CHAPTER VIIThe Lion and the UnicornThe next moment soldiers came running through the wood, at firstin twos and threes, then ten or twenty together, and at last insuch crowds that they seemed to fill the whole forest. Alice gotbehind a tree, for fear of being run over, and watched them go by.She thought that in all her life she had never seen soldiers souncertain on their feet: they were always tripping oversomething or other, and whenever one went down, several morealways fell over him, so that the ground was soon covered withlittle heaps of men.Then came the horses. Having four feet, these managed rather...
Sword Blades and Poppy Seedby Amy LowellPrefaceNo one expects a man to make a chair without first learning how,but there is a popular impression that the poet is born, not made,and that his verses burst from his overflowing heart of themselves.As a matter of fact, the poet must learn his trade in the same manner,and with the same painstaking care, as the cabinet-maker.His heart may overflow with high thoughts and sparkling fancies,but if he cannot convey them to his reader by means of the written wordhe has no claim to be considered a poet. A workman may be pardoned,therefore, for spending a few moments to explain and describe...
Joan of Naples1343-1382By ALEXANDER DUMAS, PERECHAPTER IIn the night of the 15th of January 1343, while the inhabitants of Naples lay wrapped in peaceful slumber, they were suddenly awakened by the bells of the three hundred churches that this thrice blessed capital contains. In the midst of the disturbance caused by so rude a call the first bought in the mind of all was that the town was on fire, or that the army of some enemy had mysteriously landed under cover of night and could put the citizens to the edge of the sword. But the doleful, intermittent sounds of all these fills, which disturbed the silence at regular and distant intervals, were an invitation to the faithful pray for a pas
Desperate Remediesby Thomas HardyCONTENTSPREFATORY NOTEI. THE EVENTS OF THIRTY YEARSII. THE EVENTS OF A FORTNIGHTIII. THE EVENTS OF EIGHT DAYSIV. THE EVENTS OF ONE DAYV. THE EVENTS OF ONE DAYVI. THE EVENTS OF TWELVE HOURSVII. THE EVENTS OF EIGHTEEN DAYSVIII. THE EVENTS OF EIGHTEEN DAYSIX. THE EVENTS OF TEN WEEKSX. THE EVENTS OF A DAY AND NIGHTXI. THE EVENTS OF FIVE DAYSXII. THE EVENTS OF TEN MONTHSXIII. THE EVENTS OF ONE DAYXIV. THE EVENTS OF FIVE WEEKSXV. THE EVENTS OF THREE WEEKSXVI. THE EVENTS OF ONE WEEKXVII. THE EVENTS OF ONE DAYXVIII. THE EVENTS OF THREE DAYSXIX. THE EVENTS OF A DAY AND NIGHT...
Child of Stormby H. Rider HaggardDEDICATIONDear Mr. Stuart,For twenty years, I believe I am right in saying, you, as AssistantSecretary for Native Affairs in Natal, and in other offices, have beenintimately acquainted with the Zulu people. Moreover, you are one ofthe few living men who have made a deep and scientific study of theirlanguage, their customs and their history. So I confess that I was themore pleased after you were so good as to read this talethe secondbook of the epic of the vengeance of Zikali, "theThing-that-should-never-have-been-born," and of the fall of the House ofSenzangakona*when you wrote to me that it was animated by the true...
The Pension Beaurepasby Henry JamesCHAPTER I.I was not richon the contrary; and I had been told the PensionBeaurepas was cheap. I had, moreover, been told that a boarding-house is a capital place for the study of human nature. I had afancy for a literary career, and a friend of mine had said to me, "Ifyou mean to write you ought to go and live in a boarding-house; thereis no other such place to pick up material." I had read something ofthis kind in a letter addressed by Stendhal to his sister: "I have apassionate desire to know human nature, and have a great mind to livein a boarding-house, where people cannot conceal their realcharacters." I was an admirer of La Chartreuse de Parme, a
The Man versus the Stateby Herbert Spencer1884PrefaceThe Westminster Review for April 1860, contained an article entitled "Parliamentary Reform: the Dangers and the Safeguards." In that article I ventured to predict some results of political changes then proposed. Reduced to its simplest expression, the thesis maintained was that, unless due precautions were taken, increase of freedom in form would be followed by decrease of freedom in fact. Nothing has occurred to alter the belief I then expressed. The drift of legislation since that time has been of the kind anticipated. Dictatorial measures, rapidly multiplied, have tended continually to narrow the liberties of individuals; and have
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,...
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...