An Accursed Raceby Elizabeth GaskellWe have our prejudices in England. Or, if that assertion offends anyof my readers, I will modify it: we have had our prejudices inEngland. We have tortured Jews; we have burnt Catholics andProtestants, to say nothing of a few witches and wizards. We havesatirized Puritans, and we have dressed-up Guys. But, after all, Ido not think we have been so bad as our Continental friends. To besure, our insular position has kept us free, to a certain degree,from the inroads of alien races; who, driven from one land of refuge,...　

THE HISTORY OF DWARF LONG NOSEIt is a great mistake to think that fairies, witches, magicians,and such people lived only in Eastern countries and in such timesas those of the Caliph Haroun Al-Raschid. Fairies and theirlike belong to every country and every age, and no doubt weshould see plenty of them nowif we only knew how.In a large town in Germany there lived, some couple of hundredyears ago, a cobbler and his wife. They were poor andhard-working. The man sat all day in a little stall at thestreet corner and mended any shoes that were brought him. Hiswife sold the fruit and vegetables 　

Billy and the Big Stickby Richard Harding DavisHad the Wilmot Electric Light people remained content only to makelight, had they not, as a by-product, attempted to make money, theyneed not have left Hayti.When they flooded with radiance the unpaved streets of Port-au-Prince no one, except the police, who complained that the lightskept them awake, made objection; but when for this illumination theWilmot Company demanded payment, every one up to President HamilearPoussevain was surprised and grieved. So grieved was President Ham,as he was lovingly designated, that he withdrew the Wilmot...　

VBEHAVIORGrace, Beauty, and CapriceBuild this golden portal;Graceful women, chosen menDazzle every mortal:Their sweet and lofty countenanceHis enchanting food;He need not go to them, their formsBeset his solitude.He looketh seldom in their face,His eyes explore the ground,The green grass is a looking-glassWhereon their traits are found.Little he says to them,So dances his heart in his breast,...　

THE DOOR IN THE WALLIOne confidential evening, not three months ago, Lionel Wallace toldme this story of the Door in the Wall. And at the time I thoughtthat so far as he was concerned it was a true story.He told it me with such a direct simplicity of conviction thatI could not do otherwise than believe in him. But in the morning,in my own flat, I woke to a different atmosphere, and as I lay inbed and recalled the things he had told me, stripped of the glamourof his earnest slow voice, denuded of the focussed shaded tablelight, the shadowy atmosphere that wrapped about him and the...　

SpringThe opening of large tracts by the ice-cutters commonly causes apond to break up earlier; for the water, agitated by the wind, evenin cold weather, wears away the surrounding ice. But such was notthe effect on Walden that year, for she had soon got a thick newgarment to take the place of the old. This pond never breaks up sosoon as the others in this neighborhood, on account both of itsgreater depth and its having no stream passing through it to melt orwear away the ice. I never knew it to open in the course of a...　

Coral and Coral Reefsby Thomas H. HuxleyTHE subject upon which I wish to address you to-night is the structureand origin of Coral and Coral Reefs. Under the head of "coral" thereare included two very different things; one of them is that substancewhich I imagine a great number of us have champed when we were verymuch younger than we are now,the common red coral, which is used somuch, as you know, for the edification and the delectation of childrenof tender years, and is also employed for the purposes of ornament forthose who are much older, and as some think might know better. The...　

The Little DreamAn Allegory in six scenesBY JOHN GALSWORTHYCHARACTERSSEELCHEN, a mountain girlLAMOND, a climberFELSMAN, a glideCHARACTERS IN THE DREAMTHE GREAT HORN |THE COW HORN | mountainsTHE WINE HORN |THE EDELWEISS |THE ALPENROSE | flowersTHE GENTIAN |THE MOUNTAIN DANDELION |VOICES AND FIGURES IN THE DREAMCOWBELLSMOUNTAIN AIRFAR VIEW OF ITALYDISTANT FLUME OF STEAMTHINGS IN BOOKSMOTH CHILDREN...　

