The Chateau of Prince Polignacby Anthony TrollopeFew Englishmen or Englishwomen are intimately acquainted with thelittle town of Le Puy. It is the capital of the old province of LeVelay, which also is now but little known, even to French ears, forit is in these days called by the imperial name of the Department ofthe Haute Loire. It is to the south-east of Auvergne, and is nearlyin the centre of the southern half of France.But few towns, merely as towns, can be better worth visiting. Inthe first place, the volcanic formation of the ground on which it...　

A Simpletonby Charles ReadePREFACE.It has lately been objected to me, in studiously courteous terms ofcourse, that I borrow from other books, and am a plagiarist. Tothis I reply that I borrow facts from every accessible source, andam not a plagiarist. The plagiarist is one who borrows from ahomogeneous work: for such a man borrows not ideas only, but theirtreatment. He who borrows only from heterogeneous works is not aplagiarist. All fiction, worth a button, is founded on facts; andit does not matter one straw whether the facts are taken frompersonal experience, hearsay, or printed books;　

THE SKETCH BOOKTHE STAGE COACHby Washington IrvingOmne beneSine poenaTempus est ludendi.Venit horaAbsque moraLibros deponendi.OLD HOLIDAY SCHOOL SONG.IN THE preceding paper I have made some general observations onthe Christmas festivities of England, and am tempted to illustratethem by some anecdotes of a Christmas passed in the country; in...　

A Wagner MatineeI received one morning a letter, written in pale ink onglassy, blue-lined notepaper, and bearing the postmark of alittle Nebraska village. This communication, worn and rubbed,looking as though it had been carried for some days in a coatpocket that was none too clean, was from my Uncle Howard andinformed me that his wife had been left a small legacy by abachelor relative who had recently died, and that it would benecessary for her to go to Boston to attend to the settling ofthe estate. He requested me to meet her at the station and...　

Confidence by Henry JamesCHAPTER IIt was in the early days of April; Bernard Longueville had been spending the winter in Rome. He had travelled northward with the consciousness of several social duties that appealed to him from the further side of the Alps, but he was under the charm of the Italian spring, and he made a pretext for lingering. He had spent five days at Siena, where he had intended to spend but two, and still it was impossible to continue his journey. He was a young man of a contemplative and speculative turn, and this was his first visit to Italy, so that if he dallied by the　

The Moon Poolby A. MerrittForewordThe publication of the following narrative of Dr. WalterT. Goodwin has been authorized by the Executive Councilof the International Association of Science.First:To end officially what is beginning to be called theThrockmartin Mystery and to kill the innuendo and scan-dalous suspicions which have threatened to stain the repu-tations of Dr. David Throckmartin, his youthful wife, andequally youthful associate Dr. Charles Stanton ever sincea tardy despatch from Melbourne, Australia, reported the...　

The Dark Flowerby John Galsworthy"Take the flower from my breast, I pray thee,Take the flower too from out my tresses;And then go hence, for see, the night is fair,The stars rejoice to watch thee on thy way."From "The Bard of the Dimbovitza."THE DARK FLOWERPart ISpringIHe walked along Holywell that afternoon of early June with hisshort gown drooping down his arms, and no cap on his thick darkhair. A youth of middle height, and built as if he had come of twovery different strains, one sturdy, the other wiry and light. Hisface, too, was a curious blend, for, though it was strongly formed,...　

EvangelineA Tale of Acadieby Henry Wadsworth LongfellowTHIS is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring oceanSpeaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath itLeaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman?...　

THE UNEXPECTEDIT is a simple matter to see the obvious, to do the expected. Thetendency of the individual life is to be static rather thandynamic, and this tendency is made into a propulsion bycivilization, where the obvious only is seen, and the unexpectedrarely happens. When the unexpected does happen, however, and whenit is of sufficiently grave import, the unfit perish. They do notsee what is not obvious, are unable to do the unexpected, areincapable of adjusting their well-grooved lives to other andstrange grooves. In short, when they come to the end of their own...　

