Essays on Life, Art and Scienceby Samuel ButlerContents:IntroductionQuis Desiderio?Ramblings in CheapsideThe Aunt, The Nieces, and the DogHow to make the best of lifeThe Sanctuary of MontrigoneA Medieval Girl SchoolArt in the Valley of SaasThought and LanguageThe Deadlock in DarwinismINTRODUCTIONIt is hardly necessary to apologise for the miscellaneous characterof the following collection of essays. Samuel Butler was a man ofsuch unusual versatility, and his interests were so many and sovarious that his literary remains were bound to cover a wide field.Nevertheless it will be found that several of the subjects to which...
The Playboy of the Western Worldby J. M. SyngeA COMEDY IN THREE ACTSPREFACEIn writing THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD, as in my other plays, I have usedone or two words only that I have not heard among the country people ofIreland, or spoken in my own nursery before I could read the newspapers. Acertain number of the phrases I employ I have heard also from herds andfishermen along the coast from Kerry to Mayo, or from beggar-women andballadsingers nearer Dublin; and I am glad to acknowledge how much I owe tothe folk imagination of these fine people. Anyone who has lived in realintimacy with the Irish peasantry will know that the wildest sayings and ideas...
The Voice of the Cityby O HenryTHE VOICE OF THE CITYTwenty-five years ago the school children usedto chant their lessons. The manner of their deliverywas a singsong recitative between the utterance of anEpiscopal minister and the drone of a tired sawmill.I mean no disrespect. We must have lumber andsawdust.I remember one beautiful and instructive littlelyric that emanated from the physiology class. Themost striking line of it was this:"The shin-bone is the long-est bone in the hu-manbod-y."What an inestimable boon it would have been ifall the corporeal and spiritual facts pertaining to...
400 BCON AIRS, WATERS, AND PLACESby HippocratesTranslated by Francis AdamsWHOEVER wishes to investigate medicine properly, should proceedthus: in the first place to consider the seasons of the year, and whateffects each of them produces for they are not at all alike, butdiffer much from themselves in regard to their changes. Then thewinds, the hot and the cold, especially such as are common to allcountries, and then such as are peculiar to each locality. We mustalso consider the qualities of the waters, for as they differ from one...
A Little Tour In Franceby Henry JamesWe good Americans - I say it without presumption - are too apt to think that France is Paris, just as we are accused of being too apt to think that Paris is the celestial city. This is by no means the case, fortun- ately for those persons who take an interest in modern Gaul, and yet are still left vaguely unsatisfied by that epitome of civilization which stretches from the Arc de Triomphe to the Gymnase theatre. It had already been intimated to the author of these light pages that there are many good things in the _doux pays de France_ of which you get no hint in a walk between those ornaments of the capital; but the truth had been re- vealed only in q
Brother Jacobby George Eliot [Mary Anne Evans]CHAPTER IAmong the many fatalities attending the bloom of young desire, thatof blindly taking to the confectionery line has not, perhaps, beensufficiently considered. How is the son of a British yeoman, whohas been fed principally on salt pork and yeast dumplings, to knowthat there is satiety for the human stomach even in a paradise ofglass jars full of sugared almonds and pink lozenges, and that thetedium of life can reach a pitch where plum-buns at discretion ceaseto offer the slightest excitement? Or how, at the tender age when aconfectioner seems to him a very prince whom all the world must...
THE HOLLY-TREETHREE BRANCHESTHE HOLLY-TREETHREE BRANCHES1- Page 2-THE HOLLY-TREETHREE BRANCHESFIRST BRANCHMYSELFI have kept one secret in the course of my life. I am a bashful man.Nobody would suppose it, nobody ever does suppose it, nobody ever didsuppose it, but I am naturally a bashful man. This is the secret which Ihave never breathed until now.I might greatly move the reader by some account of the innumerableplaces I have not been to, the innumerable people I have not called upon...
My Discovery of Englandby Leacock, StephenIntroduction of Mr. Stephen Leacock Given by Sir Owen Seaman on the Occasion of His First Lecture in LondonLADIES AND GENTLEMEN: It is usual on these occasions for the chairman to begin something like this: "The lecturer, I am sure, needs no introduction from me." And indeed, when I have been the lecturer and somebody else has been the chairman, I have more than once suspected myself of being the better man of the two. Of course I hope I should always have the good mannersI am sure Mr. Leacock hasto disguise that suspicion. However, one has to go through these formalities, and I will therefore introduce the lecturer to you....
Juanaby Honore de BalzacTranslated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley)DEDICATIONTo Madame la Comtesse Merlin.JUANA(THE MARANAS)CHAPTER IEXPOSITIONNotwithstanding the discipline which Marechal Suchet had introducedinto his army corps, he was unable to prevent a short period oftrouble and disorder at the taking of Tarragona. According to certainfair-minded military men, this intoxication of victory bore a strikingresemblance to pillage, though the marechal promptly suppressed it.Order being re-established, each regiment quartered in its respectivelines, and the commandant of the city appointed, military...
Heartbreak Houseby George Bernard ShawA FANTASIA IN THE RUSSIAN MANNER ON ENGLISH THEMESHEARTBREAK HOUSE AND HORSEBACK HALLWhere Heartbreak House StandsHeartbreak House is not merely the name of the play which followsthis preface. It is cultured, leisured Europe before the war.When the play was begun not a shot had been fired; and only theprofessional diplomatists and the very few amateurs whose hobbyis foreign policy even knew that the guns were loaded. A Russianplaywright, Tchekov, had produced four fascinating dramaticstudies of Heartbreak House, of which three, The Cherry Orchard,Uncle Vanya, and The Seagull, had been performed in England....
The Holly-Treeby Charles DickensFIRST BRANCHMYSELFI have kept one secret in the course of my life. I am a bashfulman. Nobody would suppose it, nobody ever does suppose it, nobodyever did suppose it, but I am naturally a bashful man. This is thesecret which I have never breathed until now.I might greatly move the reader by some account of the innumerableplaces I have not been to, the innumerable people I have not calledupon or received, the innumerable social evasions I have been guiltyof, solely because I am by original constitution and character abashful man. But I will leave the reader unmoved, and proceed with...
A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part III]by Benedict de SpinozaAlso known as Baruch SpinozaTranslated by R. H. M. ElwesPart III - Chapters XI to XVTABLE OF CONTENTS:CHAPTER XI - An Inquiry whether the Apostles wrote theirEpistles as Apostles and Prophets, or merely as Teachers,and an Explanation of what is meant by Apostle.The epistles not in the prophetic style.The Apostles not commanded to write or preach in particular places.Different methods of teaching adopted by the Apostles.CHAPTER XII - Of the true Original of the Divine Law,...