Excerpt: THE portmanteau, which to Kenneth Dale?s strong arm had been little more than a feather?weight on leaving the station, seemed to have grown heavier by magic in the course of the half?mile that brought him to Lord Churt?s country house. He put the portmanteau down in the porch with a sense of relief to his cramped arm, and rang the bell. He had to wait for a few minutes, and then Lord Churt opened the door in person. His round, rubicund face, that would hardly ha...

A DISCUSSION SOMEWHAT IN THE AIR The flying ship of Professor Lucifer sang through the skies like a silver arrow; the bleak white steel of it, gleaming in the bleak blue emptiness of the evening. That it was far above the earth was no expression for it; to the two men in it, it seemed to be far above the stars. The professor had himself invented the flying machine, and had also invented nearly everything in it. Every sort of tool or apparatus had, in consequence, to the ...

Excerpt: THE pages which follow have been extracted from a pile of manuscript which was apparently meant for the eye of one woman only. She seems to have been the writer?s childhood?s friend. They had parted as children, or very little more than children. Years passed. Then something recalled to the woman the companion of her young days and she wrote to him: ?I have been hearing of you lately. I know where life has brought you. You certainly selected your own road. But t...

Preface: 1. By transmitting to thee, my very dear friend, this fourth book of the work which is [entitled] The Detection and Refuation of False Knowledge, I shall, as I have promised, add weight, by means of the words of the Lord, to what I have already advanced; so that thou also, as thou hast requested, mayest obtain from me the means of confuting all the heretics everywhere, and not permit them, beaten back at all points, to launch out further into the deep of error, ...

Excerpt: THE afternoon sun shed down his glorious rays on the grassy churchyard, making the shadow, cast by the old yew?tree under which we sat, seem deeper and deeper by contrast. The everlasting hum of myriads of summer insects made luxurious lullaby.

THE story of the falling in love of Philip Floyd at the Settlement School on Perilous Creek soon after his thirteenth birthday, and of the transforming effects of the tender passion upon his person and character, has already been related. Under the exacting requirements of little Dilsey Warrick, his earwashings, head-combings, tooth-brushings, and clothes-mendings, not to speak of his violent attacks of manners and generosity, were such as to make Miss Loring wish that e...

Excerpt: Thou'rt beautiful, my flower,?my winter flower!? These many weeks I've watch?d thy graceful mesh Of silvery roots, making their busy way Down through the watery element, intent To reach the bottom of thy crystal vase, That deck?d thy mantel. Then, came bursting forth From thy brown bulb, a coronal of leaves, A stalk,?a spike of buds,?and last, thy head,? Heavy with floral bells, and rich with sweets, My glorious hyacinth. Day after day, Thy radiant charms attrac...

Preface de l'Editeur: L'immense correspondance de Voltaire ne contient pas un mot qui puisse faire connaître l'epoque de la publication de Micromegas . L'edition que je crois l'originale est sans millesime et avec un titre grave. L'abbe Trublet, dans ses Memoires sur Fontenelle, n'hesite pas a dire que Micromegas est dirige contre Fontenelle; mais il ne parle pas de la date de sa publication. J'ai donc conserve celle que donnent les editions de Kehl (1752). Il existe cep...

At certain moments during the days that followed the degree of tension her relationship with Ditmar had achieved tested the limits of Janet's ingenuity and powers of resistance. Yet the sense of mastery at being able to hold such a man in leash was by no means unpleasurable to a young woman of her vitality and spirit. There was always the excitement that the leash might break -- and then what? Here was a situation, she knew instinctively, that could not last, one fraught...

Excerpt: 1. A CORRECTION OF STATEMENT. Before attempting to define further in this Symposium the behaviourist?s position on thinking, it would seem best to discuss for a moment some of the statements the behaviourist has already made. In advance of any argument I think we can say that he has never really held the view that thinking is merely the action of language mechanisms. Possibly my own loose way of writing may have lent colour to such a view.

Excerpt: THE papers of which this volume is composed originally appeared in the London Magazine, between the years 1821 and 1824. It was the author?s intention to continue the series of Lives to a later period, but a change in the proprietorship of the Magazine prevented the completion of his plan. They are now for the first time published in a separate form, and under their author?s name. In seeing the work through the press, the Editor has had occasion only to alter on...

Preface: AS will be seen later on, Pygmalion needs, not a preface, but a sequel, which I have supplied in its due place. The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it. They spell it so abominably that no man can teach himself what it sounds like. It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him. German and Spanish are accessible to foreigners: English is not acces...

If I have one fault—which I am not prepared to admit—it is that I am too good-natured. I remember on one occasion, when staying in the country with a lady who had known me from boyhood, protesting in a restrained, gentlemanly manner when her youthful son began to claw me at breakfast. At breakfast, I'll trouble you, and an early one at that! Well, James, she said, I always thought that you were good- natured, whatever else you were! A remark which, besides containing a n...

Excerpt: THE Translator to the Reader 1752 The following work may with the strictest justice be said to have done honour to human nature as well as to the great abilities of the author. The wisest and most learned man, and those most distinguished by birth and the elevation of their stations, have, in every country in Europe, considered it as a most excellent performance. And may we be permitted to add, that a sovereign prince [1] as justly celebrated for his probity and...

A Child of the Revolution This is the story which Sir Percy Blakeney, Bart., told to His Royal highness that evening in the Assembly Rooms at Bath. The talk was of the recent events in France, the astounding fall of Robespierre: the change in the whole aspect of the unfortunate country: and His Royal Highness expressed his opinion that among all those men who had made and fostered the Revolution, there was not one who was anything but a scoundrel, a reprobate, a murderer, and worker of iniquity.

Excerpt: HOWE?S MASQUERADE. One afternoon, last summer, while walking along Washington street, my eye was attracted by a signboard protruding over a narrow arch?way, nearly opposite the Old South Church. The sign represented the front of a stately edifice, which was designated as the ?Old Province House, kept by Thomas Waite.? I was glad to be thus reminded of a purpose, long entertained, of visiting and rambling over the mansion of the old royal governors of Massachuset...

November 1st. Up betimes, and down to the waterside (calling and drinking a dram of the bottle at Michell's, but saw not Betty), and thence to White Hall and to Sir W. Coventry's lodging, where he and I alone a good while, where he gives me the full of the Duke of Albemarle's and Prince's narratives, given yesterday by the House, wherein they fall foul of him and Sir G. Carteret in something about the dividing of the fleete, and the Prince particularly charging the Commi...

Excerpt: 026.001 Ta. Sin. Mim. 026.002 These are revelations of the Scripture that maketh plain. 026.003 It may be that thou tormentest thyself (O Muhammad) because they believe not. 026.004 If We will, We can send down on them from the sky a portent so that their necks would remain bowed before it. 026.005 Never cometh there unto them a fresh reminder from the Beneficent One, but they turn away from it.

Preface: There is a large class of readers who seek books for the sake of the amusement they afford. Many are not very fastidious as to the character of those they select, and consequently the press of the present day teems with works which are not only valueless, so far as imparting information is concerned, but actually deleterious in their moral tendency, and calculated to vitiate and enervate the mind. Such publications as pander to a prurient taste find a large circ...

LEBBAEUS, who also is Thaddaeus, was of the city of Edessa—and it is the metropolis of Osroene, in the interior of the Armenosyrians—an Hebrew by race, accomplished and most learned in the divine writings. He came to Jerusalem to worship in the days of John the Baptist; and having heard his preaching and seen his angelic life, he was baptized, and his name was called Thaddaeus. And having seen the appearing of Christ, and His teaching, and His wonderful works, he followe...