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Excerpt: Prefatory Note: The execution of this version of the Iliad has been entrusted to the three Translators in the following three parts: Each Translator is therefore responsible for his own portion; but the whole has been revised by all three Translators, and the rendering of passages or phrases recurring in more than one portion has been determined after deliberation in common. Even in these, however, a certain elasticity has been deemed desirable....

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Excerpt: The Heir of Redclyffe by Charlotte M. Yonge.

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Introduction: Dead Souls, first published in 1842, is the great prose classic of Russia. That amazing institution, ?the Russian novel,? not only began its career with this unfinished masterpiece by Nikolai Vasil?evich Gogol, but practically all the Russian masterpieces that have come since have grown out of it, like the limbs of a single tree. Dostoieffsky goes so far as to bestow this tribute upon an earlier work by the same author, a short story entitled The Cloak; this idea has been wittily expressed by another compatriot, who says: ?We have all issued out of Gogol?s Cloak.?...

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Excerpt: Dedication. Bob Southey! You?re a poet -- Poet-laureate, And representative of all the race, Although ?t is true that you turn?d out a Tory at Last,-- yours has lately been a common case; And now, my Epic Renegade! what are ye at? With all the Lakers, in and out of place? A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye Like ?four and twenty Blackbirds in a pyre....

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Excerpt: The Poems of Goethe, translated by Edgar Alfred Bowring.

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Contents The Translator?s Original Dedication to the Countess Granville. ..................................................................................... 17 Original Preface. ......................................................................................................................................................... 18 Preface to the Second Edition. ..................................................................................................................................... 21 The Poems of Goethe. ................................................................................................................................................... 22 Dedication. .................................................................................................................................................................. 22 Songs............................................................................................................................................................................ 26 To the Kind Reader. .................................................................................................

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. How Sir Launcelot and Sir Lionel departed from the court, and how Sir Lionel left him sleeping and was taken. Soon after that King Arthur was come from Rome into England, then all the knights of the Table Round re sorted unto the king, and made many jousts and tournaments, and some there were that were but knights, which increased so in arms and worship that they passed all their fellows in prowess and noble deeds, and that was well proved on many; but in especial it was proved on Sir Launcelot du Lake, for in all tournaments and jousts and deeds of arms, both for life and death, he passed all other knights, and at no time he was never overcome but if it were by treason or enchantment; so Sir Launcelot increased so marvellously in worship, and in honour, therefore is he the first knight that the French book maketh mention of after King Arthur came from Rome....

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Excerpt: It is no easy task in this world to distinguish between what is great in it, and what is mean; and many and many is the puzzle that I have had in reading History (or the works of fiction which go by that name), to know whether I should laud up to the skies, and endeavor, to the best of my small capabilities, to imitate the remarkable character about whom I was reading, or whether I should fling aside the book and the hero of it, as things altogether base, unworthy, laughable, and get a novel, or a game of billiards, or a pipe of tobacco, or the report of the last debate in the House, or any other employment which would leave the mind in a state of easy vacuity, rather than pester it with a vain set of dates relating to actions which are in themselves not worth a fig, or with a parcel of names of people whom it can do one no earthly good to remember....

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Excerpt: The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling by Henry Fielding: Volume Two, Containing Books IX through XVIII.

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Excerpt: Young Folks? History of England by Charlotte M. Yonge.

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Contents Young Folks? History of England ..................................... 6 CHAPTER I JULIUS CAESAR. B.C. 55 ........................................................................................ 6 CHAPTER II THE ROMANS IN BRITAIN. A.D. 41?418.......................................................... 8 CHAPTER III THE ANGLE CHILDREN A.D. 597.................................................................... 10 CHAPTER IV THE NORTHMEN. A.D. 858?958...................................................................... 12 CHAPTER V THE DANISH CONQUEST. A.D. 958?1035 ...................................................... 15 CHAPTER VI THE NORMAN CONQUEST. A.D. 1035?1066 ................................................ 17 CHAPTER VII WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. A.D. 1066?1087 ......................................... 19 CHAPTER VIII WILLIAM II., RUFUS. A.D. 1087-1100 ........................................................... 22 CHAPTER IX HENRY I., BEAU-CLERC. A.D. 1100?1135 ..................................................... 24 CHAPTER X STEPHEN. A.D. 1135?1154 .........................................................................

