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Excerpt: Much adoe about Nothing; Actus Primus -- Scena Prima -- Enter Leonato Governour of Messina, Innogen his wife, Hero his daughter, and Beatrice his Neece, with a messenger. Leonato. I learne in this Letter, that Don Peter of Arragon, comes this night to Messina. Mess. He is very neere by this: he was not three Leagues off when I left him. Leon. How many Gentlemen have you lost in this action? Mess. But few of any sort, and none of name. Leon. A victorie is twice it selfe, when the atchiever brings home full numbers: I find here, that Don Peter hath bestowed much honor on a yong Florentine, called Claudio. Mess. Much deserv?d on his part, and equally remembred by Don Pedro, he hath borne himselfe beyond the promise of his age, doing in the figure of a Lambe, the feats of a Lion, he hath indeede better bettred expectation, then you must expect of me to tell you how....

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Table of Contents: Much adoe about Nothing, 1 -- Actus primus, Scena prima., 1 -- Actus Secundus., 10 -- Actus Tertius., 24 -- Actus Quartus., 37 -- Actus Quintus., 46...

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Introduction: Fielding?s third great novel has been the subject of much more discordant judgments than either of its forerunners. If we take the period since its appearance as covering four generations, we find the greatest authority in the earliest, Johnson, speaking of it with something more nearly approaching to enthusiasm than he allowed himself in reference to any other work of an author, to whom he was on the whole so unjust....

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Excerpt: Most of us see some romances in life. In my capacity as Chief Manager of a Life Assurance Office, I think I have within the last thirty years seen more romances than the generality of men, however unpromising the opportunity may, at first sight, seem....

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Excerpt: The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra; Actus Primus -- Scoena Prima -- Enter Demetrius and Philo. Philo. Nay, but this dotage of our Generals Ore- flowes the measure: those his goodly eyes That o?re the Files and Musters of the Warre, Have glow?d like plated Mars: Now bend, now turne The Office and Deuotion of their view Upon a Tawny Front. His Captaines heart, Which in the scuffles of great Fights hath burst The Buckles on his brest, reneages all temper, And is become the Bellowes and the Fan To coole a Gypsies Lust. Flourish. Enter Anthony, Cleopatra, her Ladies, the Traine, with Eunuchs fanning her. Looke where they come: Take but good note, and you shall see in him (The triple Pillar of the world) transform?d Into a Strumpets Foole. Behold and see. Cleo. If it be Love indeed, tell me how much. Ant. There?s beggery in the love that can be reckon?d Cleo. Ile set a bourne how farre to be belov?d. Ant. Then must thou needes finde out new Heaven, new Earth. Enter a Messenger. Mes. Newes (my good Lord) from Rome. Ant. Grates me, the summe. Cleo. Nay heare them Anthony. Fuluia perchance is angry: Or who knowes, If the scarse-...

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Table of Contents: The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra, 1 -- Actus Primus. Scoena Prima., 1

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Excerpt: The Shadow Line: A Confession by Joseph Conrad.

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Excerpt: An ancient leafless stump of a horse-chestnut stood in the middle of a dusty field, bordered on the south side by a row of houses of some pretension. Against this stump, a pretty delicate fair girl of seventeen, whose short lilac sleeves revealed slender white arms, and her tight, plain cap tresses of flaxen hair that many a beauty might have envied, was banging a cocoa-nut mat, chanting by way of accompaniment in a sort of cadence--...

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Excerpt: Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer.

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Excerpt: Mosses from an Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

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Excerpt: Waverley or ?Tis Sixty Years Since by Sir Walter Scott.

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Excerpt: The Odyssey of Homer translated by Alexander Pope.

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Excerpt: Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling.

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Contents PREFACE ..................................................................................................................................................................... 5 LISPETH........................................................................................................................................... 5 THREE AND?AN EXTRA .......................................................................................................... 10 THROWN AWAY ............................................................................................................................ 14 MISS YOUGHAL?S SAIS............................................................................................................... 21 YOKED WITH AN UNBELIEVER.............................................................................................. 27 FALSE DAWN ................................................................................................................................ 31 THE RESCUE OF PLUFFLES .................................................................................................... 38 CUPID?S ARROWS .........

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. ?Everyone asks me what I ?think? of everything,? said Spencer Brydon; ?and I make answer as I can--begging or dodging the question, putting them off with any nonsense. It wouldn?t matter to any of them really,? he went on, ?for, even were it possible to meet in that stand-anddeliver way so silly a demand on so big a subject, my ?thoughts? would still be almost altogether about something that concerns only myself.? He was talking to Miss Staverton, with whom for a couple of months now he had availed himself of every possible occasion to talk; this disposition and this resource, this comfort and support, as the situation in fact presented itself, having promptly enough taken the first place in the considerable array of rather unattenuated surprises attending his so strangely belated return to America....

