Castle RackrentCastle RackrentBy Maria Edgeworth1- Page 2-Castle RackrentINTRODUCTIONIThe story of the Edgeworth Family, if it were properly told, should beas long as the ARABIAN NIGHTS themselves; the thousand and onecheerful intelligent members of the circle, the amusing friends andrelations, the charming surroundings, the cheerful hospitable home, all goto make up an almost unique history of a county family of great parts and...　

　　　　 Red Nails　　 Jewels of Gwahlur　　 Beyond the Black River　　　　RED NAILS　　　　　　For some two years, as captain of the Wastrel, Conan continues a highly successful career as a freebooter. However, the other Zingaran pirates, jealous of the outlander in their midst, at last bring him down off the coast of Shem. Escaping inland and hearing that wars are in the offing along the borders of Stygia, Conan joins the Free panions, a band of condottieri under the mand of one Zarallo. Instead of rich plunder, however, he finds himself engaged in uneventful guard duty in the border post of Sukhmet, on the frontier of the black kingdoms. The wine is sour and the pickings poor, and Conan soon gets tired of　

THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSSTHE PEOPLE OF THEABYSSby Jack London1- Page 2-THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSSThe chief priests and rulers cry:-"O Lord and Master, not ours the guilt, We build but as our fathersbuilt; Behold thine images how they stand Sovereign and sole through allour land."Our task is hardwith sword and flame, To hold thine earth foreverthe same, And with sharp crooks of steel to keep, Still as thou leftest them,thy sheep."...　

THE HAUNTED HOTEL A Mystery of Modern VeniceTHE HAUNTEDHOTEL A Mystery ofModern Veniceby Wilkie Collins (1824-1889)(after the edition of Chatto & Windus, London, 1879)1- Page 2-THE HAUNTED HOTEL A Mystery of Modern VeniceCHAPTER IIn the year 1860, the reputation of Doctor Wybrow as a Londonphysician reached its highest point. It was reported on good authoritythat he was in receipt of one of the largest incomes derived from the...　

A FAIR PENITENTA FAIR PENITENTby WILKIE COLLINS1- Page 2-A FAIR PENITENTCharles Pineau Duclos was a French writer of biographies and novels,who lived and worked during the first half of the eighteenth century. Heprospered sufficiently well, as a literary man, to be made secretary to theFrench Academy, and to be allowed to succeed Voltaire in the office ofhistoriographer of France. He has left behind him, in his own country,the reputation of a lively writer of the second class, who addressed the...　

THE VISION SPLENDIDTHE VISIONSPLENDIDWilliam MacLeod Raine1- Page 2-THE VISION SPLENDIDCHAPTER 1Of all the remote streams of influence that pour both before and afterbirth into the channel of our being, what an insignificant fewand theseonly the more obviousare traceable at all. We swim in a sea ofenvironment and heredity, are tossed hither and thither by we know notwhat cross currents of Fate, are tugged at by a thousand eddies of whichwe never dream. The sum of it all makes Life, of which we know so little...　

On the Improvement of the UnderstandingOn the Improvement ofthe Understandingby Baruch SpinozaTranslated by R. H. M. Elwes1- Page 2-On the Improvement of the Understanding[1] (1) After experience had taught me that all the usual surroundingsof social life are vain and futile; seeing that none of the objects of my fearscontained in themselves anything either good or bad, except in so far asthe mind is affected by them, I finally resolved to inquire whether theremight be some real good having power to communicate itself, which...　

　　The drug-induced sleep wore off into nothingness, and the girl began the agonizing struggle back to consciousness. A dim and hazy light greeted her slowly opening eyes while a disgusting, putrid stench invaded her nostrils. She was nude, her bare back pressed flat against a damp, yellow, slime-coated wall. It was unreal, an impossibility, she tried to tell herself upon awakening. It had to be some kind of horrifying nightmare. Then suddenly, before she had a chance to fight the panic mushrooming inside her, the yellow slime on the floor rose and began working up the thighs of her defenseless body.　　Terrified beyond all reason, she began screaming screaming insanely as the abomination craw　

The Commonwealth of Oceanaby James Harrington1656JANOTTI, the most excellent describer of the Commonwealth of Venice, divides the whole series of government into two times or periods: the one ending with the liberty of Rome, which was the course or empire, as I may call it, of ancient prudence, first discovered to mankind by God himself in the fabric of the commonwealth of Israel, and afterward picked out of his footsteps in nature, and unanimously followed by the Greeks and Romans; the other beginning with the arms of Caesar, which, extinguishing liberty, were the transition of ancient into modern prudence, introduced by those inundations of Huns, Goths, Vandals, Lombards, Saxons, which, b　

The SportsmanThe Sportsmanby XenophonTranslation by H. G. Dakyns1- Page 2-The SportsmanXenophon the Athenian was born 431 B.C. He was a pupil ofSocrates. He marched with the Spartans, and was exiled from Athens.Sparta gave him land and property in Scillus, where he lived for manyyears before having to move once more, to settle in Corinth. He died in354 B.C.The Sportsman is a manual on hunting hares, deer and wild boar,...　

　　To even the least sensitive and perceptive beholder the Morning Rose, at this stage of her long and highly chequered career, must have seemed ill-named, for if ever a vessel could fairly have been said to be approaching, if not actually arrived at, the sunset of her days it was this one. Officially designated an Arctic Steam Trawler, the Morning Rose, 560 gross tons, 173 feet in length, 30 in beam and with a draught, unladen but fully provisioned with fuel and water, of 14.3 feet, had, in fact, been launched from the Jarrow slipways as far back as 1926, the year of the General Strike.　The Morning Rose, then, was far gone beyond the superannuation watershed; she was slow, creaking, unstabl　

A Voyage to Abyssiniaby Father Jerome Lobotranslated from the French by Samuel Johnson.INTRODUCTION by Henry Morley, Editor of the 1887 editionJeronimo Lobo was born in Lisbon in the year 1593. He entered the Order of the Jesuits at the age of sixteen. After passing through the studies by which Jesuits were trained for missionary work, which included special attention to the arts of speaking and writing, Father Lobo was sent as a missionary to India at the age of twenty- eight, in the year 1621. He reached Goa, as his book tells, in 1622, and was in 1624, at the age of thirty-one, told off as one of the missionaries to be employed in the conversion of the Abyssinians. They were to be co