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Excerpt: Introduction and Analysis. The critias is a fragment which breaks off in the middle of a sentence. It was designed to be the second part of a trilogy, which, like the other great Platonic trilogy of the Sophist, Statesman, Philosopher, was never completed. Timaeus had brought down the origin of the world to the creation of man, and the dawn of history was now to succeed the philosophy of nature....

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This novel is subtitled The Mellstock Quire, A Rural Painting of the Dutch School. The Quire is the group of musicians who accompany the hymns at the local church and we follow the fortunes of one member, Dick Dewy, who falls in love with the new school mistress, Fancy Day. Another element of the book is the battle between the traditional musicians of the Quire and the local vicar, Parson Maybold, who installs a church organ. This battle illustrates the developing technology being introduced in the Victorian era and its threat to traditional country ways. The novel was published anonymously in 1872 and is often seen as Thomas Hardy's most gentle and pastoral novel. In 2005 Under the Greenwood Tree was adapted for a television version by Ashley Pharoah. (Summary by Rachel Lintern)...

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Literature, Romance

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Rome having been stormed and sacked by the Goths under Alaric their king, the worshippers of false gods, or pagans, as we commonly call them, made an attempt to attribute this calamity to the Christian religion, and began to blaspheme the true God with even more than their wonted bitterness and acerbity. It was this which kindled my zeal for the house of God, and prompted me to undertake the defence of the city of God against the charges and misrepresentations of its assailants. This work was in my hands for several years, owing to the interruptions occasioned by many other affairs which had a prior claim on my attention, and which I could not defer. However, this great undertaking was at last completed in twenty-two books. Of these, the first five refute those who fancy that the polytheistic worship is necessary in order to secure worldly prosperity, and that all these overwhelming calamities have befallen us in consequence of its prohibition. In the following five books I address myself to those who admit that such calamities have at all times attended, and will at all times attend, the human race, and that they constantly recur i...

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Literature, Philosophy, Religion

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. Lakeside was a pleasant little town of five or six thousand inhabitants, and a rather pretty one, too, as towns go in the Far West. It had church accommodations for thirty-five thousand, which is the way of the Far West and the South, where everybody is religious, and where each of the Protestant sects is represented and has a plant of its own. Rank was unknown in Lakeside--unconfessed, anyway; everybody knew everybody and his dog, and a sociable friendliness was the prevailing atmosphere....

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Contents THE $30,000 BEQUEST ............................................................................................................................................. 5 A DOG?S TALE ......................................................................................................................................................... 33 WAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL?............................................................................................................................... 43 A CURE FOR THE BLUES ..................................................................................................................................... 61 THE CURIOUS BOOK ............................................................................................................................................ 79 THE CALIFORNIAN?S TALE ............................................................................................................................... 121 A HELPLESS SITUATION.................................................................................................................................... 128 A TELEPHONIC CONVERSAT...

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Excerpt: Welcome to the second volume of the Best of Four. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we have enjoyed bringing it to you. The primary purpose of Best of Four is to bring the best writing produced in English 004 to the widest possible audience. Our students have important stories to tell and powerful voices waiting to be harnessed. The students who read these essays will learn that they too have permission to state what is important to them in a public voice....

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Contents 5 ............................................................................................... How to Use This Magazine 6 .................................................................................................... What Is College Writing? 7 ........................................................................................................... The Writing Process 8 ............................................................................................................. Writing for a Public 10 .............................................................................. Boston?s Treasure by Julio Rodriguez 11 ..................................................................................... Life is a Beach by Gerard Delisio 13 ................................................................................................ Dreamland by Mat Ciprich 14 ............................................................................... The Central Hotel by Jacob Gerhard 15 ....................................................................... My Hero, Uncle Bob by Deirdre Haubert 16 .............................

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Preface: This book comes from the reflections and experience of more than forty years spent in court. Aside from the practice of my profession, the topics I have treated are such as have always held my interest and inspired a taste for books that discuss the human machine with its manifestations and the causes of its varied activity. I have endeavored to present the latest scientific thought and investigation bearing upon the question of human conduct. I do not pretend to be an original investigator, nor an authority on biology, psychology or philosophy. I have simply been a student giving the subject such attention as I could during a fairly busy life. No doubt some of the scientific conclusions stated are still debatable and may finally be rejected. The scientific mind holds opinions tentatively and is always ready to reexamine, modify or discard as new evidence comes to light....