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. Adam, Sheth, Enosh -- 2. Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jered -- 3. Henoch, Methuselah, Lamech -- 4. Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth -- 5. The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras -- 6. And the sons of Gomer; Ashchenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah -- 7. And the sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim....

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Excerpt: When the Sleeper Wakes by H. G. Wells.

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Excerpt: The Merry Wives of Windsor; Actus Primus -- Scena Prima -- Enter Justice Shallow, Slender, Sir Hugh Evans, Master Page, Falstoffe, Bardolph, Nym, Pistoll, Anne Page, Mistresse Ford, Mistresse Page, Simple. Shallow. Sir Hugh, perswade me not: I will make a Star-Chamber matter of it, if hee were twenty Sir John Falstoffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow Esquire....

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Table of Contents: The Merry Wiues of Windsor, 1 -- Actus primus, Scena prima., 1 -- Scena Secunda., 7 -- Scena Tertia., 7 -- Scoena Quarta., 10 -- Actus Secundus. Scoena Prima., 13 -- Scoena Secunda., 18 -- Scena Tertia., 24 -- Actus Tertius. Scoena Prima., 26 -- Scena Secunda., 29 -- Scena Tertia., 31 -- Scoena Quarta., 35 -- Scena Quinta., 38 -- Actus Quartus. Scoena Prima., 41 -- Scena Secunda., 43 -- Scena Tertia., 47 -- Scena Quarta., 48 -- Scena Quinta., 50 -- Scena Sexta., 53 -- Actus Quintus. Scoena Prima., 54 -- Scena Secunda., 55 -- Scena Tertia., 55 -- Scena Quarta., 56 -- Scena Quinta., 56...

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Introduction: On February the first 1887, the Lady Vain was lost by collision with a derelict when about the latitude 1' S. and longitude 107' W. On January the Fifth, 1888--that is eleven months and four days after--my uncle, Edward Prendick, a private gentleman, who certainly went aboard the Lady Vain at Callao, and who had been considered drowned, was picked up in latitude 5' 3 S. and longitude 101' W. in a small open boat of which the name was illegible, but which is supposed to have belonged to the missing schooner Ipecacuanha....

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. On a cold morning in December, towards the close of the year 1612, a young man, whose clothing betrayed his poverty, was standing before the door of a house in the Rue des Grands-Augustine, in Paris. After walking to and fro for some time with the hesitation of a lover who fears to approach his mistress, however complying she may be, he ended by crossing the threshold and asking if Maitre Francois Porbus were within. At the affirmative answer of an old woman who was sweeping out one of the lower rooms the young man slowly mounted the stairway, stopping from time to time and hesitating, like a newly fledged courier doubtful as to what sort of reception the king might grant him....

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Excerpt: The tower among the Apennines It was in June that the sculptor, Kenyon, arrived on horse back at the gate of an ancient country house (which, from some of its features, might almost be called a castle) situated in a part of Tuscany somewhat remote from the ordinary track of tourists. Thither we must now accompany him, and endeavor to make our story flow onward, like a streamlet, past a gray tower that rises on the hillside, overlooking a spacious valley, which is set in the grand framework of the Apennines....

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Excerpt: ?Tis hard to say, if greater Want of Skill Appear in Writing or in Judging ill, But, of the two, less dang?rous is th? Offence, To tire our Patience, than mis-lead our Sense: Some few in that, but Numbers err in this, Ten Censure wrong for one who Writes amiss; A Fool might once himself alone expose, Now One in Verse makes many more in Prose....

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Excerpt: Selden paused in surprise. In the afternoon rush of the Grand Central Station his eyes had been refreshed by the sight of Miss Lily Bart. It was a Monday in early September, and he was returning to his work from a hurried dip into the country; but what was Miss Bart doing in town at that season? If she had appeared to be catching a train, he might have inferred that he had come on her in the act of transition between one and another of the country-houses which disputed her presence after the close of the Newport season; but her desultory air perplexed him. She stood apart from the crowd, letting it drift by her to the platform or the street, and wearing an air of irresolution which might, as he surmised, be the mask of a very definite purpose. It struck him at once that she was waiting for some one, but he hardly knew why the idea arrested him. There was nothing new about Lily Bart, yet he could never see her without a faint movement of interest: it was characteristic of her that she always roused speculation, that her simplest acts seemed the result of far-reaching intentions....