Early Australian Voyagesby John PinkertonContents:IntroductionPelsartTasmanDampierINTRODUCTION.In the days of Plato, imagination found its way, before the mariners, to a new world across the Atlantic, and fabled an Atlantis where America now stands. In the days of Francis Bacon, imagination of the English found its way to the great Southern Continent before the Portuguese or Dutch sailors had sight of it, and it was the home of those wise students of God and nature to whom Bacon gave his New Atlantis. The discoveries of America date from the close of the fifteenth century. The discoveries of Australia date only from the beginning of the seventeenth. The discoveries of the Dutch were lit　

A Mortal Antipathyby Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.PREFACE."A MORTAL ANTIPATHY" was a truly hazardous experiment. A very wiseand very distinguished physician who is as much at home in literatureas he is in science and the practice of medicine, wrote to me inreferring to this story: "I should have been afraid of my subject."He did not explain himself, but I can easily understand that he feltthe improbability of the, physiological or pathological occurrence onwhich the story is founded to be so great that the narrative couldhardly be rendered plausible. I felt the difficulty for myself aswell as for my readers, and it was only by recalling for our...　

THE COMPARISON OF DEMOSTHENES AND CICEROby Plutarchtranslated by John DrydenTHESE are the most memorable circumstances recorded in history ofDemosthenes and Cicero which have come to our knowledge. Butomitting an exact comparison of their respective faculties inspeaking, yet thus much seems fit to be said; that Demosthenes, tomake himself a master in rhetoric, applied all the faculties he had,natural or acquired, wholly that way that he far surpassed in forceand strength of eloquence all his contemporaries in political andjudicial speaking, in grandeur and majesty all the panegyrical...　

TWICE-TOLD TALESMY KINSMAN, MAJOR MOLINEUXby Nathaniel HawthorneAFTER THE KINGS of Great Britain had assumed the right ofappointing the colonial governors, the measures of the latter seldommet with the ready and general approbation which had been paid tothose of their predecessors, under the original charters. The peoplelooked with most jealous scrutiny to the exercise of power which didnot emanate from themselves, and they usually rewarded their rulerswith slender gratitude for the compliances by which, in softeningtheir instructions from beyond the sea, they had incurred the...　

The Book of Teaby Kakuzo OkakuraI. The Cup of HumanityTea began as a medicine and grew into a beverage. In China, in the eighth century, it entered the realm of poetry as one of the polite amusements. The fifteenth century saw Japan ennoble it into a religion of aestheticismTeaism. Teaism is a cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence. It inculcates purity and harmony, the mystery of mutual charity, the romanticism of the social order. It is essentially a worship of the Imperfect, as it is a tender attempt to accomplish something possible in this impossible thing we know as life.The Philosophy of Tea is not mere aestheticism in the or　

PREFACE OF WILLIAM CAXTONAFTER that I had accomplished and finished divers histories, aswell of contemplation as of other historial and worldly acts ofgreat conquerors and princes, and also certain books of ensamplesand doctrine, many noble and divers gentlemen of this realm ofEngland came and demanded me many and oft times, wherefore that Ihave not do made and imprint the noble history of the SaintGreal, and of the most renowned Christian king, first and chiefof the three best Christian, and worthy, King Arthur, which oughtmost to be remembered among us Englishmen to-fore all otherChristian kings; for it is notoyrly known through the universal...　

GULLIVER OF MARSby Edwin L. ArnoldOriginal Title: Lieut. Gulliver JonesCHAPTER IDare I say it? Dare I say that I, a plain, prosaic lieutenant in the republican service have done the incredible things here set out for the love of a womanfor a chimera in female shape; for a pale, vapid ghost of woman-loveliness? At times I tell myself I dare not: that you will laugh, and cast me aside as a fabricator; and then again I pick up my pen and collect the scattered pages, for I MUST write itthe pallid splendour of that thing I loved, and won, and lost is ever before me, and will not be forgotten. The tumult of the struggle into which that vision led me still throbs in my mind, the soft, lisping vo　

The Essays of Montaigne, V15by Michel de MontaigneTranslated by Charles CottonEdited by William Carew Hazilitt1877CONTENTS OF VOLUME 15.V. Upon Some verses of Virgil.CHAPTER VUPON SOME VERSES OF VIRGILCHAPTER V.By how much profitable thoughts are more full and solid, by so much arethey also more cumbersome and heavy: vice, death, poverty, diseases, aregrave and grievous subjects. A man should have his soul instructed inthe means to sustain and to contend with evils, and in the rules ofliving and believing well: and often rouse it up, and exercise it in thisnoble study; but in an ordinary soul it must be by intervals and with...　

The KentonsBy William Dean HowellsI.The Kentons were not rich, but they were certainly richer than theaverage in the pleasant county town of the Middle West, where they hadspent nearly their whole married life. As their circumstances had growneasier, they had mellowed more and more in the keeping of theircomfortable home, until they hated to leave it even for the shortoutings, which their children made them take, to Niagara or the UpperLakes in the hot weather. They believed that they could not be so wellanywhere as in the great square brick house which still kept its fouracres about it, in the heart of the growing town, where the trees they...　

FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSENTHE FLYING TRUNKby Hans Christian AndersenTHERE was once a merchant who was so rich that he could have pavedthe whole street with gold, and would even then have had enough fora small alley. But he did not do so; he knew the value of money betterthan to use it in this way. So clever was he, that every shilling heput out brought him a crown; and so he continued till he died. His soninherited his wealth, and he lived a merry life with it; he went toa masquerade every night, made kites out of five pound notes, andthrew pieces of gold into the sea instead of stones, making ducks...　

The Works of Edgar Allan PoeVolume 5 of the Raven EditionIN FIVE VOLUMESContentsPhilosophy of FurnitureA Tale of JerusalemThe SphinxHop FrogThe Man of the CrowdNever Bet the Devill Your HeadThou Art the ManWhy the Little Frenchman Wears his Hand in a SlingBon-BonSome words with a MummyThe Poetic PrincipleOld English PoetryPOEMSDedicationPrefacePoems of Later LifeThe RavenThe BellsUlalumeTo HelenAnnabel LeeA ValentineAn EnigmaTo my MotherFor AnnieTo FTo Frances S. OsgoodEldoradoEulalieA Dream within a DreamTo Marie Louise (Shew)To the SameThe City in the SeaThe SleeperBridal BalladNotes...　

Joan of Naples1343-1382By ALEXANDER DUMAS, PERECHAPTER IIn the night of the 15th of January 1343, while the inhabitants of Naples lay wrapped in peaceful slumber, they were suddenly awakened by the bells of the three hundred churches that this thrice blessed capital contains. In the midst of the disturbance caused by so rude a call the first bought in the mind of all was that the town was on fire, or that the army of some enemy had mysteriously landed under cover of night and could put the citizens to the edge of the sword. But the doleful, intermittent sounds of all these fills, which disturbed the silence at regular and distant intervals, were an invitation to the faithful pray for a pas