The Professor at the Breakfast Tableby Oliver Wendell HolmesPREFACE TO REVISED EDITION.The reader of to-day will not forget, I trust, that it is nearly aquarter of a century since these papers were written. Statementswhich were true then are not necessarily true now. Thus, the speedof the trotting horse has been so much developed that the record ofthe year when the fastest time to that date was given must be veryconsiderably altered, as may be seen by referring to a note on page49 of the "Autocrat." No doubt many other statements and opinions...　

Chapter One: THE PLAIN OF FEARThe still desert air had a lens-like quality. The riders seemed frozen in time, moving without drawing closer. We took turns counting. I could not get the same number twice running.A breath of a breeze whined in the coral, stirred the leaves of Old Father Tree. They tinkled off one another with the song of wind chimes. To the north, the glimmer of change lightning limned the horizon like the far clash of warring gods.A foot crunched sand. I turned. Silent gawked at a talking menhir. It had appeared in the past few seconds, startling him. Sneaky rocks. Like to 　

Wildfireby Zane GreyCHAPTER IFor some reason the desert scene before Lucy Bostil awoke varying emotionsasweet gratitude for the fullness of her life there at the Ford, yet a hauntingremorse that she could not be wholly contenta vague loneliness of soulathrill and a fear for the strangely calling future, glorious, unknown.She longed for something to happen. It might be terrible, so long as it waswonderful. This day, when Lucy had stolen away on a forbidden horse, she waseighteen years old. The thought of her mother, who had died long ago on their...　

Modeste Mignonby Honore de BalzacTranslated by Katharine Prescott WormeleyDEDICATIONTo a Polish Lady.Daughter of an enslaved land, angel through love, witch throughfancy, child by faith, aged by experience, man in brain, woman inheart, giant by hope, mother through sorrows, poet in thy dreams,to THEE belongs this book, in which thy love, thy fancy, thyexperience, thy sorrow, thy hope, thy dreams, are the warp throughwhich is shot a woof less brilliant than the poesy of thy soul,whose expression, when it shines upon thy countenance, is, to...　

　Acknowledgments　　A casebook edition of any work of literature is necessarily the result of work and good will by numerous people. We are deeply indebted to the writers who contributed the original materials contained in this volume.　We also wish to thank the authors, editors, and publishers who so kindly granted permissions for use of the previously published materials collected in this volume. Full acknowledgment for their valuable aid is printed in the headnote for each of the articles as well as original sources of publication.　The editors gratefully acknowledge the special courtesies of 　

A Smaller History of Greeceby William SmithCONTENTS.CHAPTER I . . Geography of Greece.CHAPTER II . . Origin of the Greeks, and the Heroic Age.CHAPTER III . . General Survey of the Greek People.National Institutions.CHAPTER IV . . Early History of Peloponnesus and Sparta tothe end of the Messenian Wars, B.C. 668.CHAPTER V . . Early History of Athens down to theEstablishment of Democracy by Clisthenes,B.C. 510.CHAPTER VI . . The Greek Colonies.CHAPTER VII . . The Persian Wars.From the Ionic Revolt to...　

Sketches New and Oldby Mark TwainSKETCHES NEW AND OLDCONTENTS:PREFACEMY WATCHPOLITICAL ECONOMYTHE JUMPING FROGJOURNALISM IN TENNESSEETHE STORY OF THE BAD LITTLE BOYTHE STORY OF THE GOOD LITTLE BOYA COUPLE OF POEMS BY TWAIN AND MOORENIAGARAANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTSTO RAISE POULTRYEXPERIENCE OF THE MCWILLIAMSES WITH MEMBRANOUS CROUPMY FIRST LITERARY VENTUREHOW THE AUTHOR WAS SOLD IN NEWARKTHE OFFICE BOREJOHNNY GREERTHE FACTS IN THE CASE OF THE GREAT BEEF CONTRACTTHE CASE OF GEORGE FISHERDISGRACEFUL PERSECUTION OF A BOYTHE JUDGES "SPIRITED WOMAN"...　

