FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSENTHE UGLY DUCKLINGby Hans Christian AndersenIT was lovely summer weather in the country, and the goldencorn, the green oats, and the haystacks piled up in the meadows lookedbeautiful. The stork walking about on his long red legs chattered inthe Egyptian language, which he had learnt from his mother. Thecorn-fields and meadows were surrounded by large forests, in the midstof which were deep pools. It was, indeed, delightful to walk aboutin the country. In a sunny spot stood a pleasant old farm-house...
The Underground Cityby Jules VerneORThe Black Indies(Sometimes Called The Child of the Cavern)CHAPTER I CONTRADICTORY LETTERSTo Mr. F. R. Starr, Engineer, 30 Canongate, Edinburgh.IF Mr. James Starr will come to-morrow to the Aberfoyle coal-mines, Dochart pit, Yarrow shaft, a communication of an interesting nature will be made to him."Mr. James Starr will be awaited for, the whole day, at the Callander station, by Harry Ford, son of the old overman Simon Ford.""He is requested to keep this invitation secret."Such was the letter which James Starr received by the first post, on the 3rd December,
The History of the Telephoneby Herbert N. CassonPREFACEThirty-five short years, and presto! the newborn art of telephony is fullgrown. Three million telephones are now scattered abroad in foreign countries, and seven millions are massed here, in the land of its birth.So entirely has the telephone outgrown the ridicule with which, as many people can well remember, it was first received, that it is now in most places taken for granted, as though it were a part of the natural phenomena of this planet. It has so marvellously extended the facilities of conversationthat "art in which a man has all
Samuel Brohl & Companyby Victor CherbuliezCHAPTER IWere the events of this nether sphere governed by the calculus of probabilities, Count Abel Larinski and Mlle. Antoinette Moriaz would almost unquestionably have arrived at the end of their respective careers without ever having met. Count Larinski lived in Vienna, Austria; Mlle. Moriaz never had been farther from Paris than Cormeilles, where she went every spring to remain throughout the fine weather. Neither at Cormeilles nor at Paris had she ever heard of Count Larinski; and he, on his part, was wholly unaware of the existence of Mlle. Mor
The Governess [The Little Female Academy]by Sarah FieldingThere lived in the northern parts of England, a gentlewoman who undertook the education of young ladies; and this trust she endeavoured faithfully to discharge, by instructing those committed to her care in reading, writing, working, and in all proper forms of behaviour. And though her principal aim was to improve their minds in all useful knowledge; to render them obedient to their superiors, and gentle, kind, and affectionate to each other; yet did she not omit teaching them an exact neatness in their persons and dress, and a perfec
Lachesby PlatoTranslated by Benjamin JowettINTRODUCTION.Lysimachus, the son of Aristides the Just, and Melesias, the son of theelder Thucydides, two aged men who live together, are desirous of educatingtheir sons in the best manner. Their own education, as often happens withthe sons of great men, has been neglected; and they are resolved that theirchildren shall have more care taken of them, than they received themselvesat the hands of their fathers....
The Vanished Messengerby E. Phillips OppenheimCHAPTER IThere were very few people upon Platform Number Twenty-one ofLiverpool Street Station at a quarter to nine on the eveningof April 2 - possibly because the platform in question is one ofthe most remote and least used in the great terminus. Thestation-master, however, was there himself, with an inspector inattendance. A dark, thick-set man, wearing a long travellingulster and a Homburg hat, and carrying in his hand a brown leatherdressing-case, across which was painted in black letters the nameMR. JOHN P. DUNSTER, was standing a few yard
THE SKETCH BOOKA SUNDAY IN LONDON*by Washington Irving* Part of a sketch omitted in the previous editions.IN A preceding paper I have spoken of an English Sunday in thecountry, and its tranquillizing effect upon the landscape; but whereis its sacred influence more strikingly apparent than in the veryheart of that great Babel, London? On this sacred day, the giganticmonster is charmed into repose. The intolerable din and struggle ofthe week are at an end. The shops are shut. The fires of forges and...
