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 Life of Horatio Lord Nelsonby Robert SoutheyTO JOHN WILSON CROKER ESQ.,LL.D., F.R.S.,SECRETARY OF THE ADMIRALTY;WHO, BY THE OFFICIAL SITUATION WHICH HE SO ABLY FILLS,IS QUALIFIED TO APPRECIATE ITS HISTORICAL ACCURACY;AND WHO,AS A MEMBER OF THE REPUBLIC OF LETTERS,IS EQUALLY QUALIFIED TO DECIDE UPON ITSLITERARY MERITS,THIS WORKIS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY HIS FRIEND,THE AUTHORMany Lives of Nelson have been written; one is yet wanting, clear and concise enough to become a manual for the young sailor, which he may carry about with him till he has treasured it up for example in his memory and in his heart. In attempting such a work I shall write the eulogy of our great national hero, for th　

Michael, Brother of Jerryby Jack LondonFOREWORDVery early in my life, possibly because of the insatiable curiosity that was born in me, I came to dislike the performances of trained animals. It was my curiosity that spoiled for me this form of amusement, for I was led to seek behind the performance in order to learn how the performance was achieved. And what I found behind the brave show and glitter of performance was not nice. It was a body of cruelty so horrible that I am confident no normal person exists who, once aware of it, could ever enjoy looking on at any trained-animal turn.Now I am not a namby-pamby. By the book reviewers and the namby- pambys I am esteemed a sort of primitiv　

The Country Doctorby Honore de BalzacTranslated by Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell"For a wounded heartshadow and silence."To my Mother.CHAPTER ITHE COUNTRYSIDE AND THE MANOn a lovely spring morning in the year 1829, a man of fifty or thereabouts was wending his way on horseback along the mountain road that leads to a large village near the Grande Chartreuse. This village is the market town of a populous canton that lies within the limits of a valley of some considerable length. The melting of the snows had filled the boulder-strewn bed of the torrent (often dry) that flows through this valley, which is closely shut in between two parallel mountain barriers, above which the peaks of Savoy and 　

Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Pointby Henry Ossian FlipperHenry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point.Autobiography of Lieut. Henry Ossian Flipper, U.S.A., FirstGraduate of Color from the U.S. Military AcademyTOThe Faculty of Atlanta University, Atlanta, Ga.,AND TOTHE PRESIDENT IN PARTICULAR,TO WHOSE CAREFULMENTAL AND MORAL TRAINING OF MYSELF IS DUE ALLMY SUCCESS AT THE MILITARY ACADEMYAT WEST POINT, N. Y.,I AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATE THIS VOLUME,AS IN SOME SORTA TOKEN OF THAT HEARTFELT GRATITUDE WHICHI SO DEEPLY FEEL, BUT CAN SOPOORLY EXPRESS.CONTENTS.RETROSPECT, . . . . . . . . . . 7COMMUNICATIONS, ETC., . . . . . 17...　

Children of the Whirlwindby Leroy ScottCHAPTER IIt was an uninspiring bit of street: narrow, paved with cobble; hot and noisy in summer, reeking with unwholesome mud during the drizzling and snow-slimed months of winter. It looked anything this May after noon except a starting-place for drama. But, then, the great dramas of life often avoid the splendid estates and trappings with which conventional romance would equip them, and have their beginnings in unlikeliest environment; and thence sweep on to a noble, consuming tragedy, or to a glorious unfolding of souls. Life is a composite of contradictionsa puzzle to the wisest of us: the lily lifting its graceful purity aloft may have its roots 　

The Use and Need of the Life of Carrie A. Nationby Carrie A. NationENCOURAGEMENT FOR CHRISTIAN WORKERS."My word shall not return unto me void."Isa. iv., II."When saddened by the little fruit thy labors seem to yield,And when no springing blade appears in all thy barren field;When those whom thou dost seek to win, seem hard, and cold, and deadThen, weary worker, stay thine heart on what the Lord hath said;And let it give new life to hopes which seem well-nigh destroyedThis promise, that His word, shall not return unto Him void.For, if, indeed it be His truth, thy feeble lips proclaim,Then, He is pledged to shadow forth, the glory of His name.True this at present may be veiled; still trusting　

The Land of Footprintsby Stewart Edward WhiteI. ON BOOKS OF ADVENTUREBooks of sporting, travel, and adventure in countries little known to the average reader naturally fall in two classes-neither, with a very few exceptions, of great value. One class is perhaps the logical result of the other.Of the first type is the book that is written to make the most of far travels, to extract from adventure the last thrill, to impress the awestricken reader with a full sense of the danger and hardship the writer has undergone. Thus, if the latter takes out quite an ordinary routine permit to go into certain districts, he makes the most of travelling in "closed territory," implying that he has obtained 　

Red Eveby H. Rider HaggardDEDICATIONDitchingham,May 27, 1911.My dear Jehu:For five long but not unhappy years, seated or journeying side byside, we have striven as Royal Commissioners to find a meanswhereby our coasts may be protected from "the outrageous flowingsurges of the sea" (I quote the jurists of centuries ago), theidle swamps turned to fertility and the barren hills clothed withforest; also, with small success, how "foreshore" may be bestdefined!What will result from all these labours I do not know, nor whether...　

The Conflictby David Graham PhillipsIFour years at Wellesley; two years about equally divided among Paris, Dresden and Florence. And now Jane Hastings was at home again. At home in the unchanged housespacious, old-fashionedlooking down from its steeply sloping lawns and terraced gardens upon the sooty, smoky activities of Remsen City, looking out upon a charming panorama of hills and valleys in the heart of South Central Indiana. Six years of striving in the East and abroad to satisfy the restless energy she inherited from her father; and here she was, as restless as everyet with everything done that a woman could do in the way of an active career. She looked back upon her years of elab　

Fraternityby John GalsworthyCHAPTER ITHE SHADOWIn the afternoon of the last day of April, 190-, a billowy sea of little broken clouds crowned the thin air above High Street, Kensington. This soft tumult of vapours, covering nearly all the firmament, was in onslaught round a patch of blue sky, shaped somewhat like a star, which still gleameda single gentian flower amongst innumerable grass. Each of these small clouds seemed fitted with a pair of unseen wings, and, as insects flight on their too constant journeys, they were setting forth all ways round this starry blossom which burned so clear with the colour of its far fixity. On one side they were massed in fleecy congeries, so crowding 　

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 cannotbe done. How can a novel be stirring and thrilling, as were those...