Rasselas, Prince of Abyssiniaby Samuel JohnsonCHAPTER I - DESCRIPTION OF A PALACE IN A VALLEY.YE who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow, attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.Rasselas was the fourth son of the mighty Emperor in whose dominions the father of waters begins his course - whose bounty pours down the streams of plenty, and scatters over the world the harvests of Egypt.
The Gameby Jack LondonCHAPTER IMany patterns of carpet lay rolled out before them on the floortwoof Brussels showed the beginning of their quest, and its ending inthat direction; while a score of ingrains lured their eyes andprolonged the debate between desire pocket-book. The head of thedepartment did them the honor of waiting upon them himselfor didJoe the honor, as she well knew, for she had noted the open-mouthedawe of the elevator boy who brought them up. Nor had she been blindto the marked respect shown Joe by the urchins and groups of young...
SUDDENLY THE child began to scream, piercing shrieks of terror that died down to shaking sobs, clutching at his mother so that his tiny ringers pinched her skin agonisingly through her flimsy summer dress. Veronica Jones grimaced in the deep green gloom of the reptile house, had to check herself from giving her five-year-old son one of her habitual cuffs across his head. She held him to her, closed her eyes momentarily, a human ostrich trying to hide her embarrassment from the ghostly white faces that turned in her direction. Trust the little sod to start playing up. You squandered a s
In what felt to him like the first cold morning of the world, he groped for fire. It was a high place where he searched, a lifeless, wind-scoured place, a rough, forbidding shelf of black and splintered rock. Snow, driven by squalls of frigid air, streamed across the black rock in white powder, making shifting veils of white over layers of gray ancient ice that was almost as hard as the rock itself. Dawn was in the sky, but still hundreds of kilometers away, as distant as the tiny sawteeth of the horizon to the northwest. The snowfields and icefields along that far edge of the world were
The light of stars is so damn stark. When I look up, I fill with fear. If all we have is what lies here, this lonely world, this troubled place, then cold dead stars and empty space. Well, I see no reason to persevere, no reason to laugh or shed a tear, no reason to sleep or ever to wake, no promises to keep, and none to make. And so at night I still raise my eyes to study the clear but mysterious skies that arch above us, as cold as stone. Are you there, God? Are we alone? -The Book of Counted Sorrows ONELOST FOREVER...
"Now thou art e unto a feast of death." William Shakespeare Henry VI, Part I, Act 4, Scene 5. PART ONE January 1812 CHAPTER 1 A pale horse seen a mile away at sunrise means the night is over. Sentries can relax, battalions stand down, because the moment for a surprise dawn attack has passed. But not on this day. A grey horse would hardly have been visible at a hundred paces, let alone a mile, and the dawn was shredded with dirty cannon smoke that melded with the snow-clouds. Only one living thing moved in the grey space between the British and French lines; a small, dark bird that hopp
The Dwelling Place of Lighby Winston Churchill1917VOLUME 1.CHAPTER IIn this modern industrial civilization of which we are sometimes wont to boast,a certain glacier-like process may be observed. The bewildered, the helplessand there are manyare torn from the parent rock, crushed, rolled smooth, andleft stranded in strange places. Thus was Edward Bumpus severed and rolledfrom the ancestral ledge, from the firm granite of seemingly stable and lastingthings, into shifting shale; surrounded by fragments of cliffs from distantlands he had never seen. Thus, at five and fifty, he found himself ga
PREFACE TO THE FIRST CHEAP EDITION OF "AMERICAN NOTES"IT is nearly eight years since this book was first published. Ipresent it, unaltered, in the Cheap Edition; and such of myopinions as it expresses, are quite unaltered too.My readers have opportunities of judging for themselves whether theinfluences and tendencies which I distrust in America, have anyexistence not in my imagination. They can examine for themselveswhether there has been anything in the public career of thatcountry during these past eight years, or whether there is anything...
The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivanby Arthur Gilbert and William Schwenk SullivanTHE 14 GILBERT AND SULLIVAN PLAYSWilliam S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan collaborated on 14operas in the period from 1871 to 1896. The are the following:GONDOLIERSGRAND DUKEH.M.S. PINAFOREIOLANTHETHE MIKADOPIRATES OF PENZANCEPRINCESS IDARUDDIGORETHE SORCERERTHESPISTRIAL BY JURYUTOPIA, LIMITEDYEOMEN OF THE GUARDPATIENCEThe Gondoliersor...
