Tales of TroyTales of Troyby Andrew Lang1- Page 2-Tales of TroyTHE BOYHOOD AND PARENTSOF ULYSSESLong ago, in a little island called Ithaca, on the west coast of Greece,there lived a king named Laertes. His kingdom was small andmountainous. People used to say that Ithaca "lay like a shield upon thesea," which sounds as if it were a flat country. But in those times shieldswere very large, and rose at the middle into two peaks with a hollow...
FOREWORD This book recounts the five-day history of a major American scientific crisis. As in most crises, the events surrounding the Andromeda Strain were a pound of foresight and foolishness, innocence and ignorance. Nearly everyone involved had moments of great brilliance, and moments of unaccountable stupidity. It is therefore impossible to write about the events without offending some of the participants. However, I think it is important that the story be told. This country supports the largest scientific establishment in the history of mankind. New discoveries are constantly being made, and many of these discoveries have important political or social overtones. In the near
TOLD AFTER SUPPERTOLD AFTER SUPPERby Jerome K. Jerome1- Page 2-TOLD AFTER SUPPERINTRODUCTORYIt was Christmas Eve.I begin this way because it is the proper, orthodox, respectable way tobegin, and I have been brought up in a proper, orthodox, respectable way,and taught to always do the proper, orthodox, respectable thing; and thehabit clings to me.Of course, as a mere matter of information it is quite unnecessary tomention the date at all. The experienced reader knows it was Christmas...
EvergreensEvergreensby Jerome K. Jerome1- Page 2-EvergreensThey look so dull and dowdy in the spring weather, when the snowdrops and the crocuses are putting on their dainty frocks of white andmauve and yellow, and the baby-buds from every branch are peeping withbright eyes out on the world, and stretching forth soft little leaves towardthe coming gladness of their lives. They stand apart, so cold and hardamid the stirring hope and joy that are throbbing all around them....
Doyne Farmer and Alletta Belin, 1992 There are many people, including myself, who are quite queasy about the consequences of this technology for the future. K. Eric Drexler, 1992 Introduction Artificial Evolution in the Twenty-first Century The notion that the world around us is continuously evolving is a platitude; we rarely grasp its full implications. We do not ordinarily think, for example, of an epidemic disease changing its character as the epidemic spreads. Nor do we think of evolution in plants and animals as occurring in a matter of days or weeks, though it does. And we do not ordinarily imagine the green world around us as a scene of constant, sophisticated chemical warfare, w
MRS. BULLFROGIt makes me melancholy to see how like fools some very sensiblepeople act in the matter of choosing wives. They perplex theirjudgments by a most undue attention to little niceties ofpersonal appearance, habits, disposition, and other trifles whichconcern nobody but the lady herself. An unhappy gentleman,resolving to wed nothing short of perfection, keeps his heart andhand till both get so old and withered that no tolerable womanwill accept them. Now this is the very height of absurdity. Akind Providence has so skilfully adapted sex to sex and the massof individuals to each other, that, with certain obviousexceptions, any male and female may be moderately happy in the...
A WAIF OF THE PLAINSA WAIF OF THEPLAINSby Bret Harte1- Page 2-A WAIF OF THE PLAINSCHAPTER IA long level of dull gray that further away became a faint blue, withhere and there darker patches that looked like water. At times an openspace, blackened and burnt in an irregular circle, with a shred ofnewspaper, an old rag, or broken tin can lying in the ashes. Beyond thesealways a low dark line that seemed to sink into the ground at night, and...
War of the ClassesWar of the ClassesJack London1- Page 2-War of the ClassesPREFACEWhen I was a youngster I was looked upon as a weird sort of creature,because, forsooth, I was a socialist. Reporters from local papersinterviewed me, and the interviews, when published, were pathologicalstudies of a strange and abnormal specimen of man. At that time (nine orten years ago), because I made a stand in my native town for municipal...
THOMAS COVENANT is a happy and successful author until an unfelt infection leads to the amputation of two fingers. Then his doctor tells him he has leprosy. The disease is arrested at a leprosarium, but he returns home to find himself an outcast. His wife has divorced him and ignorant fear makes all his neighbors shun him. He bees a lonely, bitter pariah. In rebellion, he goes to town. There, just after he meets a strange beggar, he stumbles in front of a police car. Disorientation overes him. He revives in a strange world where the evil voice of Lord Foul gives him a mocking message of doom to the Lords of the Land. When Foul leaves, a young girl named Lena takes him to her home. There h
Flower of the MindandLater Poemsby Alice MeynellINTRODUCTIONPartial collections of English poems, decided by a common subjector bounded by narrow dates and periods of literary history, aremade at very short intervals, and the makers are safe from thereproach of proposing their own personal taste as a guide for thereading of others. But a general Anthology gathered from the wholeof English literaturethe whole from Chaucer to Wordsworthby agatherer intent upon nothing except the quality of poetry, is amore rare enterprise. It is hardly to be made without tempting thesuspicionnay, hardly without seeming to hazard the confessionofsome measure of self-confidence. Nor can even the desire to en
Introduction Only prejudice, and a trick of the Mercator projection, prevents us from recognizing the enormity of the African continent. Covering nearly twelve million square miles, Africa is almost as large as North America and Europe bined. It is nearly twice the size of South America. As we mistake its dimensions, we also mistake its essential nature: the Dark Continent is mostly hot desert and open grassy plains. In fact, Africa is called the Dark Continent for one reason only: the vast equatorial rain forests of its central region. This is the drainage basin of the Congo River, and one-tenth of the continent is given over to it-a million and a half square miles of silent, damp, dark
Malvina of Brittanyby Jerome K. JeromeContents.MALVINA OF BRITTANY.The Preface.I. The Story.II. How it came about.III. How cousin Christopher became mixed up with it.IV. How it was kept from Mrs. Arlington.V. How it was told to Mrs. Marigold.VI. And how it was finished too soon.The Prologue.THE STREET OF THE BLANK WALL.HIS EVENING OUT.THE LESSON.SYLVIA OF THE LETTERS.THE FAWN GLOVES.MALVINA OF BRITTANY.THE PREFACE.The Doctor never did believe this story, but claims for it that, toa great extent, it has altered his whole outlook on life."Of course, what actually happenedwhat took place under my own...