1.　　　　Fingers of lightning tore holes in the black skies as an angry cloudburst drenched the surrealistic landscape. It was 3 A.M. on a cold, wet morning in late November 1967. and the little houses scattered along the dirt road winding through the hills of West Virginia were all dark. Some seemed unoccupied and in the final stages of decay. Others were unpainted, neglected, forlorn. The whole setting was like the opening scene of a Grade B horror film from the 1930s.　　　　Along the road there came a stranger in a land where strangers were rare and suspect. He walked up to the door of a c　

　This is what happened. On the night that the worst heat wave in northern New England history finally broke-the night of July 19-the entire western Maine region was lashed with the most vicious thunderstorms I have ever seen.　We lived on Long Lake, and we saw the first of the storms beating its way across the water toward us just before dark. For an hour before, the air had been utterly still. The American flag that my father put up on our boathouse in 1936 lay limp against its pole. Not even its hem fluttered. The heat was like a solid thing, and it seemed as deep as sullen quarry-water. Tha　

Memoirs of Carwin the BiloquistCharles Brockden BrownChapter I.I was the second son of a farmer, whose place of residence was a western district of Pennsylvania. My eldest brother seemed fitted by nature for the employment to which he was destined. His wishes never led him astray from the hay-stack and the furrow. His ideas never ranged beyond the sphere of his vision, or suggested the possibility that to-morrow could differ from to-day. He could read and write, because he had no alternative between learning the lesson prescribed to him, and punishment. He was diligent, as long as fear u　

Children of the Whirlwindby Leroy ScottCHAPTER IIt was an uninspiring bit of street: narrow, paved with cobble; hot and noisy in summer, reeking with unwholesome mud during the drizzling and snow-slimed months of winter. It looked anything this May after noon except a starting-place for drama. But, then, the great dramas of life often avoid the splendid estates and trappings with which conventional romance would equip them, and have their beginnings in unlikeliest environment; and thence sweep on to a noble, consuming tragedy, or to a glorious unfolding of souls. Life is a composite of contra　

The Dwelling Place of Lighby Winston Churchill1917VOLUME 1.CHAPTER IIn this modern industrial civilization of which we are sometimes wont to boast,a certain glacier-like process may be observed. The bewildered, the helplessand there are manyare torn from the parent rock, crushed, rolled smooth, andleft stranded in strange places. Thus was Edward Bumpus severed and rolledfrom the ancestral ledge, from the firm granite of seemingly stable and lastingthings, into shifting shale; surrounded by fragments of cliffs from distantlands he had never seen. Thus, at five and fifty, he found himself ga　

Industrial BiographyIron Workers and Tool Makersby Samuel SmilesPREFACE.The Author offers the following book as a continuation, in a moregenerally accessible form, of the Series of Memoirs of Industrial Menintroduced in his Lives of the Engineers. While preparing that workhe frequently came across the tracks of celebrated inventors,mechanics, and iron-workersthe founders, in a great measure, of themodern industry of Britainwhose labours seemed to him well worthyof being traced out and placed on record, and the more so as theirlives presented many points of curious and original interest. Hav　

MEN OF IRONMEN OF IRONby Ernie Howard Pyle1- Page 2-MEN OF IRONINTRODUCTIONThe year 1400 opened with more than usual peacefulness in England.Only a few months before, Richard IIweak, wicked, and treacheroushad been dethroned, and Henry IV declared King in his stead. But it wasonly a seeming peacefulness, lasting but for a little while; for though KingHenry proved himself a just and a merciful manas justice and mercy...　

THE TRAGEDY OF JULIUS CAESARJULIUS CAESARWilliam Shakespeare15991- Page 2-THE TRAGEDY OF JULIUS CAESARACT I.2- Page 3-THE TRAGEDY OF JULIUS CAESARSCENE I. Rome. A street.Enter Flavius, Marullus, and certain Commoners.FLAVIUS. Hence, home, you idle creatures, get you home. Is this a...　

