Many a blond, northern moonrise,like a muted reflection, will softlyremind me and remind me again and again.It will be my bride, my alter ego.An incentive to find myself. I myselfam the moonrise of the south.　　-Paul Klee, The Tunisian Diaries　　Prologue　　It was just past midday, not long before the third summons to prayer, that Ammar ibn Khairan passed through the Gate of the Bells and entered the palace of Al-Fontina in Silvenes to kill the last of the khalifs of Al-Rassan.　　Passing into the Court of Lions he came to the three sets of double doors and paused before those that led to the garde　

　　1　　 mander James D. Swanson of the U.S. Navy was short, plump and crowding forty. He had jet-black hair topping a pink, cherubic face, and with the deep permanent creases of laughter lines radiating from his eyes and curving around his mouth, he was a dead ringer for the cheerful, happy-golucky extrovert who is the life and soul of the party where the guests park their brains along with their hats and coats. That, anyway, was how he struck me at first glance, but on the reasonable assumption that I might very likely find some other qualities in the man picked to mand the latest and most pow　

　Norman gave his ivory-handled screwdriver a final twist and secured the last screw into the side panel of the slim brass cylinder. Unclamping it from his vice, he lifted it lovingly by its shining axle, and held it towards the dust-smeared glass of the kitchenette window. It was a work of wonder and that was for certain. A mere ten inches in diameter and another one in thickness, the dim light painted a rainbow corona about its varnished circumference.　Norman carried it carefully across to his cluttered kitchen table and, elbowing aside a confusion of soiled crockery, placed it upon the twin　

THE SLEEPING-CARTHE SLEEPING-CAR1- Page 2-THE SLEEPING-CARI.SCENE: One side of a sleeping-car on the Boston and Albany Road.The curtains are drawn before most of the berths; from the hooks and rodshang hats, bonnets, bags, bandboxes, umbrellas, and other travelling gear;on the floor are boots of both sexes, set out for THE PORTER to black.THE PORTER is making up the beds in the upper and lower berths...　

The Way of All Fleshby Samuel ButlerCHAPTER IWhen I was a small boy at the beginning of the century I remember anold man who wore knee-breeches and worsted stockings, and who usedto hobble about the street of our village with the help of a stick.He must have been getting on for eighty in the year 1807, earlierthan which date I suppose I can hardly remember him, for I was bornin 1802. A few white locks hung about his ears, his shoulders werebent and his knees feeble, but he was still hale, and was muchrespected in our little world of Paleham. His name was Pontifex....　

Memoirs of General William T. Shermanby William Tecumseh ShermanVolume 1GENERAL W. T. SHERMANHIS COMRADES IN ARMS,VOLUNTEERS AND REGULARS.Nearly ten years have passed since the close of the civil war in America, and yet no satisfactory history thereof is accessible to the public; nor should any be attempted until the Government has published, and placed within the reach of students, the abundant materials that are buried in the War Department at Washington. These are in process of compilation; but, at the rate of progress for the past ten years, it is probable that a new century will come bef　

　TO TRACEY　We praise the Golden One, the Lady of Heaven, Lady of Fragrance,Eye of the Sun, the Great Goddess,Mistress of All the Gods,Lady of Turquoise, Mistress of Joy, Mistress of Music . . .that she may give us fine children,happiness, and a good husband.　　- Epithets of Hathor,piled from various sources　　 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS　　To err is human, and I am and I do, despite the fact that I go to considerable effort to get even small details right. I do not scruple to make use of my friends in this endeavor; several of them have read all or part of the manuscript and made suggestions. I am particula　

　THE RED CARPET　　THERE are moments of great luxury in the life of a secret agent. There are assignments on which he is required to act the part of a very rich man; occasions when he takes refuge in good living to efface the memory of danger and the shadow of death; and times when, as was now the case, he is a guest in the territory of an allied Secret Service.　From the moment the BOAC Stratocruiser taxied up to the International Air Terminal at Idlewild, James Bond was treated like royalty.　When he left the aircraft with the other passengers he had resigned himself to the notorious purgatory 　

