Perilous, he asked the king and all the knights why that siege was void. Sir Arthur and all the knights answered:...

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Excerpt: The Tale of Chloe, An Episode in the History of Beau Beamish by George Meredith.

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Excerpt: The Parsonage. All true histories contain instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity, that the dry, shriveled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut. Whether this be the case with my history or not, I am hardly competent to judge. I sometimes think it might prove useful to some, and entertaining to others; but the world may judge for itself. Shielded by my own obscurity, and by the lapse of years, and a few fictitious names, I do not fear to venture; and will candidly lay before the public what I would not disclose to the most intimate friend....

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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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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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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: ACT I. SCENE I. Rome. A street. [Enter FLAVIUS, MARULLUS, and certain Commoners.] FLAVIUS: Hence! home, you idle creatures get you home: Is this a holiday? what! know you not, Being mechanical, you ought not walk Upon a laboring day without the sign Of your profession? Speak, what trade art thou? First Commoner: Why, sir, a carpenter. MARULLUS: Where is thy leather apron and thy rule? What dost thou with thy best apparel on? You, sir, what trade are you? Second Commoner: Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am but, as you would say, a cobbler....

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Preface: It is sometimes treated as an impertinence to revive the personages of one story in another, even though it is after the example of Shakespeare, who revived Falstaff, after his death, at the behest of Queen Elizabeth. This precedent is, however, a true impertinence in calling on the very great to justify the very small!...

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Excerpt: While we pursued the horsemen of the north, He stole away and left his men: Whereat the great Lord of Northumberland, Whose warlike ears could never brook retreat, Cheer?d up the drooping army; and himself, Lord Clifford and Lord Stafford, all abreast, Charged our main battle?s front, and breaking in Were by the swords of common soldiers slain....

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Excerpt: Right well I wote most mighty Soueraine, That all this famous antique history, Of some th?aboundance of an idle braine Will iudged be, and painted forgery, Rather then matter of iust memory, Sith none, that breatheth liuing aire, does know, Where is that happy land of Faery, Which I so much do vaunt, yet no where show, But vouch antiquities, which no body can know....

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Excerpt: The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells.

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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....