When the World ShookBeing an Account of the Great Adventureof Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnotby H. Rider HaggardDEDICATIONDitchingham, 1918.MY DEAR CURZON,More than thirty years ago you tried to protect me, then astranger to you, from one of the falsest and most malignantaccusations ever made against a writer.So complete was your exposure of the methods of those at workto blacken a person whom they knew to be innocent, that, as youwill remember, they refused to publish your analysis whichdestroyed their charges and, incidentally, revealed theirmotives.Although for this reason vindication came otherwise, your...
by Charles DarwinNext ChapterChapter 1 - Variation Under DomesticationWHEN we look to the individuals of the same variety or sub-variety of our older cultivated plants and animals, one of the first points which strikes us, is, that they generally differ much more from each other, than do the individuals of any one species or variety in a state of nature. When we reflect on the vast diversity of the plants and animals which have been cultivated, and which have varied during all ages under the most different climates and treatment, I think we are driven to conclude that this greater variability is simply due to our domestic productions having been raised under conditions of life not so unifor
The Ancient RegimeThe Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1by Hippolyte A. TainePREFACE.BOOK FIRST. The Structure of the Ancient Society.CHAPTER I. The Origin of Privileges.CHAPTER II. The Privileged Classes.CHAPTER III. Local Services Due by the Privileged Classes.CHAPTER IV. Public services due by the privileged classes.BOOK SECOND. Habits and Characters.CHAPTER I. Social Habits.CHAPTER II. Drawing room Life .CHAPTER III. Disadvantages of this Drawing room Life.BOOK THIRD. The Spirit and the Doctrine.CHAPTER I. Scientific Acquisition....
Madame BovaryBy Gustave FlaubertTranslated from the French by Eleanor Marx-AvelingTo Marie-Antoine-Jules SenardMember of the Paris Bar, Ex-President of the National Assembly,and Former Minister of the InteriorDear and Illustrious Friend,Permit me to inscribe your name at the head of this book, andabove its dedication; for it is to you, before all, that I oweits publication. Reading over your magnificent defence, my workhas acquired for myself, as it were, an unexpected authority.Accept, then, here, the homage of my gratitude, which, how greatsoever it is, will never attain the height of your eloquence andyour devotion.Gustave FlaubertParis, 12 April 1857...
POETICSby AristotleTranslated by S. H. ButcherPOETICS|1II PROPOSE to treat of Poetry in itself and of its various kinds,noting the essential quality of each, to inquire into the structure ofthe plot as requisite to a good poem; into the number and nature ofthe parts of which a poem is composed; and similarly into whateverelse falls within the same inquiry. Following, then, the order ofnature, let us begin with the principles which come first.Epic poetry and Tragedy, Comedy also and Dithyrambic poetry, and themusic of the flute and of the lyre in most of their forms, are all...
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 ordinary-looking sedan. Government? He guessed that his visitor was in his early forties, tall and very f
THE conditions of life in New York are so different from those of London that a story of this kind calls for a little explanation. There are several million inhabitants of New York. Not all of them eke out a precarious livelihood by murdering one another, but there is a definite section of the population which murdersnot casually, on the spur of the moment, but on definitely mercial lines at so many dollars per murder. The "gangs" of New York exist in fact. I have not invented them. Most of the incidents in this story are based on actual happenings. The Rosenthal case, where four men, headed by a genial individual calling himself "Gyp the Blood" shot a fellow-citizen in cold blood in a sp
Labour Defended against the Claims of CapitalOr the Unproductiveness of Capital proved with Reference to thePresent Combinations amongst Journeymenby Thomas Hodgskin1825NOTEIN all the debates on the law passed during the late session ofParliament, on account of the combinations of workmen, muchstress is laid on the necessity of protecting capital. Whatcapital performs is therefore a question of considerableimportance, which the author was, on this account, induced toexamine. As a result of this examination, it is his opinion thatall the benefits attributed to capital arise from co-existing andskilled labour. He feels himself, on this account, called on to...
NEW BURLESQUESNEW BURLESQUESby Bret Harte1- Page 2-NEW BURLESQUESCHAPTER IRUDOLPH OF TRULYRURALANIAWhen I state that I was own brother to Lord Burleydon, had an incomeof two thousand a year, could speak all the polite languages fluently, was apowerful swordsman, a good shot, and could ride anything from anelephant to a clotheshorse, I really think I have said enough to satisfy anyfeminine novel-reader of Bayswater or South Kensington that I was a hero....
FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSENTHE BIRD OF POPULAR SONGby Hans Christian AndersenIT is winter-time. The earth wears a snowy garment, and looks likemarble hewn out of the rock; the air is bright and clear; the windis sharp as a well-tempered sword, and the trees stand like branchesof white coral or blooming almond twigs, and here it is keen as on thelofty Alps.The night is splendid in the gleam of the Northern Lights, andin the glitter of innumerable twinkling stars.But we sit in the warm room, by the hot stove, and talk aboutthe old times. And we listen to this story:...
THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMSThe summer moon, which shines in so many a tale, was beaming overa broad extent of uneven country. Some of its brightest rays wereflung into a spring of water, where no traveller, toiling, as thewriter has, up the hilly road beside which it gushes, ever failedto quench his thirst. The work of neat hands and considerate artwas visible about this blessed fountain. An open cistern, hewnand hollowed out of solid stone, was placed above the waters,which filled it to the brim, but by some invisible outlet wereconveyed away without dripping down its sides. Though the basinhad not room for another drop, and the continual gush of water...
Creatures That Once Were Menby Maxim GorkyTranslated from the Russian by J. M. SHIRAZI and OthersIntroduction by G. K. CHESTERTONCONTENTSINTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . VCreatures That Once were Men . . . . 13Twenty-Six Men and a Girl . . . . .104Chelkash . . . . . . . . . . . . . .125My Fellow-Traveller . . . . . . . .178On a Raft . . . . . . . . . . . . .229INTRODUCTIONBy G. K. CHESTERTONIt is certainly a curious fact that so many of the voices ofwhat is called our modern religion have come from countrieswhich are not only simple, but may even be called barbaric....