CHAPTER 1 - RUMBLINGS AND DREAMS 8CHAPTER 2 - VISIONS AND HORIZONS 13CHAPTER 3 - EXPLORATIONS 19CHAPTER 4 - INTRODUCTIONS 24CHAPTER 5 - GETTING CLOSE 30CHAPTER 6 - BUT NOT TOO CLOSE 37CHAPTER 7 - SIMMERING 43CHAPTER 8 - THE DISH 48CHAPTER 9 - SPIRITS 53CHAPTER 10 - BOLT FROM THE BLUE 59CHAPTER 11 - HAND JIVE 65CHAPTER 12 - HANDOFF 67CHAPTER 13 - COLLEGIALITY 72CHAPTER 14 - DANGER SIGNAL 78CHAPTER 15 - MEETING PLACE 82CHAPTER 16 - A FUR HAT FOR THE WINTER 88CHAPTER 17 - FLASH TRAFFIC 94CHAPTER 18 - CLASSICAL MUSIC 100...　

　　　It was Jackstraw who heard it first-it was always Jackstraw, whose hearing was an even match for his phenomenal eyesight, who heard things first. Tired of having my exposed hands alternately frozen, I had dropped my book, zipped my sleeping-bag up to the chin and was drowsily watching him carving figurines from a length of inferior narwhal tusk when his hands suddenly fell still and he sat quite motionless. Then, unhurriedly as always, he dropped the piece of bone into the coffee-pan that simmered gently by the side of our oil-burner stove-curio collectors paid fancy prices for what they i　

　　The caretaker stirred when he heard the crunch of tires on gravel. There was barely any light left in the sky, and he had just made coffee and was reluctant to get up. But his curiosity got the better of him. Visitors to Alexandria seldom ventured into the cemetery at Ivy Hill; the historic town on the Potomac had a brace of other, more colorful attractions and amusements to offer the living. As for the locals, not many came out on a weekday; fewer still on a late afternoon when the April rains lashed the sky.　Peering through his gatehouse window, the caretaker saw a man get out of an ordin　

　　The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning. Then the soul-erosion produced by high gambling - a post of greed and fear and nervous tension - bees unbearable and the senses awake and revolt from it.　James Bond suddenly knew that he was tired. He always knew when his body or his mind had had enough and he always acted on the knowledge. This helped him to avoid staleness and the sensual bluntness that breeds mistakes.　He shifted himself unobtrusively away from the roulette he had been playing and went to stand for a moment at the brass rail which surrounde　

　　To even the least sensitive and perceptive beholder the Morning Rose, at this stage of her long and highly chequered career, must have seemed ill-named, for if ever a vessel could fairly have been said to be approaching, if not actually arrived at, the sunset of her days it was this one. Officially designated an Arctic Steam Trawler, the Morning Rose, 560 gross tons, 173 feet in length, 30 in beam and with a draught, unladen but fully provisioned with fuel and water, of 14.3 feet, had, in fact, been launched from the Jarrow slipways as far back as 1926, the year of the General Strike.　The M　

　　Chapter One Who I am　1　These are the things I know:　Outerbridge Island has briny water running beneath its rocks, a subterranean series of narrow channels between the Sound and the Atlantic.　You can see the entrances to these channels on the northern side of the island at low tide. These channels feed into the Great Salt Pond on the westerly side of the island before it empties into the sea. It was said that once-upon-a-time, a Dutch trading ship smashed up against the rocks, and local pirates fed upon the treasures found within the hold of the ship. The treasure, it is said, was buried in 　

On Books and the Housing of Themby William Ewart GladstoneIn the old age of his intellect (which atthis point seemed to taste a little ofdecrepitude), Strauss declared [1] that the doctrine ofimmortality has recently lost the assistanceof a passable argument, inasmuch as it hasbeen discovered that the stars are inhabited;for where, he asks, could room now be foundfor such a multitude of souls? Again, in viewof the current estimates of prospectivepopulation for this earth, some people have begun toentertain alarm for the probable condition of...　

The Brotherhood of Consolationby Honore de BalzacTranslated by Katharine Prescott WormeleyFIRST EPISODEMADAME DE LA CHANTERIEITHE MALADY OF THE AGEOn a fine evening in the month of September, 1836, a man about thirtyyears of age was leaning on the parapet of that quay from which aspectator can look up the Seine from the Jardin des Plantes to Notre-Dame, and down, along the vast perspective of the river, to theLouvre. There is not another point of view to compare with it in thecapital of ideas. We feel ourselves on the quarter-deck, as it were,...