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Excerpt: ON THE 31st of August, 1846, I left Concord in Massachusetts for Bangor and the backwoods of Maine, by way of the railroad and steamboat, intending to accompany a relative of mine engaged in the lumber-trade in Bangor, as far as a dam on the west branch of the Penobscot, in which property he was interested. From this place, which is about one hundred miles by the river above Bangor, thirty miles from the Houlton military road, and five miles beyond the last log-hut, I proposed to make excursions to Mount Ktaadn, the second highest mountain in New England, about thirty miles distant, and to some of the lakes of the Penobscot, either alone or with such company as I might pick up there. It is unusual to find a camp so far in the woods at that season, when lumbering operations have ceased, and I was glad to avail myself of the circumstance of a gang of men being employed there at that time in repairing the injuries caused by the great freshet in the spring. The mountain may be approached more easily and directly on horseback and on foot from the northeast side, by the Aroostook road, and the Wassataquoik River; but in that case...

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Table of Contents: Ktaadn, 1 -- Chesuncook, 51 -- The Allegash and East Branch, 96 -- Appendix, 184 -- I. TREES., 184 -- II. FLOWERS AND SHRUBS., 185 -- III. LIST OF PLANTS., 188 -- IV. LIST OF BIRDS, 196 -- V. QUADRUPEDS., 197 -- VI. OUTFIT FOR AN EXCURSION., 198 -- VII. A LIST OF INDIAN WORDS., 199...

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Excerpt: Advertisement. The story of ?Catherine,? which appeared in Fraser?s Magazine in 1839-40, was written by Mr. Thackeray, under the name of Ikey Solomons, Jun., to counteract the injurious influence of some popular fictions of that day, which made heroes of highwaymen and burglars, and created a false sympathy for the vicious and criminal....

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Excerpt: THE PREFACE; If ever the story of any private Man?s Adventures in the World were worth making Publick, and were acceptable when Publish?d, the Editor of this Account thinks this will be so. The Wonders of this Man?s Life exceed all that (he thinks)is to be found extant; the Life of one Man being scarce capable of a greater Variety. The Story is told with Modesty, with Seriousness, and with a religious Application of Events to the Uses to which wise Men always apply them (viz.) to the Instruction of others by this Example, and to justify and honour the Wisdom of Providence in all the Variety of our Circumstances, let them happen how they will. The Editor believes the thing to be a just History of Fact; neither is there any Appearance of Fiction in it: And however thinks, because all such things are dispatch?d, that the Improvement of it, as well to the Diversion, as to the Instruction of the Reader, will be the same; and as such, he thinks, without father Compliment to the World, he does them a great Service in the Publication....

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Table of Contents: THE PREFACE, 1 -- THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE, &c., 2 -- THE JOURNAL., 51

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Excerpt: It was about the beginning of September, 1664, that I, mong the rest of my neighbors, heard in ordinary dis course that the plague was returned again in Holland; for it had been very violent there, and particularly at Amsterdam and Rotterdam, in the year 1663, whither, they say, it was brought, some said from Italy, others from the Levant, among some goods which were brought home by their Turkey fleet; others said it was brought from Candia; others from Cyprus. It mattered not from whence it came; but all agreed it was come into Holland again....

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Excerpt: Preface By Way Of Criticism. These studies are collected from the monthly press. One appeared in the New Quarterly, one in MacMillan?s, and the rest in the Cornhill Magazine. To the Cornhill I owe a double debt of thanks; first, that I was received there in the very best society, and under the eye of the very best of editors; and second, that the proprietors have allowed me to republish so considerable an amount of copy....

