Excerpt: On the Eve by Ivan Turgenev, translated by Constance Garnett.

Excerpt: How Sir Launcelot in his madness took a sword and fought with a knight, and leapt in a bed. And now leave we of a while of Sir Ector and of Sir Percivale, and speak we of Sir Launcelot that suf fered and endured many sharp showers, that ever ran wild wood from place to place, and lived by fruit and such as he might get, and drank water two year; and other clothing had he but little but his shirt and his breech....

Excerpt: Chapter 1. How Queen Guenever rode a-Maying with certain knights of the Round Table and clad all in green. So it befell in the month of May, Queen Guenever called unto her knights of the Table Round; and she gave them warning that early upon the morrow she would ride a-Maying into woods and fields beside Westminster. And I warn you that there be none of you but that he be well horsed, and that ye all be clothed in green, outher in silk outher in cloth; and I shall bring with me ten ladies, and every knight shall have a lady behind him, and every knight shall have a squire and two yeomen; and I will that ye all be well horsed....

Excerpt: An Outcast of the Islands by Joseph Conrad.

Excerpt: Alexander Pope?s ?The Rape of the Lock?.

Excerpt: The Shade of Cardinal Richelieu. In a splendid chamber of the Palais Royal, formerly styled the Palais Cardinal, a man was sitting in deep reverie, his head supported on his hands, leaning over a gilt and inlaid table which was covered with letters and papers. Behind this figure glowed a vast fireplace alive with leaping flames; great logs of oak blazed and crackled on the polished brass andirons whose flicker shone upon the superb habiliments of the lonely tenant of the room, which was illumined grandly by twin candelabra rich with wax-lights....

Excerpt: Modern Broods, or Developments Unlooked For by Charlotte M. Yonge.

Excerpt: The Ocotopus: A Story of California by Frank Norris.

Excerpt: The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac, translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley.

Excerpt: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Rendered into English Verse by Edward Fitzgerald.

Contents Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam ..........................................................................4 Introduction.....................................................................................................4 First Edition ..................................................................................................14 KUZA?NAMA. (?Book of Pots?)...............................................................24 Fifth Edition ..................................................................................................27 Notes ...............................................................................................................44...

Excerpt: PREFACE; I HAVE endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it. Their faithful Friend and Servant, C. D. December, ....

Table of Contents: ILLUSTRATION: HE HAD BEEN TIM?S BLOOD HORSE, ii -- PREFACE, 1 -- MARLEY?S GHOST, 2 -- THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS, 17 -- THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS, 31 -- THE LAST OF THE THREE SPIRITS, 49 -- THE END OF IT, 61 -- ILLUSTRATION: BOB CRATCHIT AND TINY TIM., 67...

Excerpt: Speeches: Literary and Social by Charles Dickens.

Contents SPEECH: EDINBURGH, JUNE 25, 1841.................................................................................................................. 6 SPEECH: JANUARY, 1842. ..................................................................................................................................... 10 SPEECH: FEBRUARY 1842. ................................................................................................................................... 11 SPEECH: FEBRUARY 7, 1842. ............................................................................................................................... 15 SPEECH: NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 18, 1842. ..................................................................................................... 19 SPEECH: MANCHESTER, OCTOBER 5, 1843. ................................................................................................... 23 SPEECH: LIVERPOOL, FEBRUARY 26, 1844. .................................................................................................... 28 SPEECH: BIRMINGHAM, FEBRUARY 28, 1844. .........................................................

Preface: As the most striking lines of poetry are the most hackneyed, because they have grown to be the common inheritance of all the world, so many of the most noble deeds that earth can show have become the best known, and enjoyed their full meed of fame. Therefore it may be feared that many of the events here detailed, or alluded to, may seem trite to those in search of novelty; but it is not for such that the collection has been made....

Excerpt: In the eleven years that separated the Declaration of the Independence of the United States from the completion of that act in the ordination of our written Constitution, the great minds of America were bent upon the study of the principles of government that were essential to the preservation of the liberties which had been won at great cost and with heroic labors and sacrifices. Their studies were conducted in view of the imperfections that experience had developed in the government of the Confederation, and they were, therefore, practical and thorough....

Introduction: In several of the dialogues of Plato, doubts have arisen among his interpreters as to which of the various subjects discussed in them is the main thesis. The speakers have the freedom of conversation; no severe rules of art restrict them, and sometimes we are inclined to think, with one of the dramatis personae in the Theaetetus, that the digressions have the greater interest....

Excerpt: The writer of a book which copies the manners and language of Queen Anne?s time, must not omit the Dedication to the Patron; and I ask leave to inscribe this volume to your Lordship, for the sake of the great kindness and friendship which I owe to you and yours. My volume will reach you when the Author is on his voyage to a country where your name is as well known as here. Wherever I am, I shall gratefully regard you; and shall not be the less welcomed in America because I am, Your obliged friend and servant....

Contents PREFACE. ........................................................................................................................................ 6 BOOK I THE EARLY YOUTH OF HENRY ESMOND, UP TO THE TIME OF HIS LEAVING TRINITY COLLEGE, IN CAMBRIDGE.....................................................................................11 CHAPTER I AN ACCOUNT OF THE FAMILY OF ESMOND OF CASTLEWOOD HALL ..................................... 14 CHAPTER II RELATES HOW FRANCIS, FOURTH VISCOUNT, ARRIVES AT CASTLEWOOD........................... 19 CHAPTER III WHITHER IN THE TIME OF THOMAS, THIRD VISCOUNT, I HAD PRECEDED HIM AS PAGE TO ISABELLA ............................................................................................................................................................. 26 CHAPTER IV I AM PLACED UNDER A POPISH PRIEST AND BRED TO THAT RELIGION.?VISCOUNTESS CASTLEWOOD .................................................................................................................................................... 36 CHAPTER V MY SUPERIORS ARE ENGAGED IN PLOTS FOR THE RESTORATION OF KING JAMES II. ...... 42 CH...

Excerpt: Chapter 1. The problem of education is twofold: first to know, and then to utter. Every one who lives any sem blance of an inner life thinks more nobly and profoundly than he speaks; and the best of teachers can impart only broken images of the truth which they perceive. Speech which goes from one to another between two natures, and, what is worse, between two experiences, is doubly relative. The speaker buries his meaning; it is for the hearer to dig it up again; and all speech, written or spoken, is in a dead language until it finds a willing and prepared hearer. Such, moreover, is the complexity of life, that when we condescend upon details in our advice, we may be sure we condescend on error; and the best of education is to throw out some magnanimous hints. No man was ever so poor that he could express all he has in him by words, looks, or actions; his true knowledge is eternally incommunicable, for it is a knowledge of himself; and his best wisdom comes to him by no process of the mind, but in a supreme self-dictation, which keeps varying from hour to hour in its dictates with the variation of events and circumstances....

Contents Lay Morals ........................................................................................................4 FATHER DAMIEN.........................................................................................43 THE PENTLAND RISING A PAGE OF HISTORY 1666 ............................57 THE DAY AFTER TO-MORROW................................................................74 COLLEGE PAPERS.......................................................................................83 CRITICISMS................................................................................................106 SKETCHES ..................................................................................................129 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD ......................................................................141 THE YOUNG CHEVALIER ........................................................................176 HEATHERCAT.............................................................................................187...