460 BCTHE SEVEN AGAINST THEBESby Aeschylustranslated by E.D.A. MorsheadCHARACTERS IN THE PLAYETEOCLES, son of Oedipus, King of ThebesA SPYCHORUS OF THEBAN WOMENANTIGONEISMENEsisters of ETEOCLESA HERALDSCENE:-Within the Citadel of Thebes. There is an altar with thestatues of several gods visible. A crowd of citizens are presentas ETEOCLES enters with his attendants.)ETEOCLESClansmen of Cadmus, at the signal givenBy time and season must the ruler speak...　

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OFBENJAMIN FRANKLININTRODUCTORY NOTEBENJAMIN FRANKLIN was born in Milk Street, Boston, on January6, 1706. His father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler whomarried twice, and of his seventeen children Benjamin was the youngestson. His schooling ended at ten, and at twelve he was bound apprenticeto his brother James, a printer, who published the "New EnglandCourant." To this journal he became a contributor, and later was fora time its nominal editor. But the brothers quarreled, and Benjaminran away, going first to New York, and thence to Philadelphia, wherehe arrived in October, 1723. He soon obtained work as a printer,...　

THE HISTORY OF HERODOTUSby Herodotustranslated by George RawlinsonThe First Book, EntitledCLIOTHESE are the researches of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, which he publishes, in the hope of thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done, and of preventing the great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and the Barbarians from losing their due meed of glory; and withal to put on record what were their grounds of feuds. According to the Persians best informed in history, the Phoenicians began to quarrel. This people, who had formerly dwelt on the shores of the Erythraean Sea, having migrated to the Mediterranean and settled in the parts which they now inhabit, began at once,　

We Twoby Edna LyallCHAPTER I. Brian Falls in LoveStill humanity grows dearer, Being learned the more. Jean Ingelow.There are three things in this world which deserve no quarter Hypocrisy, Pharisaism, and Tyranny. F. RobertsonPeople who have been brought up in the country, or in small places where every neighbor is known by sight, are apt to think that life in a large town must lack many of the interests which they have learned to find in their more limited communities. In a somewhat bewildered way, they gaze at the shifting crowd of strange faces, and wonder whether it would be possible to feel completely at home where all the surroundings of life seem ever changing and unfamiliar....　

THE NIXY[15][15] From the German. Kletke.There was once upon a time a miller who was very well off, andhad as much money and as many goods as he knew what to do with.But sorrow comes in the night, and the miller all of a suddenbecame so poor that at last he could hardly call the mill inwhich he sat his own. He wandered about all day full of despairand misery, and when he lay down at night he could get no rest,but lay awake all night sunk in sorrowful thoughts.One morning he rose up before dawn and went outside, for hethought his heart would be lighter in the open air. As hewandered up and down on the banks of the mill-pond he heard a...　

BENITO CERENOby Herman MelvilleIN THE year 1799, Captain Amasa Delano, of Duxbury, in Massachusetts, commanding a large sealer and general trader, lay at anchor, with a valuable cargo, in the harbour of St. Maria- a small, desert, uninhabited island towards the southern extremity of the long coast of Chili. There he had touched for water. On the second day, not long after dawn, while lying in his berth, his mate came below, informing him that a strange sail was coming into the bay. Ships were then not so plenty in those waters as now. He rose, dressed, and went on deck. The morning was one peculiar to that coast. Everything was mute and calm; everything grey. The sea, though undulat　

Critoby PlatoTranslated by Benjamin JowettINTRODUCTION.The Crito seems intended to exhibit the character of Socrates in one lightonly, not as the philosopher, fulfilling a divine mission and trusting inthe will of heaven, but simply as the good citizen, who having beenunjustly condemned is willing to give up his life in obedience to the lawsof the state...The days of Socrates are drawing to a close; the fatal ship has been seenoff Sunium, as he is informed by his aged friend and contemporary Crito,who visits him before the dawn has broken; he himself has been warned in adream that on the third day he must depart. Time is precious, and Crito...　

De Profundisby Oscar Wilde. . . Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it byseasons. We can only record its moods, and chronicle their return.With us time itself does not progress. It revolves. It seems tocircle round one centre of pain. The paralysing immobility of alife every circumstance of which is regulated after an unchangeablepattern, so that we eat and drink and lie down and pray, or kneelat least for prayer, according to the inflexible laws of an ironformula: this immobile quality, that makes each dreadful day inthe very minutest detail like its brother, seems to communicateitself to those external forces the very essence of whose existence...　

The Annals of the Parishby John GaltOr The Chronicle of Dalmailing during the ministry of the Rev. Micah Balwhidder. Written by himself and arranged and edited by John GaltINTRODUCTIONIn the same year, and on the same day of the same month, that his Sacred Majesty King George, the third of the name, came to his crown and kingdom, I was placed and settled as the minister of Dalmailing. {1} When about a week thereafter this was known in the parish, it was thought a wonderful thing, and everybody spoke of me and the new king as united in our trusts and temporalities, marvelling how the same should come to pass, and thinking the hand of Providence was in it, and that surely we were preordaine　

The University of Hard Knocksby Ralph ParletteThe School That Completes Our Education"He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son"Revelation 21:7."Sweet are the uses of adversity; Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; And thus our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks Sermons in stones, and good in everything."ShakespeareWhy It Is PrintedMORE than a million people have sat in audiences in all parts of the United States and have listened to "The University of Hard Knocks." It has been delivered to date more than twenty-five hundred times upon lyceum courses, at 　

FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSENTHE TOADby Hans Christian AndersenTHE well was deep, and therefore the rope had to be a long one; itwas heavy work turning the handle when any one had to raise abucketful of water over the edge of the well. Though the water wasclear, the sun never looked down far enough into the well to mirroritself in the waters; but as far as its beams could reach, greenthings grew forth between the stones in the sides of the well.Down below dwelt a family of the Toad race. They had, in fact,come head-over-heels down the well, in the person of the old...　

Massacres of the South1551-1815by Alexandre Dumas, PereCHAPTER IIt is possible that our reader, whose recollections may perhaps goback as far as the Restoration, will be surprised at the size of theframe required for the picture we are about to bring before him,embracing as it does two centuries and a half; but as everything, hasits precedent, every river its source, every volcano its centralfire, so it is that the spot of earth on which we are going to fixour eyes has been the scene of action and reaction, revenge ,andretaliation, till the religious annals of the South resemble anaccount-book kept by double entry, in which fanaticism enters the...