OF THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE ARTS AND SCIENCESDavid Hume1742Nothing requires greater nicety, in our enquiries concerninghuman affairs, than to distinguish exactly what is owing to, and what proceeds from ; nor is there anysubject, in which an author is more liable to deceive himself byfalse subtilties and refinements. To say, that any event isderived from chance, cuts short all farther enquiry concerningit, and leaves the writer in the same state of ignorance with therest of mankind. But when the event is supposed to proceed from...　

Phyllis of Philistiaby Frank Frankfort MooreCHAPTER I.AN ASTRONOMER WITHOUT A TELESCOPE."After all," said Mr. Ayrton, "what is marriage?""Ah!" sighed Phyllis. She knew that her father had become possessed of a phrase, and that he was anxious to flutter it before her to see how it went. He was a connoisseur in the bric-a-brac of phrases."Marriage means all your eggs in one basket," said he."Ah!" sighed Phyllis once more. She wondered if her father really thought that she would be comforted in her great grief by a phrase. She did not want to know how marriage might be defined. She knew that all definitions are indefinite. She knew that in the case of marriage everything depends upon the defin　

Tales of Troyby Andrew LangTALES OF TROY: ULYSSES THE SACKER OF CITIESContents:The Boyhood and Parents of UlyssesHow People Lived in the Time of UlyssesThe Wooing of Helen of the Fair HandsThe Stealing of HelenTrojan VictoriesBattle at the ShipsThe Slaying and Avenging of PatroclusThe Cruelty of Achilles, and the Ransoming of HectorHow Ulysses Stole the Luck of TroyThe Battles with the Amazons and Memnonthe Death of AchillesUlysses Sails to seek the Son of Achilles.The Valour of EurypylusThe Slaying of ParisHow Ulysses Invented the Device of the Horse of TreeThe End of Troy and the Saving of HelenTHE BOYHOOD AND PARENTS OF ULYSSES...　

The Poet at the Breakfast Tableby Oliver Wendell HolmesPREFACE.In this, the third series of Breakfast-Table conversations, a slightdramatic background shows off a few talkers and writers, aided bycertain silent supernumeraries. The machinery is much like that ofthe two preceding series. Some of the characters must seem like oldacquaintances to those who have read the former papers. As I readthese over for the first time for a number of years, I notice onecharacter; presenting a class of beings who have greatly multipliedduring the interval which separates the earlier and laterBreakfast-Table papers,I mean the scientific specialists. The...　

THE CALASHThe town of B had become very lively since a cavalry regiment hadtaken up its quarters in it. Up to that date it had been mortallywearisome there. When you happened to pass through the town andglanced at its little mud houses with their incredibly gloomy aspect,the pen refuses to express what you felt. You suffered a terribleuneasiness as if you had just lost all your money at play, or hadcommitted some terrible blunder in company. The plaster covering thehouses, soaked by the rain, had fallen away in many places from theirwalls, which from white had become streaked and spotted, whilst oldreeds served to thatch them....　

The Patagoniaby Henry JamesCHAPTER IThe houses were dark in the August night and the perspective ofBeacon Street, with its double chain of lamps, was a foreshorteneddesert. The club on the hill alone, from its semi-cylindrical front,projected a glow upon the dusky vagueness of the Common, and as Ipassed it I heard in the hot stillness the click of a pair ofbilliard-balls. As "every one" was out of town perhaps the servants,in the extravagance of their leisure, were profaning the tables. Theheat was insufferable and I thought with joy of the morrow, of thedeck of the steamer, the freshening breeze, the sense of getting out...　

Padre IgnacioOr The Song of Temptationby Owen WisterIAt Santa Ysabel del Mar the season was at one of those moments when theair rests quiet over land and sea. The old breezes were gone; the newones were not yet risen. The flowers in the mission garden opened wide;no wind came by day or night to shake the loose petals from their stems.Along the basking, silent, many-colored shore gathered and lingered thecrisp odors of the mountains. The dust hung golden and motionless longafter the rider was behind the hill, and the Pacific lay like a floor ofsapphire, whereon to walk beyond the setting sun into the East. One whitesail shone there. Instead of an hour, it had been from dawn till...　

Sartor Resartusby Thomas CarlyleSARTOR RESARTUS: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh By Thomas Carlyle. [1831]BOOK I.CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY.Considering our present advanced state of culture, and how the Torch of Science has now been brandished and borne about, with more or less effect, for five thousand years and upwards; how, in these times especially, not only the Torch still burns, and perhaps more fiercely than ever, but innumerable Rushlights, and Sulphur-matches, kindled thereat, are also glancing in every direction, so that not the smallest cranny or dog-hole in Nature or Art can remain unilluminated,it might strike the reflective mind with some surprise that hitherto little　

Modern Customs and Ancient Laws of Russiaby Maxime KovalevskyLecture 6The Origin, Growth, and Abolition of Personal Servitude in RussiaAn account of the origin, growth, and abolition of serfdom inRussia might easily be made to fill volumes, so vast and sovarious are the materials on which the study of it is based. Butfor the purpose now in view, that of bringing before your noticethe general conclusion to which Russian historians and legistshave come as to the social development of their country, perhapsa single lecture will suffice. In it I cannot pretend to do morethan present to you those aspects of the subject on which theminds of Russian scholars have been specially fixed of late...　

Bruceby Albert Payson TerhuneTO MY TEN BEST FRIENDS:Who are far wiser in their way and far better in every way, thanI; and yet who have not the wisdom to know itWho do not merely think I am perfect, but who are calmly andpermanently convinced of my perfection;and this in spite offifty disillusions a dayWho are frantically happy at my coming and bitterly woebegone inmy absenceWho never bore me and never are bored by meWho never talk about themselves and who always listen withrapturous interest to anything I may sayWho, having no conventional standards, have no respectability;and who, having no conventional consciences, have no sins...　

Chapter X of Volume II (Chap. 33)MORE than once did Elizabeth in her ramble within the Park, unexpectedly meet Mr. Darcy. She felt all the perverseness of the mischance that should bring him where no one else was brought; and to prevent its ever happening again, took care to inform him at first that it was a favourite haunt of hers. How it could occur a second time, therefore, was very odd! Yet it did, and even a third. It seemed like wilful ill-nature, or a voluntary penance, for on these occasions it was not merely a few formal enquiries and an awkward pause and then away, but he actually thought it necessary to turn back and walk with her. He never said a great deal, nor did she give 　

The Land of Footprintsby Stewart Edward WhiteI. ON BOOKS OF ADVENTUREBooks of sporting, travel, and adventure in countries little known to the average reader naturally fall in two classes-neither, with a very few exceptions, of great value. One class is perhaps the logical result of the other.Of the first type is the book that is written to make the most of far travels, to extract from adventure the last thrill, to impress the awestricken reader with a full sense of the danger and hardship the writer has undergone. Thus, if the latter takes out quite an ordinary routine permit to go into certain districts, he makes the most of travelling in "closed territory," implying that he has obtained