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Contents PREFACE BY WAY OF CRITICISM. ........................................................................................... 4 CHAPTER I ? VICTOR HUGO?S ROMANCES ........................................................................ 15 CHAPTER II ? SOME ASPECTS OF ROBERT BURNS.......................................................... 34 CHAPTER III ? WALT WHITMAN............................................................................................. 63 CHAPTER IV ? HENRY DAVID THOREAU: HIS CHARACTER AND OPINIONS........... 84 CHAPTER V ? YOSHIDA-TORAJIRO..................................................................................... 107 CHAPTER VI ? FRANCOIS VILLON, STUDENT, POET, AND HOUSEBREAKER.........117 CHAPTER VII ? CHARLES OF ORLEANS ............................................................................ 141 CHAPTER VIII ? SAMUEL PEPYS .......................................................................................... 170 CHAPTER IX ? JOHN KNOX AND HIS RELATIONS TO WOMEN .................................. 190...

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. The Foreigner At Home. ?This is no my ain house; I ken by the biggin? o?t.? Two recent books* one by Mr. Grant White on England, one on France by the diabolically clever Mr. Hillebrand, may well have set people thinking on the divisions of races and nations. Such thoughts should arise with particular congruity and force to inhabitants of that United Kingdom, peopled from so many different stocks, babbling so many different dialects, and offering in its extent such singular contrasts, from the busiest over-population to the unkindliest desert, from the Black Country to the Moor of Rannoch. It is not only when we cross the seas that we go abroad; there are foreign parts of England; and the race that has conquered so wide an empire has not yet managed to assimilate the islands whence she sprang. Ireland, Wales, and the Scottish mountains still cling, in part, to their old Gaelic speech. It was but the other day that English triumphed in Cornwall, and they still show in Mousehole, on St. Michael?s Bay, the house of the last Cornish-speaking woman. English itself, which will now frank the traveller through the most of...

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Contents CHAPTER I: THE FOREIGNER AT HOME ..................................................................................... 5 CHAPTER II: SOME COLLEGE MEMORIES................................................................................ 14 CHAPTER III: OLD MORTALITY .................................................................................................. 20 CHAPTER IV: A COLLEGE MAGAZINE ...................................................................................... 28 CHAPTER V: AN OLD SCOTCH GARDENER ............................................................................. 36 CHAPTER VI: PASTORAL .............................................................................................................. 41 CHAPTER VII: THE MANSE .......................................................................................................... 48 CHAPTER VIII: MEMOIRS OF AN ISLET .................................................................................... 53 CHAPTER IX: THOMAS STEVENSON ? CIVIL ENGINEER...................................................... 58 CHAPTER X: TALK AND TALKERS ....................

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Introduction: Benjamin Franklin was born in Milk Street, Boston, on January 6, 1706. His father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler who married twice, and of his seventeen children Benjamin was the youngest son. His schooling ended at ten, and at twelve he was bound apprentice to his brother James, a printer, who published the ?New England Courant.? To this journal he became a contributor, and later was for a time its nominal editor....

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The book examines the role of education in the lives of the characters and how such education and study has affected the characters. Rosamond Vincy's finishing school education is a foil to Dorothea Brooke's religiously-motivated quest for knowledge. Rosamond initially admires Lydgate for his exotic education, and his intellect. A similar dynamic is present in Dorothea and Casaubon's relationship, with Dorothea revering her new husband's intellect and eloquence. In both cases, however, the young wives' expectations of their husbands intellects are not reflected in reality. Despite extreme erudition, Mr. Casaubon is afraid to publish because he believes that he must write a work that is utterly above criticism. In contrast, Lydgate at times arrogantly flaunts his knowledge, making enemies with his fellow physicians. He regards the residents of Middlemarch with a certain amount of contempt stemming from his belief that the townspeople are backwards and uninteresting. However, his education has not included tact and politicking, skills necessary in a small town but are seen by Lydgate as below him, the brilliant doctor. (Summary - http...

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Literature

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Excerpt: The least that Findlayson, of the Public Works Department, expected was a C.I.E.; he dreamed of a C.S.I. Indeed, his friends told him that he deserved more. For three years he had endured heat and cold, disappointment, discomfort, danger, and disease, with responsibility almost to topheavy for one pair of shoulders; and day by day, through that time, the great Kashi Bridge over the Ganges had grown under his charge....

