Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange ThingsBy Lafcadio HearnA Note On Japanese PronunciationAlthough simplified, the following general rules will help the readerunfamiliar with Japanese to come close enough to Japanese pronunciation.There are five vowels: a (as in fAther), i (as in machIne), u (as infOOl), e (as in fEllow), and o (as in mOle). Although certain vowels becomenearly "silent" in some environments, this phenomenon can be safely ignoredfor the purpose at hand.Consonants roughly approximate their corresponding sounds in English,...　

TARTARIN OF TARASCONbyALPHONSE DAUDETEPISODE THE FIRSTIN TARASCONI. The Garden Round the Giant Trees.My first visit to Tartarin of Tarascon has remained a never-to-be- forgotten date in my life; although quite ten or a dozen years ago, I remember it better than yesterday.At that time the intrepid Tartarin lived in the third house on the left as the town begins, on the Avignon road. A pretty little villa in the local style, with a front garden and a balcony behind, the walls glaringly white and the venetians very green; and always about the doorsteps a brood of little Savoyard shoeblackguards　

Edingburgh Picturesque Notesby Robert Louis StevensonCHAPTER I.INTRODUCTORY.THE ancient and famous metropolis of the North sitsoverlooking a windy estuary from the slope and summit ofthree hills. No situation could be more commanding forthe head city of a kingdom; none better chosen for nobleprospects. From her tall precipice and terraced gardensshe looks far and wide on the sea and broad champaigns.To the east you may catch at sunset the spark of the Maylighthouse, where the Firth expands into the German...　

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, rendered into English verseby Edward FitzgeraldContents:Introduction.First Edition.Fifth Edition.Notes.IntroductionOmar Khayyam,The Astronomer-Poet of Persia.Omar Khayyam was born at Naishapur in Khorassan in the latter half ofour Eleventh, and died within the First Quarter of our TwelfthCentury. The Slender Story of his Life is curiously twined about thatof two other very considerable Figures in their Time and Country: oneof whom tells the Story of all Three. This was Nizam ul Mulk, Vizier...　

IBill never realized that sex was the cause of it all. If the sun that morning had not been burning so warmly in the brassy sky of Phigerinadon II, and if he had not glimpsed the sugar-white and wine-barrel-wide backside of Inga-Maria Calyphigia, while she bathed in the stream, he might have paid more attention to his plowing than to the burning pressures of heterosexuality and would have driven his furrow to the far side of the hill before the seductive music sounded along the road. He might never have heard it, and his life would have been very, very different. But he did hear it and droppe　

　　D 0 R T M U N D E R, wearing black and carrying his canvas bag of burglar tools, walked across the rooftops from the parking garage on the corner. At the sixth roof, he looked over the front edge to be absolutely sure he was on the right building, and felt dizzy for just a second when he saw the distant street six stories down, floating like a ship in the glare of streetlights. Cars were parked along both sides, leaving one black lane open in the middle. A cab was going by down there, its yellow top glinting in the light. Behind the cab came a slow-moving police car; the unlit flasher dome 　

The Red House Mysteryby A.A. Milne1The Red House MysteryTO JOHN VINE MILNE MY DEAR FATHER,Like all really nice people, you have a weakness for detective stories,and feel that there are not enough of them. So, after all that you havedone for me, the least that I can do for you is to write you one. Here itis: with more gratitude and affection than I can well put down here.A.A.M.2The Red House MysteryCHAPTER IMrs. Stevens is FrightenedIn the drowsy heat of the summer afternoon the Red House wastaking its siesta. There was a lazy murmur of bees in the flower-borders,...　

The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, V2by Duc de Saint-SimonMEMOIRS OF LOUIS XIV AND HIS COURT AND OF THE REGENCYBY THE DUKE OF SAINT-SIMONVOLUME 2.CHAPTER IXDeath of Archbishop Harlay.Scene at Conflans."The Good Langres."A Scene at Marly.Princesses Smoke Pipes!Fortunes of Cavoye.Mademoiselle de Coetlogon.Madame de Guise.Madame de Miramion.Madamede Sevigne.Father Seraphin.An Angry Bishop.Death of La Bruyere.Burglary by a Duke.Proposed Marriage of the Duc de Bourgogne.The...　

