The Queen of the Pirate Isleby Bret HarteI first knew her as the Queen of the Pirate Isle. To the best ofmy recollection she had no reasonable right to that title. She wasonly nine years old, inclined to plumpness and good humor,deprecated violence, and had never been to sea. Need it be addedthat she did NOT live in an island and that her name was Polly?Perhaps I ought to explain that she had already known otherexperiences of a purely imaginative character. Part of herexistence had been passed as a Beggar Child,solely indicated by ashawl tightly folded round her shoulders, and chills; as aSchoolmistress, unnecessarily severe; as a Preacher, singularly...　

The Drums Of Jeopardyby Harold MacGrathCHAPTER IA fast train drew into Albany, on the New York Central, from theWest. It was three-thirty of a chill March morning in the firstyear of peace. A pall of fog lay over the world so heavy thatit beaded the face and hands and deposited a fairy diamond dustupon wool. The station lights had the visibility of stars, andlike the stars were without refulgence - a pale golden aureola,perhaps three feet in diameter, and beyond, nothing. The fewpassengers who alighted and the train itself had the same nebulosityof drab fish in a dim aquarium.Among the passengers to detrain was a man in a long black coat.The high collar was up. The man wore a derby ha　

Cressyby Bret HarteCHAPTER I.As the master of the Indian Spring school emerged from the pinewoods into the little clearing before the schoolhouse, he stoppedwhistling, put his hat less jauntily on his head, threw away somewild flowers he had gathered on his way, and otherwise assumed thesevere demeanor of his profession and his mature agewhich was atleast twenty. Not that he usually felt this an assumption; it wasa firm conviction of his serious nature that he impressed others,as he did himself, with the blended austerity and ennui of deep andexhausted experience.The building which was assigned to him and his flock by the Board...　

DEMETRIUS337?-283 B.C.by Plutarchtranslated by John DrydenINGENIOUS men have long observed a resemblance between the arts and the bodily senses. And they were first led to do so, I think, by noticing the way in which, both in the arts and with our senses, we examine opposites. Judgment once obtained, the use to which we put it differs in the two cases. Our senses are not meant to pick out black rather than white, to prefer sweet to bitter, or soft and yielding to hard and resisting objects; all they have to do is to receive impressions as they occur, and report to the understanding the impressions as received. The arts, on the other hand, which reason inst　

450 BCEUMENDIDESby Aeschylustranslated by E. D. A. MorsheadCHARACTERS IN THE PLAYTHE PYTHIAN PRIESTESAPOLLOORESTESTHE GHOST OF CLYTEMNESTRACHORUS OF FURIESATHENAATTENDANTS OF ATHENATWELVE ATHENIAN CITIZENSEUMENDIDES(SCENE:-Before the temple of APOLLO at Delphi. The PYTHIANPRIESTESS enters and approaches the doors of the temple.)THE PYTHIAN PRIESTESFirst, in this prayer, of all the gods I nameThe prophet-mother Earth; and Themis next,...　

A TALE OF THE TONTLAWALDLong, long ago there stood in the midst of a country covered withlakes a vast stretch of moorland called the Tontlawald, on whichno man ever dared set foot. From time to time a few bold spiritshad been drawn by curiosity to its borders, and on their returnhad reported that they had caught a glimpse of a ruined house ina grove of thick trees, and round about it were a crowd of beingsresembling men, swarming over the grass like bees. The men wereas dirty and ragged as gipsies, and there were besides a quantityof old women and half-naked children.One night a peasant who was returning home from a feast wandereda little farther into the Tontlawald, and came back with th　

IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLSIN A HOLLOW OF THEHILLSBret Bret Harte1- Page 2-IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLSCHAPTERI.It was very dark, and the wind was increasing. The last gust hadbeen preceded by an ominous roaring down the whole mountain-side,which continued for some time after the trees in the little valley had lapsedinto silence. The air was filled with a faint, cool, sodden odor, as of...　

FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSENIB AND LITTLE CHRISTINAby Hans Christian AndersenIN the forest that extends from the banks of the Gudenau, in NorthJutland, a long way into the country, and not far from the clearstream, rises a great ridge of land, which stretches through thewood like a wall. Westward of this ridge, and not far from theriver, stands a farmhouse, surrounded by such poor land that the sandysoil shows itself between the scanty ears of rye and wheat whichgrow in it. Some years have passed since the people who lived herecultivated these fields; they kept three sheep, a pig, and two oxen;...　

EclipseTwilight Book 3Stephenie MeyerTo my husband, Pancho,for your patience, love, friendship, humor,and willingness to eat out.And also to my children, Gabe, Seth, and Eli,for letting me experience the kind of love that people freely die for.Fire and IceSome say the world will end in fire,Some say in ice.From what I’ve tasted of desireI hold with those who favor fire.But if it had to perish twice,I think I know enough of hateTo say that for destruction iceIs also greatAnd would suffice.Robert Frost...　

THE SKETCH BOOKA ROYAL POETby Washington IrvingThough your body be confined,And soft love a prisoner bound,Yet the beauty of your mindNeither check nor chain hath found.Look out nobly, then, and dareEven the fetters that you wear.FLETCHER.ON A soft sunny morning in the genial month of May, I made anexcursion to Windsor Castle. It is a place full of storied andpoetical associations. The very external aspect of the proud old...　

Memoir of Fleeming Jenkinby Robert Louis StevensonPREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.ON the death of Fleeming Jenkin, his family and friends determinedto publish a selection of his various papers; by way ofintroduction, the following pages were drawn up; and the whole,forming two considerable volumes, has been issued in England. Inthe States, it has not been thought advisable to reproduce thewhole; and the memoir appearing alone, shorn of that other matterwhich was at once its occasion and its justification, so large anaccount of a man so little known may seem to a stranger out of allproportion. But Jenkin was a man much more remarkable than the...　

On the First Principles of Governmentby David HumeNothing appears more surprising to those, who consider humanaffairs with a philosophical eve, than the easiness with whichthe many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission,with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to thoseof their rulers. When we enquire by what means this wonder iseffected, we shall find, that, as FORCE is always on the side ofthe governed, the governors have nothing to support them butopinion. It is therefore, on opinion only that government isfounded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and mostmilitary governments, as well as to the most free and most...