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Excerpt: Chapter 1. Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying -- 2. Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The LORD God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah -- 3. Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD God of Israel, (he is the God,) which is in Jerusalem....

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Excerpt: Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

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Contents THE WAYSIDE. INTRODUCTORY. .............................................................................................. 4 THE MINOTAUR ............................................................................................................................. 9 THE PYGMIES ............................................................................................................................... 33 THE DRAGON’S TEETH.............................................................................................................. 50 CIRCE’S PALACE......................................................................................................................... 75 THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS................................................................................................... 100 THE GOLDEN FLEECE.............................................................................................................. 127...

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. In the time before steamships, or then more frequently than now, a stroller along the docks of any considerable sea-port would occasionally have his attention arrested by a group of bronzed mariners, man-ofwar?s men or merchant-sailors in holiday attire ashore on liberty. In certain instances they would flank, or, like a body-guard quite surround some superior figure of their own class, moving along with them like Aldebaran among the lesser lights of his constellation....

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Forward: This report describes the effects of the atomic bombs which were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively. It summarizes all the authentic information that is available on damage to structures, injuries to personnel, morale effect, etc., which can be released at this time without prejudicing the security of the United States....

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Excerpt: General Introduction: There are few amusements more dangerous for an author than the indulgence in ironic descriptions of his own work. If the irony is depreciatory, posterity is but too likely to say, ?Many a true word is spoken in jest;? if it is encomiastic, the same ruthless and ungrateful critic is but too likely to take it as an involuntary confession of folly and vanity. But when Fielding, in one of his serio-comic introductions to Tom Jones, described it as ?this prodigious work,? he all unintentionally (for he was the least pretentious of men) anticipated the verdict which posterity almost at once, and with ever-increasing suffrage of the best judges as time went on, was about to pass not merely upon this particular book, but upon his whole genius and his whole production as a novelist. His work in other kinds is of a very different order of excellence. It is sufficiently interesting at times in itself; and always more than sufficiently interesting as his; for which reasons, as well as for the further one that it is comparatively little known, a considerable selection from it is offered to the reader in the last tw...

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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: 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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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: The Tragedie of Richard the Third with the Landing of Earle Richmond, and the Battell at Bosworth Field; Actus Primus -- Scoena Prima -- Enter Richard Duke of Gloster, solus. Now is the Winter of our Discontent, Made glorious Summer by this Son of Yorke: And all the clouds that lowr?d upon our house In the deepe bosome of the Ocean buried. Now are our browes bound with Victorious Wreathes, Our bruised armes hung up for Monuments; Our sterne Alarums chang?d to merry Meetings; Our dreadfull Marches, to delightfull Measures. Grim- visag?d Warre, hath smooth?d his wrinkled Front: And now, in stead of mounting Barbed Steeds, To fright the Soules of fearfull Adversaries, He capers nimbly in a Ladies Chamber, To the lascivious pleasing of a Lute. But I, that am not shap?d for sportive trickes, Nor made to court an amorous Looking- glasse: I, that am Rudely stampt, and want loves Majesty, To strut before a wonton ambling Nymph: I, that am curtail?d of this faire Proportion, Cheated of Feature by dissembling Nature, Deform?d, un finish?d, sent before my time Into this breathing World, scarse halfe made up, And that so lamely and unf...

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Table of Contents: The Tragedie of Richard the Third, 1 -- Actus Primus. Scoena Prima., 1 -- Scena Secunda., 5 -- Scena Tertia., 11 -- Scena Quarta., 19 -- Actus Secundus. Scoena Prima., 25 -- Scena Secunda., 29 -- Scena Tertia., 32 -- Scena Quarta., 34 -- Actus Tertius. Scoena Prima., 35 -- Scena Secunda., 40 -- Scena Tertia., 44 -- Scaena Quarta., 44 -- Actus Quartus. Scena Prima., 55 -- Scena Secunda., 58 -- Scena Tertia., 62 -- Scena Quarta., 75 -- Actus Quintus. Scena Prima., 75 -- Scena Secunda., 76...

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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: In these times of ours, though concerning the exact year there is no need to be precise, a boat of dirty and disreputable appearance, with two figures in it, floated on the Thames, between Southwark bridge which is of iron, and London Bridge which is of stone, as an autumn evening was closing in....

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Excerpt: Why We Are at War by Woodrow Wilson.

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Preface: This book sets out as forcibly and exactly as possible the religious belief of the writer. That belief is not orthodox Christianity; it is not, indeed, Christianity at all; its core nevertheless is a profound belief in a personal and intimate God. There is nothing in its statements that need shock or offend anyone who is prepared for the expression of a faith different from and perhaps in several particulars opposed to his own. The writer will be found to be sympathetic with all sincere religious feeling....

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Excerpt: Young people. Dunbar Castle, standing on steep rocks above the North Sea, was not only inaccessible on that side, but from its donjon tower commanded a magnificent view, both of the expanse of waves, taking purple tints from the shadows of the clouds, with here and there a sail fleeting before the wind, and of the rugged headlands of the coast, point beyond point, the nearer distinct, and showing the green summits, and below, the tossing waves breaking white against the dark rocks, and the distance becoming more and more hazy, in spite of the bright sun which made a broken path of glory along the tossing, white-crested waters....

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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: Prefatory Note: The execution of this version of the Iliad has been entrusted to the three Translators in the following three parts: Each Translator is therefore responsible for his own portion; but the whole has been revised by all three Translators, and the rendering of passages or phrases recurring in more than one portion has been determined after deliberation in common. Even in these, however, a certain elasticity has been deemed desirable....

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Excerpt: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur?s Court by Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens).

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Introduction: Dead Souls, first published in 1842, is the great prose classic of Russia. That amazing institution, ?the Russian novel,? not only began its career with this unfinished masterpiece by Nikolai Vasil?evich Gogol, but practically all the Russian masterpieces that have come since have grown out of it, like the limbs of a single tree. Dostoieffsky goes so far as to bestow this tribute upon an earlier work by the same author, a short story entitled The Cloak; this idea has been wittily expressed by another compatriot, who says: ?We have all issued out of Gogol?s Cloak.?...

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Excerpt: Dedication. Bob Southey! You?re a poet -- Poet-laureate, And representative of all the race, Although ?t is true that you turn?d out a Tory at Last,-- yours has lately been a common case; And now, my Epic Renegade! what are ye at? With all the Lakers, in and out of place? A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye Like ?four and twenty Blackbirds in a pyre....