The Price She Paidby David Graham PhillipsIHENRY GOWER was dead at sixty-onethe end of a lifelong fraud which never had been suspected, and never would be. With the world, with his acquaintances and neighbors, with his wife and son and daughter, he passed as a generous, warm-hearted, good-natured man, ready at all times to do anything to help anybody, incapable of envy or hatred or meanness. In fact, not once in all his days had he ever thought or done a single thing except for his own comfort. Like all intensely selfish people who are wise, he was cheerful and amiable, because that was th　

Villa Rubein and Other Storiesby John GalsworthyContents:Villa RubeinA Man of DevonA KnightSalvation of a ForsyteThe SilencePREFACEWriting not long ago to my oldest literary friend, I expressed in amoment of heedless sentiment the wish that we might have again one ofour talks of long-past days, over the purposes and methods of ourart. And my friend, wiser than I, as he has always been, repliedwith this doubting phrase "Could we recapture the zest of that oldtime?"I would not like to believe that our faith in the value of...　

The Dustby David Graham PhillipsThe Grain of DustA NOVELBYDAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPSTHE GRAIN OF DUSTIINTO the offices of Lockyer, Sanders, Benchley, Lockyer & Norman, corporation lawyers, there drifted on a December afternoon a girl in search of work at stenography and typewriting. The firm was about the most important and most famousradical orators often said infamousin New York. The girl seemed, at a glance, about as unimportant and obscure an atom as the city hid in its vast ferment. She was blondetawny hair, fair skin, blue eyes. Aside from this hardly conclusive mark of identity there wa　

　　Captain Sir Horatio Hornblower sat in his bath, regarding with distaste his legs dangling over the end. They were thin and hairy, and recalled to his mind the legs of the spiders he had seen in Central America. It was hard to think about anything except his legs, seeing how much they were forced upon his attention by their position under his nose as he sat in this ridiculous bath; they hung out at one end while his body protruded from the water at the other. It was only the middle portion of him, from his waist to above his knees, which was submerged, and that was bent almost double. Hornbl　

Betty Zaneby Zane GreyTO THE BETTY ZANE CHAPTER OF THE DAUGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHORNOTEIn a quiet corner of the stately little city of Wheeling, West Va., stands a monument on which is inscribed:"By authority of the State of West Virginia to commemorate the siege of Fort Henry, Sept 11, 1782, the last battle of the American Revolution, this tablet is here placed."Had it not been for the heroism of a girl the foregoing inscription would never have been written, and the city of Wheeling would never have existed. From time to time I have read shor　

Michael Strogoffby Jules VerneorThe Courier of the CzarMichael StrogoffBOOK ICHAPTER I A FETE AT THE NEW PALACE"SIRE, a fresh dispatch.""Whence?""From Tomsk?""Is the wire cut beyond that city?""Yes, sire, since yesterday.""Telegraph hourly to Tomsk, General, and keep me informedof all that occurs.""Sire, it shall be done," answered General Kissoff.These words were exchanged about two hours after midnight,at the moment when the fete given at the New Palace was atthe height of its splendor.During the whole evening the bands of the Preobra-jensky and Paulowsky...　

Saint George for Englandby G. A. HentyPREFACEMY DEAR LADS,You may be told perhaps that there is no good to be obtained from tales of fighting and bloodshed, - that there is no moral to be drawn from such histories. Believe it not. War has its lessons as well as Peace. You will learn from tales like this that determination and enthusiasm can accomplish marvels, that true courage is generally accompanied by magnanimity and gentleness, and that if not in itself the very highest of virtues, it is the parent of almost all the others, since but few of them can be practised without it. The courage 　

The Magic Skinby Honore de BalzacTranslated by Ellen MarriageTo Monsieur Savary, Member of Le Academie des Sciences.ITHE TALISMANTowards the end of the month of October 1829 a young man entered thePalais-Royal just as the gaming-houses opened, agreeably to the lawwhich protects a passion by its very nature easily excisable. Hemounted the staircase of one of the gambling hells distinguished bythe number 36, without too much deliberation."Your hat, sir, if you please?" a thin, querulous voice called out. Alittle old man, crouching in the darkness behind a railing, suddenly...　

by Charles DarwinNext ChapterChapter 1 - Variation Under DomesticationWHEN we look to the individuals of the same variety or sub-variety of our older cultivated plants and animals, one of the first points which strikes us, is, that they generally differ much more from each other, than do the individuals of any one species or variety in a state of nature. When we reflect on the vast diversity of the plants and animals which have been cultivated, and which have varied during all ages under the most different climates and treatment, I think we are driven to conclude that this greater variability