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...　

Confidence by Henry JamesCHAPTER IIt was in the early days of April; Bernard Longueville had been spending the winter in Rome. He had travelled northward with the consciousness of several social duties that appealed to him from the further side of the Alps, but he was under the charm of the Italian spring, and he made a pretext for lingering. He had spent five days at Siena, where he had intended to spend but two, and still it was impossible to continue his journey. He was a young man of a contemplative and speculative turn, and this was his first visit to Italy, so that if he dallied by the way he should not be harshly judged. He had a fancy for sketching, and it was on his conscience to　

THE CONDUCT OF LIFEby Ralph Waldo EmersonIFATEDelicate omens traced in airTo the lone bard true witness bare;Birds with auguries on their wingsChanted undeceiving thingsHim to beckon, him to warn;Well might then the poet scornTo learn of scribe or courierHints writ in vaster character;And on his mind, at dawn of day,Soft shadows of the evening lay.For the prevision is alliedUnto the thing so signified;Or say, the foresight that awaitsIs the same Genius that creates....　

THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLESTHE MYSTERIOUSAFFAIR AT STYLESAGATHA CHRISTIE1- Page 2-THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLESCHAPTER I. I GO TO STYLESThe intense interest aroused in the public by what was known at thetime as "The Styles Case" has now somewhat subsided. Nevertheless, inview of the world-wide notoriety which attended it, I have been asked,both by my friend Poirot and the family themselves, to write an account ofthe whole story. This, we trust, will effectually silence the sensational...　

ANNALS OF THE PARISHANNALS OF THEPARISHby John Galt1- Page 2-ANNALS OF THE PARISHINTRODUCTIONIn the same year, and on the same day of the same month, that hisSacred Majesty King George, the third of the name, came to his crown andkingdom, I was placed and settled as the minister of Dalmailing. {1}When about a week thereafter this was known in the parish, it was thoughta wonderful thing, and everybody spoke of me and the new king as united...　

A NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY_To Sir John Sinclair__Washington, June 30, 1803_DEAR SIR, It is so long since I have had the pleasure ofwriting to you, that it would be vain to look back to dates toconnect the old and the new. Yet I ought not to pass over myacknowledgments to you for various publications received from time totime, and with great satisfaction and thankfulness. I send you asmall one in return, the work of a very unlettered farmer, yetvaluable, as it relates plain facts of importance to farmers. Youwill discover that Mr. Binns is an enthusiast for the use of gypsum.But there are two facts which prove he has a right to be so: 1. He...　

THE SPIRIT OF THE BORDERA ROMANCE OF THE EARLY SETTLERS IN THE OHIO VALLEYBY ZANE GREY1906To my brotherWith many fond recollections of days spent in the solitude of the forestswhere only can be satisfied that wild fever of freedom of which this booktells; where to hear the whirr of a wild duck in his rapid flight is joy;where the quiet of an autumn afternoon swells the heart, and where one maywatch the fragrant wood-smoke curl from the campfire, and see the starspeepover dark, wooded hills as twilight deepens, and know a happiness that dwellsin the wilderness alone.IntroductionThe author does not intend to apologize for what many readers may call the...　

FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSENOUR AUNTby Hans Christian AndersenYou ought to have known our aunt; she was charming! That is tosay, she was not charming at all as the word is usually understood;but she was good and kind, amusing in her way, and was just as any oneought to be whom people are to talk about and to laugh at. She mighthave been put into a play, and wholly and solely on account of thefact that she only lived for the theatre and for what was donethere. She was an honorable matron; but Agent Fabs, whom she used tocall "Flabs," declared that our aunt was stage-struck....　

Emile Zolaby William Dean HowellsIn these times of electrical movement, the sort of constructionin the moral world for which ages were once needed, takes placealmost simultaneously with the event to be adjusted in history,and as true a perspective forms itself as any in the past. A fewweeks after the death of a poet of such great epical imagination,such great ethical force, as Emile Zola, we may see him asclearly and judge him as fairly as posterity alone was formerlysupposed able to see and to judge the heroes that antedated it.The present is always holding in solution the elements of thefuture and the past, in fact; and whilst Zola still lived, in the...　

Kenilworthby Walter ScottINTRODUCTIONA certain degree of success, real or supposed, in the delineationof Queen Mary, naturally induced the author to attempt somethingsimilar respecting "her sister and her foe," the celebratedElizabeth. He will not, however, pretend to have approached thetask with the same feelings; for the candid Robertson himselfconfesses having felt the prejudices with which a Scottishman istempted to regard the subject; and what so liberal a historianavows, a poor romance-writer dares not disown. But he hopes theinfluence of a prejudice, almost as natural to him as his nativeair, will not be found to have greatly affected the sketch he has...　

The Works of Edgar Allan PoeVolume 1 of the Raven EditionIN FIVE VOLUMESVOLUME I ContentsEdgar Allan Poe, An AppreciationLife of Poe, by James Russell LowellDeath of Poe, by N. P. WillisThe Unparalled Adventures of One Hans PfallThe Gold BugFour Beasts in OneThe Murders in the Rue MorgueThe Mystery of Marie Rog阾The Balloon HoaxMS. Found in a BottleThe Oval PortraitEDGAR ALLAN POEAN APPRECIATIONCaught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful DisasterFollowed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden boreTill the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden boreOf "nevernever more!"THIS stanza from "The Raven" was recommended by James Russell Lowell...　

The Rhythm of Life and Other EssaysThe Rhythm of Life andOther Essays1- Page 2-The Rhythm of Life and Other EssaysTHE RHYTHM OF LIFEIf life is not always poetical, it is at least metrical. Periodicity rulesover the mental experience of man, according to the path of the orbit of histhoughts. Distances are not gauged, ellipses not measured, velocities notascertained, times not known. Nevertheless, the recurrence is sure. Whatthe mind suffered last week, or last year, it does not suffer now; but it will...