THE DEVIL IN MANUSCRIPTOn a bitter evening of December, I arrived by mail in a largetown, which was then the residence of an intimate friend, one ofthose gifted youths who cultivate poetry and the belles-lettres,and call themselves students at law. My first business, aftersupper, was to visit him at the office of his distinguishedinstructor. As I have said, it was a bitter night, clearstarlight, but cold as Nova Zembla,the shop-windows along thestreet being frosted, so as almost to hide the lights, while thewheels of coaches thundered equally loud over frozen earth andpavements of stone. There was no snow, either on the ground orthe roofs of the houses. The wind blew so violently, that I ha　

SHERLOCK HOLMESTHE ADVENTURE OF THE SECOND STAINby Sir Arthur Conan DoyleTHE ADVENTURE OF THE SECOND STAINI had intended "The Adventure of the Abbey Grange" to be the last ofthose exploits of my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, which I shouldever communicate to the public. This resolution of mine was not due toany lack of material, since I have notes of many hundreds of casesto which I have never alluded, nor was it caused by any waninginterest on the part of my readers in the singular personality andunique methods of this remarkable man. The real reason lay in thereluctance which Mr. Holmes has shown to the continued publication...　

THE SON OF THE WOLF.MAN RARELY PLACES A PROPER valuation upon his womankind, at leastnot until deprived of them. He has no conception of the subtleatmosphere exhaled by the sex feminine, so long as he bathes in it;but let it be withdrawn, and an ever-growing void begins to manifestitself in his existence, and he becomes hungry, in a vague sort ofway, for a something so indefinite that he cannot characterize it.If his comrades have no more experience than himself, they willshake their heads dubiously and dose him with strong physic. But thehunger will continue and become stronger; he will lose interest in thethings of his everyday life and wax morbid; and one day, when the...　

Aucassin and NicoleteAucassin and Nicolete1- Page 2-Aucassin and NicoleteINTRODUCTIONThere is nothing in artistic poetry quite akin to "Aucassin andNicolete."By a rare piece of good fortune the one manuscript of the Song-Storyhas escaped those waves of time, which have wrecked the bark ofMenander, and left of Sappho but a few floating fragments. The veryform of the tale is peculiar; we have nothing else from the twelfth or...　

New Yorkby James Fenimore CooperTHE increase of the towns of Manhattan, as, for the sake ofconvenience, we shall term New York and her adjuncts, in all thatcontributes to the importance of a great commercial mart, rendersthem one of the most remarkable places of the present age. Withinthe distinct recollections of living men, they have grown from acity of the fifth or sixth class to be near the head of all thepurely trading places of the known world. That there aresufficient causes for this unparalleled prosperity, will appearin the analysis of the natural advantages of the port, in itsposition, security, accessories, and scale....　

Manaliveby G. K. ChestertonTable of ContentsPart I: The Enigmas of Innocent SmithI. How the Great Wind Came to Beacon HouseII. The Luggage of an OptimistIII. The Banner of BeaconIV. The Garden of the GodV. The Allegorical Practical JokerPart II: The Explanations of Innocent SmithI. The Eye of Death; or, the Murder ChargeII. The Two Curates; or, the Burglary ChargeIII. The Round Road; or, the Desertion ChargeIV. The Wild Weddings; or, the Polygamy ChargeV. How the Great Wind went from Beacon House...　

Smoke BellewSmoke Bellewby Jack London1- Page 2-Smoke BellewTHE TASTE OF THE MEAT.I.In the beginning he was Christopher Bellew. By the time he was atcollege he had become Chris Bellew. Later, in the Bohemian crowd ofSan Francisco, he was called Kit Bellew. And in the end he was knownby no other name than Smoke Bellew. And this history of the evolutionof his name is the history of his evolution. Nor would it have happened...　

FINALE.Every limit is a beginning as well as an ending. Who can quit younglives after being long in company with them, and not desire to knowwhat befell them in their after-years? For the fragment of a life,however typical, is not the sample of an even web: promises maynot be kept, and an ardent outset may be followed by declension;latent powers may find their long-waited opportunity; a past errormay urge a grand retrieval.Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives,is still a great beginning, as it was to Adam and Eve, who kepttheir honeymoon in Eden, but had their first little one among thethorns and thistles of the wilderness. It is still the beginning...　

The Lodgerby Marie Belloc Lowndes"Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness." PSALM lxxxviii. 18CHAPTER IRobert Bunting and Ellen his wife sat before their dully burning, carefully-banked-up fire.The room, especially when it be known that it was part of a house standing in a grimy, if not exactly sordid, London thoroughfare, was exceptionally clean and well-cared-for. A casual stranger, more particularly one of a Superior class to their own, on suddenly opening the door of that sitting-room; would have thought that Mr. and Mrs. Bunting presented a very pleasant cosy picture of comfortable married life. Bunting, who was leaning back in a deep leather 　

Inhabitants of the Alhambra.I HAVE often observed that the more proudly a mansion has beentenanted in the day of its prosperity, the humbler are its inhabitantsin the day of its decline, and that the palace of a king commonly endsin being the nestling-place of the beggar.The Alhambra is in a rapid state of similar transition. Whenever atower falls to decay, it is seized upon by some tatterdemalion family,who become joint-tenants, with the bats and owls, of its gilded halls,and hang their rags, those standards of poverty, out of its windowsand loopholes.I have amused myself with remarking some of the motley characters...　

A LONELY RIDEAs I stepped into the Slumgullion stage I saw that it was a darknight, a lonely road, and that I was the only passenger. Let meassure the reader that I have no ulterior design in making thisassertion. A long course of light reading has forewarned me whatevery experienced intelligence must confidently look for from sucha statement. The storyteller who willfully tempts Fate by suchobvious beginnings; who is to the expectant reader in danger ofbeing robbed or half-murdered, or frightened by an escaped lunatic,or introduced to his ladylove for the first time, deserves to bedetected. I am relieved to say that none of these things occurred...　

The Hunchback of Notre Dameby Victor HugoPREFACE.A few years ago, while visiting or, rather, rummaging about Notre-Dame, the author of this book found, in an obscure nook of one of the towers, the following word, engraved by hand upon the wall:~ANArKH~.These Greek capitals, black with age, and quite deeply graven in the stone, with I know not what signs peculiar to Gothic caligraphy imprinted upon their forms and upon their attitudes, as though with the purpose of revealing that it had been a hand of the Middle Ages which had inscribed them there, and especially the fatal and melancholy meaning contained in them, struck the author deeply.He questioned himself; he sought to divine who could