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Excerpt: Touch and Go by D. H. Lawrence.

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Excerpt: The Great Stone Face and Other Tales of the White Mountains by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

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Contents INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................................ 4 THE GREAT STONE FACE ............................................................................................................ 5 THE AMBITIOUS GUEST ............................................................................................................ 23 THE GREAT CARBUNCLE.......................................................................................................... 31 SKETCHES FROM MEMORY..................................................................................................... 45...

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Excerpt: Some envious being may think on seeing this page illustrated by one of the most illustrious of Sarmatian names, that I am striving, as the goldsmiths do, to enhance a modern work with an ancient jewel,--a fancy of the fashions of the day,-- but you and a few others, dear count, will know that I am only seeking to pay my debt to Talent, Memory, and Friendship....

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Excerpt: I lay ill through several weeks, and the usual tenor of my life became like an old remembrance. But this was not the effect of time so much as of the change in all my habits made by the helplessness and inaction of a sick-room. Before I had been confined to it many days, everything else seemed to have retired into a remote distance where there was little or no separation between the various stages of my life which had been really divided by years. In falling ill, I seemed to have crossed a dark lake and to have left all my experiences, mingled together by the great distance, on the healthy shore....

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Excerpt: The Real Thing by Henry James.

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Introduction: This dialogue begins abruptly with a question of Meno, who asks, ?whether virtue can be taught.? Socrates replies that he does not as yet know what virtue is, and has never known anyone who did. ?Then he cannot have met Gorgias when he was at Athens.? Yes, Socrates had met him, but he has a bad memory, and has forgotten what Gorgias said. Will Meno tell him his own notion, which is probably not very different from that of Gorgias? ?O yes--nothing easier: there is the virtue of a man, of a woman, of an old man, and of a child; there is a virtue of every age and state of life, all of which may be easily described.?...

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. Much as I wished to see him I had kept my letter of introduction three weeks in my pocket-book. I was nervous and timid about meeting him-- conscious of youth and ignorance, convinced that he was tormented by strangers, and especially by my countrypeople, and not exempt from the suspicion that he had the irritability as well as the dignity of genius....

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Excerpt: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in Seven Parts by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

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Excerpt: The World Set Free by H. G. Wells.

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

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. A narrow grave-yard in the heart of a bustling, indifferent city, seen from the windows of a gloomylooking inn, is at no time an object of enlivening suggestion; and the spectacle is not at its best when the mouldy tombstones and funereal umbrage have received the ineffectual refreshment of a dull, moist snow-fall. If, while the air is thickened by this frosty drizzle, the calendar should happen to indicate that the blessed vernal season is already six weeks old, it will be admitted that no depressing influence is absent from the scene....

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Excerpt: The Princess by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

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Excerpt: The Purse by Honore de Balzac, translated by Clara Bell.

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Excerpt: The Upanishads translated by with commentary by Swami Paramananda.

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

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Excerpt: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte.

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. On a bright Autumn day, as long ago as the year 943, there was a great bustle in the Castle of Bayeux in Normandy. The hall was large and low, the roof arched, and supported on thick short columns, almost like the crypt of a Cathedral; the walls were thick, and the windows, which had no glass, were very small, set in such a depth of wall that there was a wide deep window seat, upon which the rain might beat, without reaching the interior of the room. And even if it had come in, there was nothing for it to hurt, for the walls were of rough stone, and the floor of tiles. There was a fire at each end of this great dark apartment, but there were no chimneys over the ample hearths, and the smoke curled about in thick white folds in the vaulted roof, adding to the wreaths of soot, which made the hall look still darker....

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. The towers of Zenith aspired above the morning mist; austere towers of steel and cement and limestone, sturdy as cliffs and delicate as silver rods. They were neither citadels nor churches, but frankly and beautifully office-buildings....

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Excerpt: Prince of Navarre, Charles, my honourable brother, Prince Condy, and my good Lord Admirall, wishe this union and religious league, Knit in these hands, thus joyn?d in nuptiall rites, May not desolve, till death desolve our lives, And that the native sparkes of princely love, That kindled first this motion in our hearts, May still be feweld in our progenye....

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Excerpt: Rhoda Fleming by George Meredith.