THE DIAMOND MAKERSome business had detained me in Chancery Lane nine in theevening, and thereafter, having some inkling of a headache, I wasdisinclined either for entertainment or further work. So much ofthe sky as the high cliffs of that narrow canon of traffic leftvisible spoke of a serene night, and I determined to make my waydown to the Embankment, and rest my eyes and cool my head bywatching the variegated lights upon the river. Beyond comparisonthe night is the best time for this place; a merciful darknesshides the dirt of the waters, and the lights of this transitional...　

The Underground Cityby Jules VerneORThe Black Indies(Sometimes Called The Child of the Cavern)CHAPTER I CONTRADICTORY LETTERSTo Mr. F. R. Starr, Engineer, 30 Canongate, Edinburgh.IF Mr. James Starr will come to-morrow to the Aberfoyle coal-mines, Dochart pit, Yarrow shaft, a communication of an interesting nature will be made to him."Mr. James Starr will be awaited for, the whole day, at the Callander station, by Harry Ford, son of the old overman Simon Ford.""He is requested to keep this invitation secret."Such was the letter which James Starr received by the first post, on the 3rd December,　

The Beast in the Jungleby Henry JamesCHAPTER IWhat determined the speech that startled him in the course of their encounter scarcely matters, being probably but some words spoken by himself quite without intentionspoken as they lingered and slowly moved together after their renewal of acquaintance. He had been conveyed by friends an hour or two before to the house at which she was staying; the party of visitors at the other house, of whom he was one, and thanks to whom it was his theory, as always, that he was lost in the crowd, had been invited over to luncheon. There had been after lunche　

The Poet at the Breakfast Tableby Oliver Wendell HolmesPREFACE.In this, the third series of Breakfast-Table conversations, a slightdramatic background shows off a few talkers and writers, aided bycertain silent supernumeraries. The machinery is much like that ofthe two preceding series. Some of the characters must seem like oldacquaintances to those who have read the former papers. As I readthese over for the first time for a number of years, I notice onecharacter; presenting a class of beings who have greatly multipliedduring the interval which separates the earlier and later...　

Unconscious Comediansby Honore de BalzacTranslated by Katharine Prescott WormeleyDEDICATIONTo Monsieur le Comte Jules de Castellane.UNCONSCIOUS COMEDIANSLeon de Lora, our celebrated landscape painter, belongs to one of thenoblest families of the Roussillon (Spanish originally) which,although distinguished for the antiquity of its race, has been doomedfor a century to the proverbial poverty of hidalgos. Coming,light-footed, to Paris from the department of the Eastern Pyrenees,with the sum of eleven francs in his pocket for all viaticum, he had...　

Lecture IXCONVERSIONTo be converted, to be regenerated, to receive grace, toexperience religion, to gain an assurance, are so many phraseswhich denote the process, gradual or sudden, by which a selfhitherto divided, and consciously wrong inferior and unhappy,becomes unified and consciously right superior and happy, inconsequence of its firmer hold upon religious realities. This atleast is what conversion signifies in general terms, whether ornot we believe that a direct divine operation is needed to bring...　

Worldly Ways and BywaysWorldly Ways andBywaysEliot Gregory1- Page 2-Worldly Ways and BywaysTo the ReaderTHERE existed formerly, in diplomatic circles, a curious custom,since fallen into disuse, entitled the Pele Mele, contrived doubtless bysome distracted Master of Ceremonies to quell the endless jealousies andquarrels for precedence between courtiers and diplomatists of contending...　

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 in...　

Caesar and Cleopatraby George Bernard ShawACT IAn October night on the Syrian border of Egypt towards the end ofthe XXXIII Dynasty, in the year 706 by Roman computation,afterwards reckoned by Christian computation as 48 B.C. A greatradiance of silver fire, the dawn of a moonlit night, is risingin the east. The stars and the cloudless sky are our owncontemporaries, nineteen and a half centuries younger than weknow them; but you would not guess that from their appearance.Below them are two notable drawbacks of civilization: a palace,and soldiers. The palace, an old, low, Syrian building of...　

The Complete Anglerby Izaak WaltonTo the Right worshipfulJohn Offleyof Madeley Manor, in the County of Stafford Esquire, My most honoured FriendSir, I have made so ill use of your former favours, as by them to be encouraged to entreat, that they may be enlarged to the patronage and protection of this Book: and I have put on a modest confidence, that I shall not be denied, because it is a discourse of Fish and Fishing, which you know so well, and both love and practice so much.You are assured, though there be ignorant men of another belief, that Angling is an Art: and you know that Art better 　

THE FROZEN DEEPby Wilkie CollinsFirst SceneThe Ball-roomChapter 1.The date is between twenty and thirty years ago. The place is anEnglish sea-port. The time is night. And the business of themoment isdancing.The Mayor and Corporation of the town are giving a grand ball, incelebration of the departure of an Arctic expedition from theirport. The ships of the expedition are two in numberthe_Wanderer_ and the _Sea-mew_. They are to sail (in search of theNorthwest Passage) on the next day, with the morning tide.Honor to the Mayor and Corporation! It is a brilliant ball. The...　

Before AdamBefore AdamJack London19061- Page 2-Before Adam"These are our ancestors, and their history is our history. Rememberthat as surely as we one day swung down out of the trees and walkedupright, just as surely, on a far earlier day, did we crawl up out of the seaand achieve our first adventure on land."2...　

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 thought...　

On Books and the Housing of Themby William Ewart GladstoneIn the old age of his intellect (which atthis point seemed to taste a little ofdecrepitude), Strauss declared [1] that the doctrine ofimmortality has recently lost the assistanceof a passable argument, inasmuch as it hasbeen discovered that the stars are inhabited;for where, he asks, could room now be foundfor such a multitude of souls? Again, in viewof the current estimates of prospectivepopulation for this earth, some people have begun toentertain alarm for the probable condition of...　

Juanaby Honore de BalzacTranslated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley)DEDICATIONTo Madame la Comtesse Merlin.JUANA(THE MARANAS)CHAPTER IEXPOSITIONNotwithstanding the discipline which Marechal Suchet had introducedinto his army corps, he was unable to prevent a short period oftrouble and disorder at the taking of Tarragona. According to certainfair-minded military men, this intoxication of victory bore a strikingresemblance to pillage, though the marechal promptly suppressed it....　

The Black Death and The Dancing Maniaby J. F. C. Hecker (translated by B. G. Babington)INTRODUCTIONJustus Friedrich Karl Hecker was one of three generations of distinguished professors of medicine. His father, August Friedrich Hecker, a most industrious writer, first practised as a physician in Frankenhausen, and in 1790 was appointed Professor of Medicine at the University of Erfurt. In 1805 he was called to the like professorship at the University of Berlin. He died at Berlin in 1811.Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker was born at Erfurt in January, 1795. He went, of coursebeing then ten years