Gentle reader, hear Poliphilo tell of his dreams, Dreams sent by the highest heaven. You will not waste your labour, nor will listening irk you, For this wonderful work abounds in so many things. If, grave and dour, you despise love-stories, Know, I pray, that things are well ordered herein. You refuse? But at least the style, with its novel language, Grave discourse and wisdom, mands attention. If you refuse this, too, note the geometry, The many ancient things expressed in Nilotic signs . . . Here you will see the perfect palaces of kings, The worship of nymphs, fountains and rich banquet
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...
The Trumpet-Majorby Thomas Hardybeing a tale of the Trumpet-Major, John Loveday, a soldier in thewar with Buonaparte, and Robert, his brother, first mate in theMerchant Service.PREFACEThe present tale is founded more largely on testimonyoral andwrittenthan any other in this series. The external incidentswhich direct its course are mostly an unexaggerated reproduction ofthe recollections of old persons well known to the author inchildhood, but now long dead, who were eye-witnesses of thosescenes. If wholly transcribed their recollections would have filled...
The Malay Archipelago Volume 1by Alfred Russell WallaceThe land of the orang-utan, and the bird or paradise.A narrative of travel, with sketches of man and nature.To CHARLES DARWIN,AUTHOR OF "THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES,"I dedicate this book, Not only as a token of personal esteem and friendship But also To express my deep admiration For His genius and his works.PREFACE.My readers will naturally ask why I have delayed writing this book for six years after my return; and I feel bound to give them full satisfaction on this point.When I reached England in the spring of 1862, I found myself surrounded
The Two Brothersby Honore de BalzacTranlated by Katharine Prescott WormeleyDEDICATIONTo Monsieur Charles Nodier, member of the French Academy, etc.Here, my dear Nodier, is a book filled with deeds that arescreened from the action of the laws by the closed doors ofdomestic life; but as to which the finger of God, often calledchance, supplies the place of human justice, and in which themoral is none the less striking and instructive because it ispointed by a scoffer.To my mind, such deeds contain great lessons for the Family...
Salammboby Gustave FlaubertCHAPTER ITHE FEASTIt was at Megara, a suburb of Carthage, in the gardens of Hamilcar.The soldiers whom he had commanded in Sicily were having a great feastto celebrate the anniversary of the battle of Eryx, and as the masterwas away, and they were numerous, they ate and drank with perfectfreedom.The captains, who wore bronze cothurni, had placed themselves in thecentral path, beneath a gold-fringed purple awning, which reached fromthe wall of the stables to the first terrace of the palace; the common...
Personal Memoirs of P.H.Sheridan V1 of 2by Philip Henry SheridanPREFACEWhen, yielding to the solicitations of my friends, I finally decidedto write these Memoirs, the greatest difficulty which confronted mewas that of recounting my share in the many notable events of thelast three decades, in which I played a part, without entering toofully into the history of these years, and at the same time withoutgiving to my own acts an unmerited prominence. To what extent I haveovercome this difficulty I must leave the reader to judge....
The Life of Thomas Telford by Smilesby Samuel Smiles"Let us travel, and wherever we find no facility fortravelling from a city to a town, from a village to ahamlet, we may pronounce the people to be barbarous"Abbe Raynal"The opening up of the internal communications of acountry is undoubtedly the first and most importantelement of its growth in commerce and civilization"Richard CobdenCONTENTSPrefaceEARLY ROADS AND MODES OF TRAVELLINGCHAPTER I. Old RoadsRoads as agents of civilization...
The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume IICHAPTER VIII - LIFE AT BOURNEMOUTH, CONTINUED, JANUARY 1886-JULY 1887Letter: TO MRS. DE MATTOS[SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH], JANUARY 1ST, 1886.DEAREST KATHARINE, - Here, on a very little book and accompaniedwith lame verses, I have put your name. Our kindness is nowgetting well on in years; it must be nearly of age; and it getsmore valuable to me with every time I see you. It is not possibleto express any sentiment, and it is not necessary to try, at least...
The Old Masters: how well they understoodIts human position; how it takes placeWhile someone else is eating or opening a window orMt walking dully along ...W. H. AUDEN, "Musee des Beaux Arts"Old Blue died and he died so hard He shook the ground in my back yard. I dug his grave with a silver spade And I lowered him down with a golden chain. Every link you know I did call his name, I called, "Here, Blue, you good dog, you.FOLK SONG"Nope, nothing wrong here.THE SHARP CEREAL PROFESSORONCE UPON A TIME, not so long ago, a monster came to the small town of Castle Rock, Maine. He killed. a waitress n
The Rivermanby Stewart Edward WhiteIThe time was the year 1872, and the place a bend in the river abovea long pond terminating in a dam. Beyond this dam, and on a flatlower than it, stood a two-story mill structure. Save for a small,stump-dotted clearing, and the road that led from it, all else wasforest. Here in the bottom-lands, following the course of thestream, the hardwoods grew dense, their uppermost branches justbeginning to spray out in the first green of spring. Farther back,where the higher lands arose from the swamp, could be discerned the...
The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animalsby Charles DarwinNEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1899CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION......................................................Pages 1-26CHAP. IGENERAL PRINCIPLES OF EXPRESSION. The three chief principles statedThe first principleServiceable actions become habitual in association with certain states of the mind, and are performed whether or not of service in each particular case The force of habitInheritanceAssociated habitual movements in manReflex actionsPassage of habits into reflex actions Associated habitual movements in the lower animals
Aletheia Vaune Preston And Isaac Jerome Preston Acknowledgements There is one person above all others who must be thanked for the existence of this novel, and that is my good friend the inestimable Forrest Fenn-collector, scholar, and publisher. I will never forget that lunch of ours, many years ago in the Dragon Room of the Pink Adobe, when you told me a curious story-and thereby gave me the idea for this novel. I hope you feel I have done the idea justice. Having mentioned Forrest, I feel it necessary to make one thing clear: My character Maxwell Broadbent is a plete and total fictional c
Nada the Lilyby H. Rider HaggardDEDICATIONSompseu:For I will call you by the name that for fifty years has been honouredby every tribe between Zambesi and Cape Agulbas,I greet you!Sompseu, my father, I have written a book that tells of men andmatters of which you know the most of any who still look upon thelight; therefore, I set your name within that book and, such as it is,I offer it to you.If you knew not Chaka, you and he have seen the same suns shine, youknew his brother Panda and his captains, and perhaps even that very...
AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF THE WEALTH OF NATIONSby Adam Smith1776INTRODUCTION AND PLAN OF THE WORKTHE annual labour of every nation is the fund whichoriginally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniencesof life which it annually consumes, and which consist alwayseither in the immediate produce of that labour, or in what ispurchased with that produce from other nations.According therefore as this produce, or what is purchasedwith it, bears a greater or smaller proportion to the number of...