Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalionby William HazlittADVERTISEMENTThe circumstances, an outline of which is given in these pages, happened a very short time ago to a native of North Britain, who left his own country early in life, in consequence of political animosities and an ill-advised connection in marriage. It was some years after that he formed the fatal attachment which is the subject of the following narrative. The whole was transcribed very carefully with his own hand, a little before he set out for the Continent in hopes of benefiting by a change of scene, but he died soon after in the Netherlandsit is supposed, of disappointment preying on a sickly frame and morbid state of min　

Stories of a Western Townby Octave ThanetCONTENTSThe Besetment of Kurt LiedersThe Face of FailureTommy and ThomasMother EmeritusAn Assisted ProvidenceHarry LossingTHE BESETMENT OF KURT LIEDERS A SILVER rime glistened all down the street. There was a drabble of dead leaves on the sidewalk which was of wood, and on the roadway which was of macadam and stiff mud. The wind blew sharply, for it was a December day and only six in the morning. Nor were the houses high enough to furnish any independent bulwark; they were low, wooden dwellings, the tallest a bare two stories in height, the majority only one story. But they were in good painting and repair, and most of them had a homely gayety of ge　

THE SUN-DOG TRAILSITKA CHARLEY smoked his pipe and gazed thoughtfully at the POLICEGAZETTE illustration on the wall. For half an hour he had beensteadily regarding it, and for half an hour I had been slylywatching him. Something was going on in that mind of his, and,whatever it was, I knew it was well worth knowing. He had livedlife, and seen things, and performed that prodigy of prodigies,namely, the turning of his back upon his own people, and, in so faras it was possible for an Indian, becoming a white man even in hismental processes. As he phrased it himself, he had come into thewarm, sat among us, by our fires, and become one of us. He had...　

The Argonauts of North Libertyby Bret HartePART ICHAPTER IThe bell of the North Liberty Second Presbyterian Church had justceased ringing. North Liberty, Connecticut, never on any day acheerful town, was always bleaker and more cheerless on theseventh, when the Sabbath sun, after vainly trying to coax a smileof reciprocal kindliness from the drawn curtains and half-closedshutters of the austere dwellings and the equally sealed and hard-set churchgoing faces of the people, at last settled down into ablank stare of stony astonishment. On this chilly March evening ofthe year 1850, that stare had kindled into an offended sunset andan angry night that furiously spat sleet and hail in the faces　

SHERLOCK HOMESTHE ADVENTURE OF THE NORWOOD BUILDERby Sir Arthur Conan DoyleTHE ADVENTURE OF THE NORWOOD BUILDER"From the point of view of the criminal" said Mr. Sherlock Holmes,"London has become a singularly uninteresting city since the deathof the late lamented Professor Moriarty.""I can hardly think that you would find many decent citizens toagree with you," I answered."Well, well, I must not be selfish," said he, with a smile, as bepushed back his chair from the breakfast-table. "The community iscertainly the gainer, and no one the loser, save the poorout-of-work specialist, whose occupation has gone. With that man in...　

THE SKETCH BOOKA ROYAL POETby Washington IrvingThough your body be confined,And soft love a prisoner bound,Yet the beauty of your mindNeither check nor chain hath found.Look out nobly, then, and dareEven the fetters that you wear.FLETCHER.ON A soft sunny morning in the genial month of May, I made anexcursion to Windsor Castle. It is a place full of storied andpoetical associations. The very external aspect of the proud old...　

Memoir of Fleeming Jenkinby Robert Louis StevensonPREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.ON the death of Fleeming Jenkin, his family and friends determinedto publish a selection of his various papers; by way ofintroduction, the following pages were drawn up; and the whole,forming two considerable volumes, has been issued in England. Inthe States, it has not been thought advisable to reproduce thewhole; and the memoir appearing alone, shorn of that other matterwhich was at once its occasion and its justification, so large anaccount of a man so little known may seem to a stranger out of allproportion. But Jenkin was a man much more remarkable than the...　

On the First Principles of Governmentby David HumeNothing appears more surprising to those, who consider humanaffairs with a philosophical eve, than the easiness with whichthe many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission,with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to thoseof their rulers. When we enquire by what means this wonder iseffected, we shall find, that, as FORCE is always on the side ofthe governed, the governors have nothing to support them butopinion. It is therefore, on opinion only that government isfounded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and mostmilitary governments, as well as to the most free and most...　

The Friendly Road; New Adventures in Contentmentby David Grayson"Surely it is good to be alive at a time like this."A WORD TO HIM WHO OPENS THIS BOOKI did not plan when I began writing these chapters to make an entire book, but only to put down the more or less unusual impressions, the events and adventures, of certain quiet pilgrimages in country roads. But when I had written down all of these things, I found I had material in plenty."What shall I call it now that I have written it?" I asked myself.At first I thought I should call it "Adventures on the Road," or "The Country Road," or something equally simple, for I would not have the title arouse any appetite which the book itself could n　

William Ewart Gladstoneby James BryceCHAPTER I: INTRODUCTIONNo man has lived in our times of whom it is so hard to speak in aconcise and summary fashion as Mr. Gladstone. For forty years hewas so closely associated with the public affairs of his countrythat the record of his parliamentary life comes near to being anoutline of English politics. His activity spread itself out overmany fields. He was the author of several learned and thoughtfulbooks, and of a multitude of articles upon all sorts of subjects.He showed himself as eagerly interested in matters of classicalscholarship and Christian doctrine and ecclesiastical history as in...　

Styleby Walter RaleighStyle, the Latin name for an iron pen, has come to designate the art that handles, with ever fresh vitality and wary alacrity, the fluid elements of speech. By a figure, obvious enough, which yet might serve for an epitome of literary method, the most rigid and simplest of instruments has lent its name to the subtlest and most flexible of arts. Thence the application of the word has been extended to arts other than literature, to the whole range of the activities of man. The fact that we use the word "style" in speaking of architecture and sculpture, painting and music, dancing, play-acting, and cricket, that we can apply it to the careful achievements of the houseb　

The Playboy of the Western Worldby J. M. SyngeA COMEDY IN THREE ACTSPREFACEIn writing THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD, as in my other plays, I have usedone or two words only that I have not heard among the country people ofIreland, or spoken in my own nursery before I could read the newspapers. Acertain number of the phrases I employ I have heard also from herds andfishermen along the coast from Kerry to Mayo, or from beggar-women andballadsingers nearer Dublin; and I am glad to acknowledge how much I owe tothe folk imagination of these fine people. Anyone who has lived in realintimacy with the Irish peasantry will know that the wildest sayings and ideas...