"POLIKUSHKA;"OR,The Lot of a Wicked Court Servant.CHAPTER I.Polikey was a court manone of the staff of servants belongingto the court household of a boyarinia (lady of the nobility).He held a very insignificant position on the estate, and lived ina rather poor, small house with his wife and children.The house was built by the deceased nobleman whose widow he stillcontinued to serve, and may be described as follows: The fourwalls surrounding the one izba (room) were built of stone, andthe interior was ten yards square. A Russian stove stood in the...　

THE GOLDEN BRANCHONCE upon a time there was a King who was so morose anddisagreeable that he was feared by all his subjects, and withgood reason, as for the most trifling offences he would have theirheads cut off. This King Grumpy, as he was called, had oneson, who was as different from his father as he could possibly be.No prince equalled him in cleverness and kindness of heart, butunfortunately he was most terribly ugly. He had crooked legs andsquinting eyes, a large mouth all on one side, and a hunchback.Never was there a beautiful soul in such a frightful little body, but...　

SHERLOCK HOLMESTHE ADVENTURE OF CHARLES AUGUSTUS MILVERTONby Sir Arthur Conan DoyleTHE ADVENTURE OF CHARLES AUGUSTUS MILVERTONIt is years since the incidents of which I speak took place, and yetit is with diffidence that I allude to them. For a long time, evenwith the utmost discretion and reticence, it would have beenimpossible to make the facts public, but now the principal personconcerned is beyond the reach of human law, and with due suppressionthe story may be told in such fashion as to injure no one. It...　

THE INDISCRETION OF ELSBETHThe American paused. He had evidently lost his way. For the lasthalf hour he had been wandering in a medieval town, in a profoundmedieval dream. Only a few days had elapsed since he had left thesteamship that carried him hither; and the accents of his owntongue, the idioms of his own people, and the sympathetic communityof New World tastes and expressions still filled his mind until hewoke up, or rather, as it seemed to him, was falling asleep in thepast of this Old World town which had once held his ancestors....　

End NotesNOTE TO CHAPTER I.Note A.-The Ranger or the Forest, that cuts theforeclaws off our dogs.A most sensible grievance of those aggrieved times were theForest Laws. These oppressive enactments were the produce ofthe Norman Conquest, for the Saxon laws of the chase weremild and humane; while those of William, enthusiastically attachedto the exercise and its rights, were to the last degreetyrannical. The formation of the New Forest, bears evidenceto his passion for hunting, where he reduced many a happy villageto the condition of that one commemorated by my friend,...　

The Past Condition of Organic Natureby Thomas H. HuxleyIN the lecture which I delivered last Monday evening, I endeavoured tosketch in a very brief manner, but as well as the time at my disposalwould permit, the present condition of organic nature, meaning by thatlarge title simply an indication of the great, broad, and generalprinciples which are to be discovered by those who look attentively atthe phenomena of organic nature as at present displayed. The generalresult of our investigations might be summed up thus: we found that themultiplicity of the forms of animal life, great as that may 　

The Queen of the Pirate Isleby Bret HarteI first knew her as the Queen of the Pirate Isle. To the best ofmy recollection she had no reasonable right to that title. She wasonly nine years old, inclined to plumpness and good humor,deprecated violence, and had never been to sea. Need it be addedthat she did NOT live in an island and that her name was Polly?Perhaps I ought to explain that she had already known otherexperiences of a purely imaginative character. Part of herexistence had been passed as a Beggar Child,solely indicated by ashawl tightly folded round her shoulders, and chills; as 　

TWICE-TOLD TALESETHAN BRANDA CHAPTER FROM AN ABORTIVE ROMANCEby Nathaniel HawthorneBARTRAM THE LIME-BURNER, a rough, heavy-looking man, begrimedwith charcoal, sat watching his kiln, at nightfall, while his littleson played at building houses with the scattered fragments ofmarble, when, on the hill-side below them, they heard a roar oflaughter, not mirthful, but slow, and even solemn, like a wind shakingthe boughs of the forest."Father, what is that?" asked the little boy, leaving his play, and...