Norman gave his ivory-handled screwdriver a final twist and secured the last screw into the side panel of the slim brass cylinder. Unclamping it from his vice, he lifted it lovingly by its shining axle, and held it towards the dust-smeared glass of the kitchenette window. It was a work of wonder and that was for certain. A mere ten inches in diameter and another one in thickness, the dim light painted a rainbow corona about its varnished circumference.　Norman carried it carefully across to his cluttered kitchen table and, elbowing aside a confusion of soiled crockery, placed it upon the twin bracket mountings which had been bolted through both tablecloth and table. The axle dropped into it　

　　　A NOTE ON CHRONOLOGY　A Song of Ice and Fire is told through the eyes of characters who are sometimes hundreds or even thousands of miles apart from one another. Some chapters cover a day, some only an hour; others might span a fortnight, a month, half a year. With such a structure, the narrative cannot be strictly sequential; sometimes important things are happening simultaneously, a thousand leagues apart.　In the case of the volume now in hand, the reader should realize that the opening chapters of A Storm of Swords do not follow the closing chapters of A Clash of Kings so much as overlap them. I open with a look at some of the things that were happening on the Fist of the First Men, at　

THE HISTORY OF TROILUS AND CRESSIDATHE HISTORY OFTROILUS ANDCRESSIDAWilliam Shakespeare16021- Page 2-THE HISTORY OF TROILUS AND CRESSIDADRAMATIS PERSONAEPRIAM, King of Troy His sons: HECTOR TROILUS PARISDEIPHOBUS HELENUS MARGARELON, a bastard son of PriamTrojan commanders: AENEAS ANTENOR CALCHAS, a Trojan priest,taking part with the Greeks PANDARUS, uncle to Cressida...　

Letters to His Son, 1766-71by The Earl of ChesterfieldLETTERS TO HIS SONBy the EARL OF CHESTERFIELDon the Fine Art of becoming aMAN OF THE WORLDand aGENTLEMANLETTER CCLXXXIVLONDON, February 11, 1766MY DEAR FRIEND: I received two days ago your letter of the 25th past;and your former, which you mention in it, but ten days ago; this mayeasily be accounted for from the badness of the weather, and consequentlyof the roads. I hardly remember so severe a win ter; it has occasioned...　

　While ethnological material as used in this book is not intended to meet scholarly and scientific standards, the author wishes to acknowledge information derived from publications of Willard W. Hill, Leland C. Wyman, Mary C. Wheelwright, Father Berard Haile, Clyde Kluckhohn, and Washington Matthews; and the advice and information provided by his own friends among the Navajo people.　Chapter 1　　Luis Horseman leaned the flat stone very carefully against the pi?on twig, adjusted its balance exactly and then cautiously withdrew his hand. The twig bent, but held. Horseman rocked back on his heels and surveyed the deadfall. He should have put a little more blood on the twig, he thought, but it mi　

A WARD OF THE GOLDEN GATEA WARD OF THEGOLDEN GATEBret Harte1- Page 2-A WARD OF THE GOLDEN GATEPROLOGUE.In San Francisco the "rainy season" had been making itself a realityto the wondering Eastern immigrant. There were short days of driftingclouds and flying sunshine, and long succeeding nights of incessantdownpour, when the rain rattled on the thin shingles or drummed on theresounding zinc of pioneer roofs. The shifting sand-dunes on the outskirts...　

THE TAPESTRIED CHAMBERTHE TAPESTRIEDCHAMBERby Sir Walter Scott1- Page 2-THE TAPESTRIED CHAMBERINTRODUCTION.This is another little story from The Keepsake of 1828. It was told tome many years ago by the late Miss Anna Seward, who, among otheraccomplishments that rendered her an amusing inmate in a country house,had that of recounting narratives of this sort with very considerable effect--much greater, indeed, than any one would be apt to guess from the style...　

The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See Itby George Wharton JamesRevised EditionBoston: Little, Brown, and CompanyKansas City: Fred Harvey1912PREFACE TO REVISED EDITIONBecause of the completion of a new driveway along the Rim of the Grand Canyon, and of a new trail to the Colorado River, a second edition of this book is deemed necessary.These improvements, which have recently been made by the Santa Fe Railway, are known as Hermit Rim Road and Hermit Trail. The first, said to be the most unique road in the world, is nine miles long on the brink of the Canyon, and the other, a wide and safe pathway down the south wall.The contents of the volume has been revised, and descriptions of Hermit Rim　

The Cavalry Generalby XenophonTranslation by H. G. DakynsXenophon the Athenian was born 431 B.C. He was apupil of Socrates. He marched with the Spartans,and was exiled from Athens. Sparta gave him landand property in Scillus, where he lived for manyyears before having to move once more, to settlein Corinth. He died in 354 B.C.The Cavalry General is a discourse on the meritsa cavalry general, or hipparch, in Athens shouldhave. Xenophon also describes the development ofa cavalry force, and some tactical details to beapplied in the field and in festival exhibition....　

　　By P. G. Wodehouse　　1　In a day in June, at the hour when London moves abroad in quest of lunch, a young man stood at the entrance of the Bandolero Restaurant looking earnestly up Shaftesbury Avenuea large young man in excellent condition, with a pleasant, good-humoured, brown, clean-cut face. He paid no attention to the stream of humanity that flowed past him. His mouth was set and his eyes wore a serious, almost a wistful expression. He was frowning slightly. One would have said that here was a man with a secret sorrow.　William FitzWilliam Delamere Chalmers, Lord Dawlish, had no secret sorrow. All that he was thinking of at that moment was the best method of laying a golf ball dead in fr　

　　"Reptiles are abhorrent because of their cold body, pale color, cartilaginous skeleton, filthy skin, fierce aspect, calculating eye, offensive smell, harsh voice, squalid habitation, and terrible venom; wherefore their Creator has not exerted his powers to make many of them."　　LINNAEUS, 1797　　"You cannot recall a new form of life."　　ERWIN CHARGAFF, 1972　　Introduction　"The InGen Incident"The late twentieth century has witnessed a scientific gold rush of astonishing proportions: the headlong and furious haste to mercialize genetic engineering. This enterprise has proceeded so rapidly-with so little outside mentary-that its dimensions and implications are hardly understood at all....　

The Wars of the Jewsor History of the Destruction of JerusalemBy Flavius JosephusTranslated by William WhistonPREFACE1. (1) Whereas the war which the Jews made with the Romans hath been the greatest of all those, not only that have been in our times, but, in a manner, of those that ever were heard of; both of those wherein cities have fought against cities, or nations against nations; while some men who were not concerned in the affairs themselves have gotten together vain and contradictory stories by hearsay, and have written them down after a sophistical manner; and while those that were there present have given false accounts of things, and this either out of a humor of flattery to the R