Euthydemusby PlatoTranslated by Benjamin JowettINTRODUCTION.The Euthydemus, though apt to be regarded by us only as an elaborate jest, has also a very serious purpose. It may fairly claim to be the oldest treatise on logic; for that science originates in the misunderstandings which necessarily accompany the first efforts of speculation. Several of the fallacies which are satirized in it reappear in the Sophistici Elenchi of Aristotle and are retained at the end of our manuals of logic. But if the order of history were followed, they should be placed not at the end but at the beginning of t
THE COMPARISON OF DEMOSTHENES AND CICEROby Plutarchtranslated by John DrydenTHESE are the most memorable circumstances recorded in history ofDemosthenes and Cicero which have come to our knowledge. Butomitting an exact comparison of their respective faculties inspeaking, yet thus much seems fit to be said; that Demosthenes, tomake himself a master in rhetoric, applied all the faculties he had,natural or acquired, wholly that way that he far surpassed in forceand strength of eloquence all his contemporaries in political and...
THE INDISCRETION OF ELSBETHThe American paused. He had evidently lost his way. For the lasthalf hour he had been wandering in a medieval town, in a profoundmedieval dream. Only a few days had elapsed since he had left thesteamship that carried him hither; and the accents of his owntongue, the idioms of his own people, and the sympathetic communityof New World tastes and expressions still filled his mind until hewoke up, or rather, as it seemed to him, was falling asleep in thepast of this Old World town which had once held his ancestors....
RECORDS OF A FAMILY OF ENGINEERSby ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSONCONTENTSINTRODUCTION: THE SURNAME OF STEVENSONI. DOMESTIC ANNALSII. THE SERVICE OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTSIII. THE BUILDING OF THE BELL ROCKRECORDS OFA FAMILY OF ENGINEERSINTRODUCTIONTHE SURNAME OF STEVENSONFROM the thirteenth century onwards, the name, under the various disguises of Stevinstoun, Stevensoun, Stevensonne, Stenesone, and Stewinsoune, spread across Scotland from the mouth of the Firth of Forth to the mouth of the Firth of Clyde. Four times at least it occurs as a place-name. There is a parish of Stevenston in Cunningham;
AFTER THE DANCE"AND you say that a man cannot, of himself,understand what is good and evil; that it is allenvironment, that the environment swamps theman. But I believe it is all chance. Take myown case . . ."Thus spoke our excellent friend, Ivan Vasilie-vich, after a conversation between us on the impos-sibility of improving individual character withouta change of the conditions under which men live.Nobody had actually said that one could not ofoneself understand good and evil; but it was ahabit of Ivan Vasilievich to answer in this way thethoughts aroused in his own mind by conversation,.
THE DECAMERONby Boccaccio GiovanniTHE INDUCTION OF THE AUTHOR TO THE FOLLOWING DISCOURSESGracious Ladies, so often as I consider with my selfe, and observerespectively, how naturally you are enclined to compassion; as manytimes doe I acknowledge, that this present worke of mine, will (inyour judgement) appeare to have but a harsh and offensive beginning,in regard of the mournfull remembrance it beareth at the verieentrance of the last Pestilentiall mortality, universally hurtfull...
The Fifth StringThe Fifth StringBy John Philip Sousa1- Page 2-The Fifth StringIThe coming of Diotti to America had awakened more than usualinterest in the man and his work. His marvelous success as violinist in theleading capitals of Europe, together with many brilliant contributions tothe literature of his instrument, had long been favorably commented on by...
Pazby Honore de BalzacTranslated by Katharine Prescott WormeleyDEDICATIONDedicated to the Comtesse Clara Maffei.PAZ(LA FAUSSE MAITRESSE)IIn September, 1835, one of the richest heiresses of the faubourgSaint-Germain, Mademoiselle du Rouvre, the only daughter of theMarquis du Rouvre, married Comte Adam Mitgislas Laginski, a youngPolish exile.We ask permission to write these Polish names as they are pronounced,to spare our readers the aspect of the fortifications of consonants by...