FINALE.Every limit is a beginning as well as an ending. Who can quit younglives after being long in company with them, and not desire to knowwhat befell them in their after-years? For the fragment of a life,however typical, is not the sample of an even web: promises maynot be kept, and an ardent outset may be followed by declension;latent powers may find their long-waited opportunity; a past errormay urge a grand retrieval.Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives,is still a great beginning, as it was to Adam and Eve, who kepttheir honeymoon in Eden, but had their first little one among thethorns and thistles of the wilderness. It is still the beginning...　

The Lodgerby Marie Belloc Lowndes"Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness." PSALM lxxxviii. 18CHAPTER IRobert Bunting and Ellen his wife sat before their dully burning, carefully-banked-up fire.The room, especially when it be known that it was part of a house standing in a grimy, if not exactly sordid, London thoroughfare, was exceptionally clean and well-cared-for. A casual stranger, more particularly one of a Superior class to their own, on suddenly opening the door of that sitting-room; would have thought that Mr. and Mrs. Bunting presented a very pleasant cosy picture of comfortable married life. Bunting, who was leaning back in a deep leather 　

Inhabitants of the Alhambra.I HAVE often observed that the more proudly a mansion has beentenanted in the day of its prosperity, the humbler are its inhabitantsin the day of its decline, and that the palace of a king commonly endsin being the nestling-place of the beggar.The Alhambra is in a rapid state of similar transition. Whenever atower falls to decay, it is seized upon by some tatterdemalion family,who become joint-tenants, with the bats and owls, of its gilded halls,and hang their rags, those standards of poverty, out of its windowsand loopholes.I have amused myself with remarking some of the motley characters...　

A LONELY RIDEAs I stepped into the Slumgullion stage I saw that it was a darknight, a lonely road, and that I was the only passenger. Let meassure the reader that I have no ulterior design in making thisassertion. A long course of light reading has forewarned me whatevery experienced intelligence must confidently look for from sucha statement. The storyteller who willfully tempts Fate by suchobvious beginnings; who is to the expectant reader in danger ofbeing robbed or half-murdered, or frightened by an escaped lunatic,or introduced to his ladylove for the first time, deserves to bedetected. I am relieved to say that none of these things occurred...　

FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSENTHE BRAVE TIN SOLDIERby Hans Christian AndersenTHERE were once five-and-twenty tin soldiers, who were allbrothers, for they had been made out of the same old tin spoon. Theyshouldered arms and looked straight before them, and wore a splendiduniform, red and blue. The first thing in the world they ever heardwere the words, "Tin soldiers!" uttered by a little boy, who clappedhis hands with delight when the lid of the box, in which they lay, wastaken off. They were given him for a birthday present, and he stood atthe table to set them up. The soldiers were all exactly alike,...　

Lay Moralsby Robert Louis StevensonCHAPTER 1THE problem of education is twofold: first to know, and then to utter. Every one who lives any semblance of an inner life thinks more nobly and profoundly than he speaks; and the best of teachers can impart only broken images of the truth which they perceive. Speech which goes from one to another between two natures, and, what is worse, between two experiences, is doubly relative. The speaker buries his meaning; it is for the hearer to dig it up again; and all speech, written or spoken, is in a dead language until it finds a willing and prepared hearer. Such, moreover, is the complexity of life, that when we condescend upon details i　

Letters on LiteratureLetters on LiteratureBy Andrew Lang1- Page 2-Letters on LiteratureDEDICATIONDear Mr. Way,After so many letters to people who never existed, may I venture ashort one, to a person very real to me, though I have never seen him, andonly know him by his many kindnesses? Perhaps you will add another tothese by accepting the Dedication of a little work, of a sort experimental inEnglish, and in prose, though Horacein Latin and in versewas...　

The Golden Fleeceby Julian HawthorneA RomanceCHAPTER I.The professor crossed one long, lean leg over the other, and punched down the ashes in his pipe-bowl with the square tip of his middle finger. The thermometer on the shady veranda marked eighty-seven degrees of heat, and nature wooed the soul to languor and revery; but nothing could abate the energy of this bony sage."They talk about their Atlantises,their submerged continents!" he exclaimed, with a sniff through his wide, hairy nostrils. "Why, Trednoke, do you realize that we are living literally at the bottom of a Mesozoicat any rate, Cenozoicsea?"The gentleman thus indignantly addressed contemplated his questioner with the serenity　

VOLUME IICHAPTER IAvaunt! and quit my sight! Let the Earth hide thee! Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold! Thou hast no speculation in those eyes Which Thou dost glare with! Hence, horrible shadow! Unreal mockery hence! Macbeth.Continuation of the History of Don Raymond.My journey was uncommonly agreeable: I found the Baron a Man of some sense, but little knowledge of the world. He had past a great part of his life without stirring beyond the precincts of his own domains, and consequently his manners were far from being the most polished: But He was hearty, good-humoured, and friendly. His attention to me was all that I 　

THE COMPARISON OF NUMA WITH LYCURGUSby Plutarchtranslated by John DrydenHAVING thus finished the lives of Lycurgus and Numa, we shall now,though the work be difficult, put together their points ofdifference as they lie here before our view. Their points oflikeness are obvious; their moderation, their religion, their capacityof government and discipline, their both deriving their laws andconstitutions from the gods. Yet in their common glories there arecircumstances of diversity; for first Numa accepted and Lycurgusresigned a kingdom; Numa received without desiring it, Lycurgus had it...　

THE FORTY THIEVESIN a town in Persia there dwelt two brothers, one namedCassim, the other Ali Baba. Cassim was married to arich wife and lived in plenty, while Ali Baba had to maintainhis wife and children by cutting wood in a neighboringforest and selling it in the town. One day, when AliBaba was in the forest, he saw a troop of men on horseback,coming toward him in a cloud of dust. He wasafraid they were robbers, and climbed into a tree forsafety. When they came up to him and dismounted, hecounted forty of them. They unbridled their horses andtied them to trees. The finest man among them, whomAli Baba took to be their captain, went a little way among...　

Of Commerceby David HumeThe greater part of mankind may be divided into two classes;that of shallow thinkers, who fall short of the truth; and thatof abstruse thinkers, who go beyond it. The latter class are byfar the most rare: and I may add, by far the most useful andvaluable. They suggest hints, at least, and start difficulties,which they want, perhaps, skill to pursue; but which may producefine discoveries, when handled by men who have a more just way ofthinking. At worst, what they say is uncommon; and if it shouldcost some pains to comprehend it, one has, however, the pleasureof hearing something that is new. An author is little to bevalued, who tells us nothing but what we can learn