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Excerpt: ENVOI. Felix de Vandenesse to Madame la Comtesse Natalie de Manerville: I yield to your wishes. It is the privilege of the women whom we love more than they love us to make the men who love them ignore the ordinary rules of common-sense. To smooth the frown upon their brow, to soften the pout upon their lips, what obstacles we miraculously overcome! We shed our blood, we risk our future!...

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Excerpt: Le Morte D?Arthur -- Glossary to volume two? by Sir Thomas Malory.

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Excerpt: Arthurian Chronicles: Roman De Brut by Wace, translated by Eugene Mason.

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Excerpt: Don Quixote. Part Two by Miquel de Cervantes, translated by John Ormsby, 1922 ed.

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Excerpt: The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac, translated by James Waring.

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Introduction: Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favour; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason....

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Excerpt: Madame, may God grant that this, my book, may live longer than I, for then the gratitude which I owe to you, and which I hope will equal your almost maternal kindness to me, would last beyond the limits prescribed for human affection. This sublime privilege of prolonging life in our hearts for a time by the life of the work we leave behind us would be (if we could only be sure of gaining it at last) a reward indeed for all the labor undertaken by those who aspire to such an immortality....

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Excerpt: Roderick Hudson by Henry James.

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Excerpt: Prince Otto -- A Romance by Robert Louis Stevenson (1905 Edition).

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Excerpt: You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. I arrived here yesterday, and my first task is to assure my dear sister of my welfare and increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking....

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. The Strange Man?s Arrival. The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking from Bramblehurst railway station, and carrying a little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand. He was wrapped up from head to foot, and the brim of his soft felt hat hid every inch of his face but the shiny tip of his nose; the snow had piled itself against his shoulders and chest, and added a white crest to the burden he carried. He staggered into the ?Coach and Horses? more dead than alive, and flung his portmanteau down. ?A fire,? he cried, ?in the name of human charity! A room and a fire!? He stamped and shook the snow from off himself in the bar, and followed Mrs. Hall into her guest parlour to strike his bargain. And with that much introduction, that and a couple of sovereigns flung upon the table, he took up his quarters in the inn....

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God -- 2. The same was in the beginning with God -- 3. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made -- 4. In him was life; and the life was the light of men -- 5. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not -- 6. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John....

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Excerpt: Miss Sarah Jack, of Spanish Town, Jamaica by Anthony Trollope.

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Excerpt: The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac, translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley.

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Excerpt: How at the vigil of the Feast of Pentecost entered into the hall before King Arthur a damosel, and desired Sir Launcelot for to come and dub a knight, and how he went with her. At the vigil of Pentecost, when all the fellowship of the Round Table were come unto Camelot and there heard their service, and the tables were set ready to the meat, right so entered into the hall a full fair gentlewoman on horseback, that had ridden full fast, for her horse was all besweated....

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Preface: When the venture has been made of dealing with historical events and characters, it always seems fair towards the reader to avow what liberties have been taken, and how much of the sketch is founded on history. In the present case, it is scarcely necessary to do more than refer to the almost unique relations that subsisted between Henry V. and his prisoner, James I. of Scotland; who lived with him throughout his reign on the terms of friend rather than of captive, and was absolutely sheltered by this imprisonment throughout his nonage and early youth from the frightful violence and presumption of the nobles of his kingdom....

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. How Beaumains came to King Arthur?s Court and demanded three petitions of King Arthur. When Arthur held his Round Table most plenour, it fortuned that he commanded that the high feast of Pentecost should be holden at a city and a castle, the which in those days was called Kynke Kenadonne, upon the sands that marched nigh Wales. So ever the king had a custom that at the feast of Pentecost in especial, afore other feasts in the year, he would not go that day to meat until he had heard or seen of a great marvel....

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Excerpt: An Outcast of the Islands by Joseph Conrad.

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Excerpt: CHAPTER 1. Fellow Travelers. In the autumn of the year, Darkness and Night were creeping up to the highest ridges of the Alps. It was vintage time in the valleys on the Swiss side of the Pass of the Great Saint Bernard, and along the banks of the Lake of Geneva....

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CONTENTS BOOK THE SECOND: RICHES 1. Fellow Travellers 2. Mrs General 3. On the Road 4. A Letter from Little Dorrit 5. Something Wrong Somewhere 6. Something Right Somewhere 7. Mostly, Prunes and Prism 8. The Dowager Mrs Gowan is reminded that ?It Never Does? 9. Appearance and Disappearance 10. The Dreams of Mrs Flintwinch thicken 11. A Letter from Little Dorrit 12. In which a Great Patriotic Conference is holden 13. The Progress of an Epidemic 14. Taking Advice 15. No just Cause or Impediment why these Two Persons should not be joined together 16. Getting on 17. Missing 18. A Castle in the Air 19. The Storming of the Castle in the Air 20. Introduces the next 21. The History of a Self-Tormentor 22. Who Passes by this Road so late? 23. Mistress Affery makes a Conditional Promise, respecting her Dreams 24. The Evening of a Long Day 25. The Chief Butler Resigns the Seals of Office 26. Reaping the Whirlwind 27. The Pupil of the Marshalsea 28. An Appearance in the Marshalsea 29. A Plea in the Marshalsea 30. Closing in...

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. Part The First. Once upon a time, it matters little when, and in stalwart England, it matters little where, a fierce battle was fought. It was fought upon a long summer day when the waving grass was green. Many a wild flower formed by the Almighty Hand to be a perfumed goblet for the dew, felt its enameled cup filled high with blood that day, and shrinking dropped. Many an insect deriving its delicate color from harmless leaves and herbs, was stained anew that day by dying men, and marked its frightened way with an unnatural track. The painted butterfly took blood into the air upon the edges of its wings. The stream ran red....