North America-Volume 1by Anthony TrollopeCONTENTS OF VOL. I.CHAPTER I.INTRODUCTIONCHAPTER II.NewportRhode IslandCHAPTER III.Maine, New Hampshire, and VermontCHAPTER IV.Lower CanadaCHAPTER V.Upper CanadaCHAPTER VI.The Connection of the Canadas with Great BritainCHAPTER VII.NiagaraCHAPTER VIII.North and WestCHAPTER IX.From Niagara to the MississippiCHAPTER X.The Upper MississippiCHAPTER XI.Ceres AmericanaCHAPTER XII.Buffalo to New YorkCHAPTER XIII.An Apology for the WarCHAPTER XIV.New YorkCHAPTER XV.The Constitution of the State of New York...　

Chapter XIII of Volume II (Chap. 36)IF Elizabeth, when Mr. Darcy gave her the letter, did not expect it to contain a renewal of his offers, she had formed no expectation at all of its contents. But such as they were, it may be well supposed how eagerly she went through them, and what a contrariety of emotion they excited. Her feelings as she read were scarcely to be defined. With amazement did she first understand that he believed any apology to be in his power; and stedfastly was she persuaded that he could have no explanation to give, which a just sense of shame would not conceal. With a st　

Mrs. General Talboysby Anthony TrollopeWhy Mrs. General Talboys first made up her mind to pass the winterof 1859 at Rome I never clearly understood. To myself she explainedher purposes, soon after her arrival at the Eternal City, bydeclaring, in her own enthusiastic manner, that she was inspired bya burning desire to drink fresh at the still living fountains ofclassical poetry and sentiment. But I always thought that there wassomething more than this in it. Classical poetry and sentiment weredoubtless very dear to her; but so also, I imagine, were the...　

　　The story is based on a screen treatment by K. McClory, J. Whittingham, and the author.　　1. "Take It Easy, Mr. Bond"　　It was one of those days when it seemed to James Bond that all life, as someone put it, was nothing but a heap of six to four against.　　To begin with he was ashamed of himself-a rare state of mind. He had a hangover, a bad one, with an aching head and stiff joints. When he coughed-smoking too much goes with drinking too much and doubles the hangover-a cloud of small luminous black spots swam across his vision like amoebae in pond water. The one drink too many signals itself 　

　　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　

　Up at the unpeopled borderland of cloudy heaven, where unending wind drove eternal snow between and over high gray rocks, the gods and goddesses were gathering.　In the grayness just before dawn, their tall forms came like smoke out of the gray and smoking wind, to take on solidity and detail. Unperturbed by wind or weather, their garments flapping in the shrieking howl of air, they stood upon the rooftop of the world and waited as their numbers grew. Steadily more powers streaked across the sky, bringing reinforcement.　The shortest of the standing figures was taller than humanity, but from t　

　　December 29th:　A lone figure, hunched down against the howling winter wind, moved step by frozen step through the Colorado wilderness. He was ill clad for such a winter trek, wearing soft thin boots and a clinging mauve with-sparkles tunic. His only defenses against the cold were an engineer cap on his platinum-blond thin hair and a scarf made of an old piece of furniture fabric wrapped several times around his thin pale neck.　The wanderer was nearly frozen to death, his cracked and bleeding gloveless hands shoved into small pockets lined with tissue paper. His pale face, buried in the fabr　

Elinor Wyllysby Susan Fenimore CooperIN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II.EDITED BY J. FENIMORE COOPER.CHAPTER I {would be CHAPTER XXIV, if numbered from beginning of Vol. I}"But there is matter for another rhyme; And I to this would add another tale." WORDSWORTH."And how do Miss and Madam do; The little boy, and all? All tight and well? and how do you, Good Mr. What-do-you-call?" COWPER.{William Wordsworth (English poet, 1770-1850), "Poems of the Imagination: Hart-Leap Well" lines 95-96. William Cowper (English poet, 1731-1800), "The Yearly Distress, or, Tithing Time at Stock in Essex" lines 33-36}...