THE SKETCH BOOKA ROYAL POETby Washington IrvingThough your body be confined,And soft love a prisoner bound,Yet the beauty of your mindNeither check nor chain hath found.Look out nobly, then, and dareEven the fetters that you wear.FLETCHER.ON A soft sunny morning in the genial month of May, I made anexcursion to Windsor Castle. It is a place full of storied and...　

To The Last Manby Zane GreyFOREWORDIt was inevitable that in my efforts to write romantic history of thegreat West I should at length come to the story of a feud. For longI have steered clear of this rock. But at last I have reached it andmust go over it, driven by my desire to chronicle the stirring eventsof pioneer days.Even to-day it is not possible to travel into the remote corners ofthe West without seeing the lives of people still affected by afighting past. How can the truth be told about the pioneering ofthe West if the struggle, the fight, the blood be left out? It cannot...　

A PERSONAL RECORDBY JOSEPH CONRADA FAMILIAR PREFACEAs a general rule we do not want much encouragement to talk aboutourselves; yet this little book is the result of a friendlysuggestion, and even of a little friendly pressure. I defendedmyself with some spirit; but, with characteristic tenacity, thefriendly voice insisted, "You know, you really must."It was not an argument, but I submitted at once. If one must! ....　

FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSENLITTLE TUKby Hans Christian AndersenYES, they called him Little Tuk, but it was not his real name;he had called himself so before he could speak plainly, and he meantit for Charles. It was all very well for those who knew him, but notfor strangers.Little Tuk was left at home to take care of his little sister,Gustava, who was much younger than himself, and he had to learn hislessons at the same time, and the two things could not very well be...　

THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONATHE TWOGENTLEMEN OFVERONAWilliam ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare15951- Page 2-THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONAACT I.2- Page 3-THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONASCENE I. Verona. An open place...　

A Psychological Counter-Current in Recent Fictionby William Dean HowellsIt is consoling as often as dismaying to find in what seems acataclysmal tide of a certain direction a strong drift to theopposite quarter. It is so divinable, if not so perceptible,that its presence may usually be recognized as a beginning of theturn in every tide which is sure, sooner or later, to come. Inreform, it is the menace of reaction; in reaction, it is thepromise of reform; we may take heart as we must lose heart fromit. A few years ago, when a movement which carried fiction to...　

Man and SupermanA COMEDY AND A PHILOSOPHYBy George Bernard ShawEPISTLE DEDICATORY TO ARTHUR BINGHAM WALKLEYMy dear Walkley:You once asked me why I did not write a Don Juan play. The levitywith which you assumed this frightful responsibility has probablyby this time enabled you to forget it; but the day of reckoninghas arrived: here is your play! I say your play, because quifacit per alium facit per se. Its profits, like its labor, belongto me: its morals, its manners, its philosophy, its influence onthe young, are for you to justify. You were of mature age when...　

THE LUMLEY AUTOGRAPHTHE LUMLEYAUTOGRAPHby Susan Fenimore Cooper1- Page 2-THE LUMLEY AUTOGRAPHTHE LUMLEY AUTOGRAPH.BY THE AUTHOR OF "RURAL HOURS," ETC.The month of November of the year sixteen hundred and wascheerless and dark, as November has never failed to be within the foggy,smoky bounds of the great city of London. It was one of the worst days ofthe season; what light there was seemed an emanation from the dull earth,...　

The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnardby Anatole FrancePart IThe LogDecember 24, 1849.I had put on my slippers and my dressing-gown. I wiped away a tear with which the north wind blowing over the quay had obscured my vision. A bright fire was leaping in the chimney of my study. Ice-crystals, shaped like fern-leaves, were sprouting over the windowpanes and concealed from me the Seine with its bridges and the Louvre of the Valois.I drew up my easy-chair to the hearth, and my table-volante, and took up so much of my place by the fire as Hamilcar deigned to allow me. Hamilcar was lying in front of th　

Warlord of Marsby Edgar Rice BurroughsCONTENTSOn the River IssUnder the MountainsThe Temple of the SunThe Secret TowerOn the Kaolian RoadA Hero in KaolNew AlliesThrough the Carrion CavesWith the Yellow MenIn DuranceThe Pity of Plenty"Follow the Rope!"The Magnet SwitchThe Tide of BattleRewardsThe New RulerTHE WARLORD OF MARSON THE RIVER ISSIn the shadows of the forest that flanks the crimson plain by...　

AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH.ITHE SLEDS WERE SINGING their eternal lament to the creaking of theharness and the tinkling bells of the leaders; but the men and dogswere tired and made no sound. The trail was heavy with new-fallensnow, and they had come far, and the runners, burdened with flint-likequarters of frozen moose, clung tenaciously to the unpacked surfaceand held back with a stubbornness almost human. Darkness was comingon, but there was no camp to pitch that night. The snow fell gently...　

THE $30,000 BEQUESTCHAPTER ILakeside was a pleasant little town of five or six thousand inhabitants,and a rather pretty one, too, as towns go in the Far West.It had church accommodations for thirty-five thousand, which isthe way of the Far West and the South, where everybody is religious,and where each of the Protestant sects is represented and has a plantof its own. Rank was unknown in Lakesideunconfessed, anyway;everybody knew everybody and his dog, and a sociable friendlinesswas the prevailing atmosphere.Saladin Foster was book-keeper in the principal store, and the only...　

The Chouansby Honore de BalzacTranslated by Katharine Prescott WormeleyDEDICATIONTo Monsieur Theodore Dablin, Merchant.To my first friend, my first work.De Balzac.THE CHOUANSIAN AMBUSCADEEarly in the year VIII., at the beginning of Vendemiaire, or, to conform to our own calendar, towards the close of September, 1799, a hundred or so of peasants and a large number of citizens, who had left Fougeres in the morning on their way to Mayenne, were going up the little mountain of La Pelerine, half-way between Fougeres and Ernee, a small town where travellers along that road are in the habit of resti　

Poems and Songsby Henry KendallCONTENTSTHE MUSE OF AUSTRALIA..3MOUNTAINS..3KIAMA..6...　

Of Interestby David HumeNothing is esteemed a more certain sign of the flourishingcondition of any nation than the lowness of interest: And with reason;though I believe the cause is somewhat different from what is commonlyapprehended. Lowness of interest is generally ascribed to plenty ofmoney. But money, however plentiful, has no other effect, if fixed,than to raise the price of labour. Silver is more common than gold;and therefore you receive a greater quantity of it for the samecommodities. But do you pay less interest for it? Interest in BATAVIAand JAMAICA is at 10 per cent. in PORTUGAL a　

BenitaAn African Romanceby H. Rider HaggardNOTESIt may interest readers of this story to know that its authorbelieves it to have a certain foundation in fact.It was said about five-and-twenty or thirty years ago that anadventurous trader, hearing from some natives in the territorythat lies at the back of Quilimane, the legend of a great treasureburied in or about the sixteenth century by a party of Portuguesewho were afterwards massacred, as a last resource attempted itsdiscovery by the help of a mesmerist. According to this history...