　　　As usual, I am indebted to a variety of people for their help and input in writing this volume. Not the least of whom is Master Robinton (aka Frederic H. Robinson) who was quite upset that I had ended his life so abruptly. I would suspect it of a tenor, but for a baritone to insist on another encore is almost unheard of. But I have recently been asked - via the impressive Del Rey Website - to explain certain facts which had not previously been brought to light anent Pern pre-Dragon flight history. As Robinton had a fine Pernese hand in most of it, it behoves me to tell the story from his v　

Chapter 1The great fish moved silently through the night water, propelled by short sweeps of its crescent tail. The mouth was open just enough to permit a rush of water over the gills. There was little other motion: an occasional correction of the apparently aimless course by the slight raising or lowering of a pectoral fin - as a bird changes direction by dipping one wing and lifting the other. The eyes were sightless in the black, and the other senses transmitted nothing extraordinary to the small, primitive brain. The fish might have been asleep, save for the movement dictated by countless　

Free Trade or, The Meanes To Make Trade Florish. Wherein, TheCauses of the Decay of Trade in this Kingdome, are discovered:And the Remedies also to remoove the same, are represented.Propertius, nauita de ventis, de tauris narrat arator: Enumeratmiles vulnera, pastor oues.London, Printed by John Legatt, for Simon Waterson, dwelling inPaules Church-yard at the Signe of the Crowne. 1622by Edward MisseldonTo the Prince. SirYour Highnes is no lesse Happy to bee the Sonne of so great aKing, then to be the Heire apparent of so many Kingdomes. In the...　

Joan of Naples1343-1382By ALEXANDER DUMAS, PERECHAPTER IIn the night of the 15th of January 1343, while the inhabitants of Naples lay wrapped in peaceful slumber, they were suddenly awakened by the bells of the three hundred churches that this thrice blessed capital contains. In the midst of the disturbance caused by so rude a call the first bought in the mind of all was that the town was on fire, or that the army of some enemy had mysteriously landed under cover of night and could put the citizens to the edge of the sword. But the doleful, intermittent sounds of all these fills, which distu　

Forty Centuries of Inkby David N. CarvalhoORA CHRONOLOGICAL NARRATIVE CONCERNINGINK AND ITS BACKGROUNDSINTRODUCING INCIDENTAL OBSERVATIONS ANDDEDUCTIONS, PARALLELS OF TIME AND COLORPHENOMENA, BIBLIOGRAPHY, CHEMISTRY,POETICAL EFFUSIONS, CITATIONS,ANECDOTES AND CURIOSA TOGETHER WITHSOME EVIDENCE RESPECTING THEEVANESCENT CHARACTER OFMOST INKS OF TO-DAY ANDAN EPITOME OF CHEMICO-LEGAL INK.BYDAVID N. CARVALHOPREFACE.The unfortunate conditions surrounding the almostuniversal use of the oddly named commercial and with...　

HERMOD AND HADVOR [32][32] From the Icelandic.Once upon a time there were a King and a Queen who had an onlydaughter, called Hadvor, who was fair and beautiful, and being anonly child, was heir to the kingdom. The King and Queen had alsoa foster son, named Hermod, who was just about the same age asHadvor, and was good-looking, as well as clever at most things.Hermod and Hadvor often played together while they were children,and liked each other so much that while they were still youngthey secretly plighted their troth to each other.As time went on the Queen fell sick, and suspecting that it w　

At the Back of the North Windby George MacDonaldCHAPTER ITHE HAY-LOFTI HAVE been asked to tell you about the back of the north wind.An old Greek writer mentions a people who lived there,and were so comfortable that they could not bear it any longer,and drowned themselves. My story is not the same as his.I do not think Herodotus had got the right account of the place.I am going to tell you how it fared with a boy who went there.He lived in a low room over a coach-house; and that was not by anymeans at the back of the north wind, as his mother very well knew....