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. The time of my end approaches. I have lately been subject to attacks of angina pectoris; and in the ordinary course of things, my physician tells me, I may fairly hope that my life will not be protracted many months. Unless, then, I am cursed with an exceptional physical constitution, as I am cursed with an exceptional mental character, I shall not much longer groan under the wearisome burthen of this earthly existence. If it were to be otherwise--if I were to live on to the age most men desire and provide for--I should for once have known whether the miseries of delusive expectation can outweigh the miseries of true provision. For I foresee when I shall die, and everything that will happen in my last moments. Just a month from this day, on September 20, 1850, I shall be sitting in this chair, in this study, at ten o?clock at night, longing to die, weary of incessant insight and foresight, without delusions and without hope. Just as I am watching a tongue of blue flame rising in the fire, and my lamp is burning low, the horrible contraction will begin at my chest. I shall only have time to reach the bell, and pul...

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Excerpt: VARIABLE, and therfore miserable condition of Man; this minute I was well, and am ill, this minute. I am surpriz?d with a sodaine change, and alteration to worse, and can impute it to no cause, nor call it by any name. We study Health, and we deliberate upon our meats, and drink, and ayre, and exercises, and we hew, and wee polish every stone, that goes to that building; and so our Health is a long and regular work; But in a minute a Canon batters all, overthrowes all, demolishes all; a Sicknes unprevented for all our diligence, unsuspected for all our curiositie; nay, undeserved, if we consider only disorder, summons us, seizes us, possesses us, destroyes us in an instant. O miserable condition of Man, which was not imprinted by God, who as hee is immortall himselfe, had put a coale, a beame of Immortalitie into us, which we might have blowen into a flame, but blew it out, by our first sinne; wee beggard our selves by hearkning after false riches, a?nd infatuated our selves by hearkning after false knowledge. So that now, we doe not onely die, but die upon the Rack, die by the torment of sicknesse; nor that onely, but are ...

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Table of Contents: I., 1 -- II., 3 -- III., 4 -- IV., 6 -- V., 8 -- VI., 10 -- VII., 11 -- VIII., 13 -- IX., 15 -- X., 17 -- XI., 19 -- XII., 21 -- XIII., 23 -- XIV., 25 -- XV., 27 -- XVI., 29 -- XVII., 31 -- XVIII., 33 -- XIX., 35 -- XX., 37 -- XXI., 39 -- XXII., 41 -- XXIII., 43...

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Excerpt: New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson.

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Contents THE SUICIDE CLUB ....................................................................................................................... 4 STORY OF THE YOUNG MAN WITH THE CREAM TARTS .......................................................................... 4 STORY OF THE PHYSICIAN AND THE SARATOGA TRUNK........................................................................ 32 THE ADVENTURE OF THE HANSOM CABS............................................................................................. 55 THE RAJAH?S DIAMOND:..................................................................................................................... 74 STORY OF THE BANDBOX ..................................................................................................................... 74 STORY OF THE YOUNG MAN IN HOLY ORDERS .................................................................................... 96 STORY OF THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN BLINDS ................................................................................110 THE ADVENTURE OF PRINCE FLORIZEL AND A DETECTIVE ...................................................

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Excerpt: All?s Well, that Ends Well; Actus Primus -- Scoena Prima -- Enter yong Bertram Count of Rossillion, his Mother, and Helena, Lord Lafew, all in blacke. Mother. In delivering my sonne from me, I burie a second husband. Ros. And I in going Madam, weep ore my fathers death anew; but I must attend his majesties command, to whom I am now in Ward, evermore in subjection. Laf. You shall find of the King a husband Madame, you sir a father. He that so generally is at all times good, must of necessitie hold his vertue to you, whose worthinesse would stirre it up where it wanted rather then lack it where there is such abundance. Mo. What hope is there of his Maiesties amendment? Laf. He hath abandon?d his Phisitions Madam, under whose practises he hath persecuted time with hope, and finds no other advantage in the processe, but onely the loosing of hope by time. Mo. This yong Gentlewoman had a father, O that had, how sad a passage tis, whose skill was almost as great as his honestie, had it stretch?d so far, would have made nature immortall, and death should have play for lacke of worke. Would for the Kings sake hee were living, I thin...

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Table of Contents: All?s Well, that Ends Well, 1 -- Actus primus. Scoena Prima., 1 -- Actus Secundus., 14 -- Actus Tertius., 31 -- Actus Quartus., 42 -- Actus Quintus., 57...

