THE SKETCH BOOKCHRISTMAS EVEby Washington IrvingSaint Francis and Saint BenedightBlesse this house from wicked wight;From the night-mare and the goblin,That is hight good fellow Robin;Keep it from all evil spirits,Fairies, weezels, rats, and ferrets:From curfew timeTo the next prime.CARTWRIGHT.IT WAS a brilliant moonlight night, but extremely cold; our chaisewhirled rapidly over the frozen ground; the postboy smacked his whip...　

Moral Emblemsby Robert Louis StevensonContentsNOT I, AND OTHER POEMSI. Some like drinkII. Here, perfect to a wishIII. As seamen on the seasIV. The pamphlet here presentedMORAL EMBLEMS: A COLLECTION OF CUTS AND VERSESI. See how the children in the printII. Reader, your soul upraise to seeIII. A PEAK IN DARIEN - Broad-gazing on untrodden landsIV. See in the print how, moved by whimV. Mark, printed on the opposing pageMORAL EMBLEMS: A SECOND COLLECTION OF CUTS AND VERSESI. With storms a-weather, rocks-a-leeII. The careful angler chose his nookIII. The Abbot for a walk went out...　

THE DEATH OF JEANThe death of Jean Clemens occurred early in the morning ofDecember 24, 1909. Mr. Clemens was in great stress of mind whenI first saw him, but a few hours later I found him writingsteadily."I am setting it down," he said, "everything. It is arelief to me to write it. It furnishes me an excuse forthinking." At intervals during that day and the next I lookedin, and usually found him writing. Then on the evening of the26th, when he knew that Jean had been laid to rest in Elmira, hecame to my room with the manuscript in his hand."I have finished it," he said; "read it. I can form noopinion of it myself. If you think it worthy, some dayat the...　

SHERLOCK HOLMESTHE ADVENTURE OF THE VEILED LODGERby Sir Arthur Conan DoyleWhen one considers that Mr. Sherlock Holmes was in active practicefor twenty-three years, and that during seventeen of these I wasallowed to cooperate with him and to keep notes of his doings, it willbe clear that I have a mass of material at my command. The problem hasalways been not to find but to choose. There is the long row ofyear-books which fill a shelf, and there are the dispatch-cases filledwith documents, a perfect quarry for the student not only of crime butof the social and official scandals of the late Victorian era....　

American Literary Centersby William Dean HowellsOne of the facts which we Americans have a difficulty in making clear toa rather inattentive world outside is that, while we have apparently aliterature of our own, we have no literary centre. We have so muchliterature that from time to time it seems even to us we must have aliterary centre. We say to ourselves, with a good deal of logic, Wherethere is so much smoke there must be some fire, or at least a fireplace.But it is just here that, misled by tradition, and even by history, wedeceive ourselves. Really, we have no fireplace for such fire as we havekindled; or, if any one is disposed to deny this, then I say, we have a...　

Of Refinement in the Artsby David HumeLUXURY is a word of an uncertain signification, and may betaken in a good as well as in a bad sense. In general, it meansgreat refinement in the gratification of the senses; and anydegree of it may be innocent or blameable, according to the age,or country, or condition of the person. The bounds between thevirtue and the vice cannot here be exactly fixed, more than inother moral subjects. To imagine, that the gratifying of anysense, or the indulging of any delicacy in meat, drink, orapparel, is of itself a vice, can never enter into a head, thatis not disordered by the frenzies of enthusiasm. I have, indeed,heard of a monk abroad, who, because the window　

THE SKETCH BOOKWESTMINSTER ABBEYby Washington IrvingWhen I behold, with deep astonishment,To famous Westminster how there resorteLiving in brasse or stoney monument,The princes and the worthies of all sorte;Doe not I see reformde nobilitie,Without contempt, or pride, or ostentation,And looke upon offenselesse majesty,Naked of pomp or earthly domination?And how a play-game of a painted stoneContents the quiet now and silent sprites,Whome all the world which late they stood upon...　

The Cruise of the Dolphinby Thomas Bailey Aldrich( An episode from The Story of a Bad Boy, the narrator being TomBailey, the hero of the tale.)Every Rivermouth boy looks upon the sea as being in some way mixedup with his destiny. While he is yet a baby lying in his cradle, hehears the dull, far-off boom of the breakers; when he is older, hewanders by the sandy shore, watching the waves that come plungingup the beach like white-maned sea-horses, as Thoreau calls them;his eye follows the lessening sail as it fades into the bluehorizon, and he burns for the time when he shall stand on thequarter-deck of his own ship, and go sailing proudly across thatmysterious waste of waters....　

NEGORE, THE COWARDHE had followed the trail of his fleeing people for eleven days,and his pursuit had been in itself a flight; for behind him he knewfull well were the dreaded Russians, toiling through the swampylowlands and over the steep divides, bent on no less than theextermination of all his people. He was travelling light. Arabbit-skin sleeping-robe, a muzzle-loading rifle, and a few poundsof sun-dried salmon constituted his outfit. He would havemarvelled that a whole people - women and children and aged - couldtravel so swiftly, had he not known the terror that drove them on.It was in the old days of the Russian occupancy of Alaska, when the...　

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 at 6; though these places,as we may learn from the prices of every thing, abound more in gold...　

Emile Zolaby William Dean HowellsIn these times of electrical movement, the sort of constructionin the moral world for which ages were once needed, takes placealmost simultaneously with the event to be adjusted in history,and as true a perspective forms itself as any in the past. A fewweeks after the death of a poet of such great epical imagination,such great ethical force, as Emile Zola, we may see him asclearly and judge him as fairly as posterity alone was formerlysupposed able to see and to judge the heroes that antedated it.The present is always holding in solution the elements of thefuture and the past, in fact; and whilst Zola still lived, in the...　

FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSENTHE STORY OF THE WINDby Hans Christian Andersen"NEAR the shores of the great Belt, which is one of the straitsthat connect the Cattegat with the Baltic, stands an old mansionwith thick red walls. I know every stone of it," says the Wind. "I sawit when it was part of the castle of Marck Stig on the promontory. Butthe castle was obliged to be pulled down, and the stone was used againfor the walls of a new mansion on another spot- the baronial residenceof Borreby, which still stands near the coast. I knew them well, thosenoble lords and ladies, the successive generations that dwelt there;...