The Faith of Menby Jack LondonContents:A Relic of the PlioceneA Hyperborean BrewThe Faith of MenToo Much GoldThe One Thousand DozenThe Marriage of Lit-litBatardThe Story of Jees UckA RELIC OF THE PLIOCENEI wash my hands of him at the start. I cannot father his tales,nor will I be responsible for them. I make these preliminaryreservations, observe, as a guard upon my own integrity. I possessa certain definite position in a small way, also a wife; and forthe good name of the community that honours my existence with itsapproval, and for the sake of her posterity and mine, I cannot take...　

The History of the Telephoneby Herbert N. CassonPREFACEThirty-five short years, and presto! the newborn art of telephony is fullgrown. Three million telephones are now scattered abroad in foreign countries, and seven millions are massed here, in the land of its birth.So entirely has the telephone outgrown the ridicule with which, as many people can well remember, it was first received, that it is now in most places taken for granted, as though it were a part of the natural phenomena of this planet. It has so marvellously extended the facilities of conversationthat "art in which a man has all mankind for competitors"that it is now an indispensable help to whoever would live the convenient li　

Areopagiticaby John MiltonA SPEECH FOR THE LIBERTY OF UNLICENSED PRINTINGTO THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLANDThis is true liberty, when free-born men,Having to advise the public, may speak free,Which he who can, and will, deserves high praise;Who neither can, nor will, may hold his peace:What can be juster in a state than this?Euripid. Hicetid.They, who to states and governors of the Commonwealth directtheir speech, High Court of Parliament, or, wanting such access ina private condition, write that which they foresee may advance thepublic good; I suppose them, as at the beginning of no meanendeavour, not a little altered and moved inwardly in their minds:...　

Billy and the Big Stickby Richard Harding DavisHad the Wilmot Electric Light people remained content only to makelight, had they not, as a by-product, attempted to make money, theyneed not have left Hayti.When they flooded with radiance the unpaved streets of Port-au-Prince no one, except the police, who complained that the lightskept them awake, made objection; but when for this illumination theWilmot Company demanded payment, every one up to President HamilearPoussevain was surprised and grieved. So grieved was President Ham,as he was lovingly designated, that he withdrew the Wilmotconcession, surrounded the power-house with his barefooted army,and in a proclamation announced that for the　

THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMESThe Adventure of the Blue CarbuncleI had called upon my friend Sherlock Holmes upon the secondmorning after Christmas, with the intention of wishing him thecompliments of the season. He was lounging upon the sofa in apurple dressing-gown, a pipe-rack within his reach upon the right,and a pile of crumpled morning papers, evidently newly studied,near at hand. Beside the couch was a wooden chair, and on theangle of the back hung a very seedy and disreputable hard-felthat, much the worse for wear, and cracked in several places. A...　

Of Taxesby David HumeThere is a prevailing maxim, among some reasoners, that everynew tax creates a new ability in the subject to bear it, and thateach encrease of public burdens encreases proportionably theindustry of the people. This maxim is of such a nature as is mostlikely to be abused; and is so much the more dangerous, as itstruth cannot be altogether denied: but it must be owned, whenkept within certain bounds, to have some foundation in reason andexperience.When a tax is laid upon commodities, which are consumed bythe common people, the necessary consequence may seem to be,either that the poor must retrench something from their way of...　

Aucassin and NicoleteTranslated by Andrew LangINTRODUCTIONThere 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 twelfthor thirteenth century in the alternate prose and verse of the cante-fable. {1} We have fabliaux in verse, and prose Arthurian romances.We have Chansons de Geste, heroic poems like "Roland," unrhymedassonant laisses, but we have not the alternations of prose with...　

NOTE TO GENERAL PREFACE, p. 　

AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF THE WEALTH OF NATIONSby Adam Smith1776BOOK FOUROF SYSTEMS OF POLITICAL ECONOMYINTRODUCTIONPOLITICAL economy, considered as a branch of the science of astatesman or legislator, proposes two distinct objects: first, toprovide a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people, ormore properly to enable them to provide such a revenue orsubsistence for themselves; and secondly, to supply the state orcommonwealth with a revenue sufficient for the public services.It proposes to enrich both the people and the sovereign....　

THE RIGHT EYE OF THE COMMANDERThe year of grace 1797 passed away on the coast of California in asouthwesterly gale. The little bay of San Carlos, albeit shelteredby the headlands of the blessed Trinity, was rough and turbulent;its foam clung quivering to the seaward wall of the Mission garden;the air was filled with flying sand and spume, and as the SenorCommandante, Hermenegildo Salvatierra, looked from the deepembrasured window of the Presidio guardroom, he felt the saltbreath of the distant sea buffet a color into his smoke-driedcheeks.The Commander, I have said, was gazing thoughtfully from the windowof the guardroom. He may have been reviewing the events of the...　

The Coming Raceby Edward Bulwer LyttonChapter I.I am a native of _____, in the United States of America. My ancestors migrated from England in the reign of Charles II.; and my grandfather was not undistinguished in the War of Independence. My family, therefore, enjoyed a somewhat high social position in right of birth; and being also opulent, they were considered disqualified for the public service. My father once ran for Congress, but was signally defeated by his tailor. After that event he interfered little in politics, and lived much in his library. I was the eldest of three sons, and sent at the age of sixteen to the old country, partly to complete my literary education, partly to c　

The Perpetuation of Living Beingsby Thomas Henry HuxleyThe inquiry which we undertook, at our last meeting, into the state ofour knowledge of the causes of the phenomena of organic nature,of thepast and of the present,resolved itself into two subsidiaryinquiries: the first was, whether we know anything, either historicallyor experimentally, of the mode of origin of living beings; the secondsubsidiary inquiry was, whether, granting the origin, we know anythingabout the perpetuation and modifications of the forms of organicbeings. The reply which I had to give to the first question wasaltogether negative, and the chief result of my last lecture was, that,...