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Excerpt: Before the reader is introduced to the modest country medical practitioner who is to be the chief personage of the following tale, it will be well that he should be made acquainted with some particulars as to the locality in which, and the neighbors among whom, our doctor followed his profession....

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Devotions upon Emergent Occasions is a 1624 prose work by the English writer John Donne. It is a series of reflections that were written as Donne recovered from a serious illness, believed to be either typhus or relapsing fever. (Donne does not clearly identify the disease in his text.) The work consists of twenty-three parts describing each stage of the sickness. Each part is further divided into a Meditation, an Expostulation, and a Prayer. The seventeenth meditation is perhaps the best-known part of the work. It contains the following passage: No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee....

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Religion, Literature

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The book starts with a young heroine telling her story of coping with a debilitating illness that includes depression and thoughts of suicide. Her doctor is unable to help her and sends her off on a holiday where she meets a mystical character by the name of Raffaello Cellini, an Italian artist. Cellini offers her a strange potion which immediately puts her into a tranquil slumber, in which she experiences divine visions. This is the beginning of her journey to health, both spiritual and physical. ....

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Fantasy, Literature, Religion

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Excerpt: Bianchon, a physician to whom science owes a fine system of theoretical physiology, and who, while still young, made himself a celebrity in the medical school of Paris, that central luminary to which European doctors do homage, practiced surgery for a long time before he took up medicine. His earliest studies were guided by one of the greatest of French surgeons, the illustrious Desplein, who flashed across science like a meteor. By the consensus even of his enemies, he took with him to the tomb an incommunicable method. Like all men of genius, he had no heirs; he carried everything in him, and carried it away with him. The glory of a surgeon is like that of an actor: they live only so long as they are alive, and their talent leaves no trace when they are gone. Actors and surgeons, like great singers too, like the executants who by their performance increase the power of music tenfold, are all the heroes of a moment....

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Excerpt: PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION; MUCH to the author?s surprise, and (if he may say so without additional offence) considerably to his amusement, he finds that his sketch of official life, introductory to THE SCARLET LETTER, has created an unprecedented excitement in the respectable community immediately around him. It could hardly have been more violent, indeed, had he burned down the Custom House, and quenched its last smoking ember in the blood of a certain venerable personage, against whom he is supposed to cherish a peculiar malevolence. As the public disapprobation would weigh very heavily on him, were he conscious of deserving it, the author begs leave to say, that he has carefully read over the introductory pages, with a purpose to alter or expunge whatever might be found amiss, and to make the best reparation in his power for the atrocities of which he has been adjudged guilty. But it appears to him, that the only remarkable features of the sketch are its frank and genuine good-humor, and the general accuracy with which he has conveyed his sincere impressions of the characters therein described. As to enmity, or ill f...

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Table of Contents: PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION, 1 -- THE CUSTOM HOUSE INTRODUCTORY, 2 -- 1 THE PRISON DOOR, 31 -- 2 THE MARKET-PLACE, 33 -- 3 THE RECOGNITION, 40 -- 4 THE INTERVIEW, 47 -- 5 HESTER AT HER NEEDLE, 52 -- 6 PEARL, 59 -- 7 THE GOVERNOR?S HALL, 66 -- 8 THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER, 72 -- 9 THE LEECH, 79 -- 10 THE LEECH AND HIS PATIENT, 87 -- 11 THE INTERIOR OF A HEART, 95 -- 12 THE MINISTER?S VIGIL, 100 -- 13 ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTER, 108 -- 14 HESTER AND THE PHYSICIAN, 114 -- 15 HESTER AND PEARL, 119 -- 16 A FOREST WALK, 124 -- 17 THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER, 129 -- 18 A FLOOD OF SUNSHINE, 136 -- 19 THE CHILD AT THE BROOKSIDE, 141 -- 20 THE MINISTER IN A MAZE, 147 -- 21 THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY, 155 -- 22 THE PROCESSION, 162 -- 23 THE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER, 170 -- 24 CONCLUSION, 177...

