Love-Songs of Childhoodby Eugene FieldTo Mrs. Belle AnglerDearest Aunt:Many years ago you used to rock me to sleep, cradling me in yourarms and singing me petty songs. Surely you have not forgottenthat time, and I recall it with tenderness. You were verybeautiful then. But you are more beautiful now; for, in the yearsthat have come and gone since then, the joys and the sorrows ofmaternity have impressed their saintly grace upon the dear face Iused to kiss, and have made your gentle heart gentler still.Beloved lady, in memory of years to be recalled only in thought,and in token of my gratitude and affection, I bring you these...　

Tea-table Talkby Jerome K. JeromeCHAPTER I"They are very pretty, some of them," said the Woman of the World; "not the sort of letters I should have written myself.""I should like to see a love-letter of yours," interrupted the Minor Poet."It is very kind of you to say so," replied the Woman of the World. "It never occurred to me that you would care for one.""It is what I have always maintained," retorted the Minor Poet; "you have never really understood me.""I believe a volume of assorted love-letters would sell well," said the Girton Girl; "written by the same hand, if you like, but to different correspondents at different periods. To the same person one is bound, more or less, to repeat 　

The Life of Stephen A. Douglasby William GardnerPreface.De mortuis nil nisi bonum, (of the dead speak nothing but good), is the rule which governed the friends of Stephen A. Douglas after his death. "Of political foes speak nothing but ill," is the rule which has guided much of our discussion of him for forty years. The time has now arrived when we can study him dispassionately and judge him justly, when we can take his measure, if not with scientific accuracy, at least with fairness and honesty.Where party spirit is as despotic as it is among us, it is difficult for any man who spends his life amid the storms of politics to get justice until the passions of his generation have been forgot　

James Nasmyth: Engineer, An Autobiography.Edited by Samuel SmilesPREFACEI have had much pleasure in editing the following Memoir of my friend Mr. Nasmyth. Some twenty years since (in April 1863), when I applied to him for information respecting his mechanical inventions, he replied: "My life presents no striking or remarkable incidents, and would, I fear, prove but a tame narrative. The sphere to which my endeavours have been confined has been of a comparatively quiet order; but, vanity apart, I hope I have been able to leave a few marks of my existence behind me in the shape of useful contrivances, which are in many ways helping on great works of industry."Mr. Nasmyth, nevertheless, kin　

The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume IICHAPTER VIII - LIFE AT BOURNEMOUTH, CONTINUED, JANUARY 1886-JULY 1887Letter: TO MRS. DE MATTOS[SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH], JANUARY 1ST, 1886.DEAREST KATHARINE, - Here, on a very little book and accompaniedwith lame verses, I have put your name. Our kindness is nowgetting well on in years; it must be nearly of age; and it getsmore valuable to me with every time I see you. It is not possibleto express any sentiment, and it is not necessary to try, at leastbetween us. You know very well that I love you dearly, and that Ialways will. I only wish the verses were better, but at least you...　

Selected Prose of Oscar Wildeby Oscar WildeContents:Preface by Robert RossHow They Struck a ContemporaryThe Quality of George MeredithLife in the Fallacious ModelLife the DiscipleLife the PlagiaristThe Indispensable EastThe Influence of the Impressionists on ClimateAn Exposure to NaturalismThomas Griffiths WainewrightWainewright at Hobart TownCardinal Newman and the AutobiographiersRobert BrowningThe Two Supreme and Highest ArtsThe Secrets of ImmortalityThe Critic and his MaterialDante the Living GuideThe Limitations of GeniusWanted A New BackgroundWithout FrontiersThe Poetry of Archaeology...　

A LETTER FROM CAPTAIN GULLIVER TO HIS COUSIN SYMPSON.WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1727.I hope you will be ready to own publicly, whenever you shall becalled to it, that by your great and frequent urgency youprevailed on me to publish a very loose and uncorrect account ofmy travels, with directions to hire some young gentleman ofeither university to put them in order, and correct the style, asmy cousin Dampier did, by my advice, in his book called "A Voyageround the world." But I do not remember I gave you power toconsent that any thing should be omitted, and much less that anything should be inserted; therefore, as to the latter, I do here...　

Pazby Honore de BalzacTranslated by Katharine Prescott WormeleyDEDICATIONDedicated to the Comtesse Clara Maffei.PAZ(LA FAUSSE MAITRESSE)IIn September, 1835, one of the richest heiresses of the faubourgSaint-Germain, Mademoiselle du Rouvre, the only daughter of theMarquis du Rouvre, married Comte Adam Mitgislas Laginski, a youngPolish exile.We ask permission to write these Polish names as they are pronounced,to spare our readers the aspect of the fortifications of consonants bywhich the Slave language protects its vowels,probably not to losethem, considering how few there are....　

THE AMERICAN NEGROHIS HISTORY AND LITERATURERUNNING A THOUSAND MILES FOR FREEDOMWilliam and Ellen CraftRUNNING A THOUSAND MILES FOR FREEDOM OR, THE ESCAPE OF WILLIAM AND ELLEN CRAFT FROM SLAVERY."Slaves cannot breathe in England: if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free; They touch our country, and their shackles fall."COWPERRUNNING A THOUSAND MILES FOR FREEDOMPREFACE.HAVING heard while in Slavery that "God made of one blood all nations of men," and also that the American Declaration of Independence says, that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these, 　

THE BLACK DWARFTHE BLACK DWARFWalter Scott, Bart.1- Page 2-THE BLACK DWARFI. TALES OF MY LANDLORDCOLLECTED AND REPORTED BY JEDEDIAH CLEISHBOTHAM,SCHOOLMASTER AND PARISH-CLERK OF GANDERCLEUGH.INTRODUCTION.As I may, without vanity, presume that the name and officialdescription prefixed to this Proem will secure it, from the sedate andreflecting part of mankind, to whom only I would be understood to...　

The Pupilby Henry JamesCHAPTER IThe poor young man hesitated and procrastinated: it cost him suchan effort to broach the subject of terms, to speak of money to aperson who spoke only of feelings and, as it were, of thearistocracy. Yet he was unwilling to take leave, treating hisengagement as settled, without some more conventional glance inthat direction than he could find an opening for in the manner ofthe large affable lady who sat there drawing a pair of soiled gantsde Suede through a fat jewelled hand and, at once pressing andgliding, repeated over and over everything but the thing he wouldhave liked to hear. He would have liked to hear the figure of his...　

TWICE-TOLD TALESTHE BIRTHMARKby Nathaniel HawthorneIN THE LATTER PART of the last century, there lived a man ofscience- an eminent proficient in every branch of naturalphilosophy- who, not long before our story opens, had madeexperience of a spiritual affinity, more attractive than anychemical one. He had left his laboratory to the care of anassistant, cleared his fine countenance from the furnace-smoke, washedthe stain of acids from his fingers, and persuaded a beautiful womanto become his wife. In those days, when the comparatively recentdiscovery of electricity, and other kindred mysteries of nature,...