Poor Miss Finchby Wilkie CollinsTO MRS. ELLIOT,(OF THE DEANERY, BRISTOL).WILL YOU honor me by accepting the Dedication of this book, inremembrance of an uninterrupted friendship of many years?More than one charming blind girl, in fiction and in the drama, haspreceded "Poor Miss Finch." But, so far as I know, blindness in thesecases has been always exhibited, more or less exclusively, from the idealand the sentimental point of view. The attempt here made is to appeal toan interest of another kind, by exhibiting blindness as it really is. Ihave carefully gathered the information necessary to th　

Washington and his Comrades in ArmsA Chronicle of the War of Independenceby George WrongPREFATORY NOTEThe author is aware of a certain audacity in undertaking, himself a Briton, to appear in a company of American writers on American history and above all to write on the subject of Washington. If excuse is needed it is to be found in the special interest of the career of Washington to a citizen of the British Commonwealth of Nations at the present time and in the urgency with which the editor and publishers declared that such an interpretation would not be unwelcome to Americans and pressed up　

PersuasionJane Austen- Page 2-ELECBOOK CLASSICSebc0046. Jane Austen: PersuasionThis file is free for individual use only. It must not be altered or resold.Organisations wishing to use it must first obtain a licence.Low cost licenses are available. Contact us through our web site(C) The Electric Book Co 1998The Electric Book Company Ltd20 Cambridge Drive, London SE12 8AJ, UK+44 (0)181 488 3872 www.elecbook...　

The Dragon and The Raven: Or The Days of King AlfredBy G. A. HentyC O N T E N T SPREFACEI. THE FUGITIVESII. THE BATTLE OF KESTEVENIII. THE MASSACRE AT CROYLANDIV. THE INVASION OF WESSEXV. A DISCIPLINED BANDVI. THE SAXON FORTVII. THE DRAGONVIII. THE CRUISE OF THE DRAGONIX. A PRIS0NERX. THE COMBATXI. THE ISLE OF ATHELNEYXII. FOUR YEARS OF PEACEXIII. THE SIEGE OF PARISXlV. THE REPULSE OF THE NORSEMENXV. FRIENDS IN TROUBLEXVI. FREDAXVII. A LONG CHASEXVIII. FREDA DISCOVEREDXIX. UNITED...　

The Discovery of Guianaby Walter RaleighINTRODUCTORY NOTESir Walter Raleigh may be taken as the great typical figure of theage of Elizabeth. Courtier and statesman, soldier and sailor,scientist and man of letters, he engaged in almost all the mainlines of public activity in his time, and was distinguished inthem all.His father was a Devonshire gentleman of property, connected withmany of the distinguished families of the south of England. Walterwas born about 1552 and was educated at Oxford. He first sawmilitary service in the Huguenot army in France in 1569, and in...　

Rezanovby Gertrude AthertonWith an Introduction byWILLIAM MARION REEDYINTRODUCTIONA long list of works Gertrude Atherton has to her credit as a writer. She is indisputably a woman of genius. Not that her genius is distinctively feminine, though she is in matters historical a pas- sionate partisan. Most of the critics who approve her work agree that in the main she views life with somewhat of the masculine spirit of liberality. She is as much the realist as one can be who is saturated with the romance that is California, her birthplace and her home, if such a true cosmopolite as she can be　

The Inca of Perusalemby George Bernard ShawAN ALMOST HISTORICAL COMEDIETTAI must remind the reader that this playlet was written when itsprincipal character, far from being a fallen foe and virtually aprisoner in our victorious hands, was still the Caesar whoselegions we were resisting with our hearts in our mouths. Manywere so horribly afraid of him that they could not forgive me fornot being afraid of him: I seemed to be trifling heartlessly witha deadly peril. I knew better; and I have represented Caesar asknowing better himself. But it was one of the quaintnesses of...　

SoundsBut while we are confined to books, though the most select andclassic, and read only particular written languages, which arethemselves but dialects and provincial, we are in danger offorgetting the language which all things and events speak withoutmetaphor, which alone is copious and standard. Much is published,but little printed. The rays which stream through the shutter willbe no longer remembered when the shutter is wholly removed. Nomethod nor discipline can supersede the necessity of being foreveron the alert. What is a course of history or philosophy, or poetry,...