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Excerpt: A Fragment of Autobiography. IN 1897, after spending five years at St Thomas?s Hospital I passed the examinations which enabled me to practise medicine. While still a medical student I had published a novel called Liza of Lambeth which caused a mild sensation, and on the strength of that I rashly decided to abandon doctoring and earn my living as a writer; so, as soon as I was ?qualified?, I set out for Spain and spent the best part of a year in Seville. I amused myself hugely and wrote a bad novel. Then I returned to London and, with a friend of my own age, took and furnished a small flat near Victoria Station. A maid of all work cooked for us and kept the flat neat and tidy. My friend was at the Bar, and so I had the day (and the flat) to myself and my work....

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Excerpt: When young Mark Robarts was leaving college, his father might well declare that all men began to say all good things to him, and to extol his fortune in that he had a son blessed with an excellent disposition. This father was a physician living at Exeter. He was a gentleman possessed of no private means, but enjoying a lucrative practice, which had enabled him to maintain and educate a family with all the advantages which money can give in this country. Mark was his eldest son and second child; and the first page or two of this narrative must be consumed in giving a catalogue of the good things which chance and conduct together had heaped upon this young man?s head....

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Sherlock Holmes, a fictional character of the late 19th and early 20th century created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is a brilliant London-based consulting detective famous for his intellectual prowess and renowned for his enormous scope of observation, his astute logical reasoning and forensic science skills in solving difficult crimes. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of Sherlock Holmes mysteries, including The Final Problem in which Holmes confronts his arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty, originally published in 1894, which are preceded by The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and followed by The Hound of the Baskervilles. (Adapted from Wikipedia)...

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Literature, Mystery, Short stories

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Excerpt: CHAPTER I; DEPARTURE -- The fourteenth of August was the day fixed upon for the sailing of the brig Pilgrim on her voyage from Boston round Cape Horn to the western coast of North America. As she was to get under weigh early in the afternoon, I made my appearance on board at twelve o?clock, in full sea-rig, and with my chest, containing an outfit for a two or three years? voyage, which I had undertaken from a determination to cure, if possible, by an entire change of life, and by a long absence from books and study, a weakness of the eyes, which had obliged me to give up my pursuits, and which no medical aid seemed likely to cure....

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Table of Contents: CHAPTER I ? DEPARTURE, 1 -- CHAPTER II ? FIRST IMPRESSIONS???SAIL HO!??, 3 -- CHAPTER III ? SHIP?S DUTIES?TROPICS, 6 -- CHAPTER IV ? A ROGUE?TROUBLE ON BOARD???LAND -- HO!???POMPERO?CAPE HORN, 9 -- CHAPTER V ? CAPE HORN?A VISIT, 13 -- CHAPTER VI ? LOSS OF A MAN?SUPERSTITION, 18 -- CHAPTER VII ? JUAN FERNANDEZ?THE PACIFIC, 21 -- CHAPTER VIII ? ??TARRING DOWN???DAILY LIFE???GOING AFT???CALIFORNIA -- ., 25 -- CHAPTER IX ? CALIFORNIA?A SOUTH-EASTER, 28 -- CHAPTER X ? A SOUTH-EASTER?PASSAGE UP THE COAST, 32 -- CHAPTER XI ? PASSAGE UP THE COAST?MONTEREY, 35 -- CHAPTER XII ? LIFE AT MONTEREY, 38 -- CHAPTER XIII ? TRADING?A BRITISH SAILOR, 40 -- CHAPTER XIV ? SANTA BARBARA?HIDE-DROGHING?HARBOR -- DUTIES?DISCONTENT?SAN PEDRO, 46 -- CHAPTER XV ? A FLOGGING?A NIGHT ON SHORE?THE STATE OF THINGS ON -- BOARD?SAN DIEGO, 52 -- CHAPTER XVI ? LIBERTY-DAY ON SHORE, 59 -- CHAPTER XVII ? SAN DIEGO?A DESERTION?SAN PEDRO AGAIN?BEATING UP -- COAST, 63 -- CHAPTER XVIII ? EASTER SUNDAY???SAIL HO!???WHALES?SAN -- JUAN?ROMANCE OF HIDE-DROGHING?SAN DIEGO AGAIN, 67 -- CHAPTER XIX ? THE SANDWICH -- ISLANDERS?HIDE-CURING?WOOD-CUTTING? RATTLE-SNA...