To the Right Honourable my very good lord the Dukeof Buckingham his Grace, Lord High Admiral of EnglandEXCELLENT LORD - Solomon says; a good name is as a precious ointment; and I assure my self, such will your Grace's name be, with posterity. For your fortune, and merit both, have been eminent And you have planted things, that are like to last I do now publish my essays; which, of all my other works, have been most current: for that, as it seems, they come home, to men's business, and bosoms. I have enlarged them, both in number, and weight; so that they are indeed a new work. I thought it
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypseby Vicente Blasco IbanezTranslated by Charlotte Brewster JordanCONTENTSPART II. THE TRYSTIN THE GARDEN OF THE EXPIATORY CHAPEL II. MADARIAGA, THE CENTAUR III. THE DESNOYERS FAMILY IV. THE COUSIN FROM BERLIN V. IN WHICH APPEAR THE FOUR HORSEMENPART III. WHAT DON MARCELO ENVIED II. NEW LIFE III. THE RETREAT IV. NEAR THE SACRED GROTTO V. THE INVASION VI. THE BANNER OF THE RED CROSSPART IIII. AFTER THE MARNE II. IN THE STUDIO IV. "NO ONE WILL KILL HIM" V. THE BURIAL FIELDSPART ICHAPTER ITHE TRYST...
Memoirs of General William T. Shermanby William Tecumseh ShermanVolume 2CHAPTER XVI.ATLANTA CAMPAIGN-NASHVILLE AND CHATTANOOGA TO BENEBAW.MARCH, APRIL, AND MAY, 1864.On the 18th day of March, 1864, at Nashville, Tennessee, I relieved Lieutenant-General Grant in command of the Military Division of the Mississippi, embracing the Departments of the Ohio, Cumberland, Tennessee, and Arkansas, commanded respectively by Major-Generals Schofield, Thomas, McPherson, and Steele. General Grant was in the act of starting East to assume command of all the armies of the United States, but more particularl
Weir of Hermistonby Robert Louis StevensonTO MY WIFEI saw rain falling and the rainbow drawnOn Lammermuir. Hearkening I heard againIn my precipitous city beaten bellsWinnow the keen sea wind. And here afar,Intent on my own race and place, I wrote.Take thou the writing: thine it is. For whoBurnished the sword, blew on the drowsy coal,Held still the target higher, chary of praiseAnd prodigal of counsel - who but thou?So now, in the end, if this the least be good,If any deed be done, if any fireBurn in the imperfect page, the praise be thine....
The Dragon and The Raven: Or The Days of King AlfredBy G. A. HentyC O N T E N T SPREFACEI. THE FUGITIVESII. THE BATTLE OF KESTEVENIII. THE MASSACRE AT CROYLANDIV. THE INVASION OF WESSEXV. A DISCIPLINED BANDVI. THE SAXON FORTVII. THE DRAGONVIII. THE CRUISE OF THE DRAGONIX. A PRIS0NERX. THE COMBATXI. THE ISLE OF ATHELNEYXII. FOUR YEARS OF PEACEXIII. THE SIEGE OF PARISXlV. THE REPULSE OF THE NORSEMENXV. FRIENDS IN TROUBLEXVI. FREDAXVII. A LONG CHASEXVIII. FREDA DISCOVEREDXIX. UNITED...
Those Extraordinary Twinsby Mark TwainA man who is born with the novel-writing gift has a troublesome time ofit when he tries to build a novel. I know this from experience. He hasno clear idea of his story; in fact he has no story. He merely has somepeople in his mind, and an incident or two, also a locality. He knowsthese people, he knows the selected locality, and he trusts that he canplunge those people into those incidents with interesting results. So hegoes to work. To write a novel? Nothat is a thought which comeslater; in the beginning he is only proposing to tell a little tale;
THE BLACK DWARFTHE BLACK DWARFWalter Scott, Bart.1- Page 2-THE BLACK DWARFI. TALES OF MY LANDLORDCOLLECTED AND REPORTED BY JEDEDIAH CLEISHBOTHAM,SCHOOLMASTER AND PARISH-CLERK OF GANDERCLEUGH.INTRODUCTION.As I may, without vanity, presume that the name and officialdescription prefixed to this Proem will secure it, from the sedate and...