Excerpt: Chapter 1. The Betrothal. Pere Merlier?s Mill, one beautiful summer evening, was arranged for a grand fete. In the courtyard were three tables, placed end to end, which awaited the guests. Everyone knew that Francoise, Merlier?s daughter, was that night to be betrothed to Dominique, a young man who was accused of idleness but whom the fair sex for three leagues around gazed at with sparkling eyes, such a fine appearance had he....

Excerpt: I believe he had seen us out of the window coming off to dine in the dinghy of a fourteen-ton yawl belonging to Marlow my host and skipper. We helped the boy we had with us to haul the boat up on the landing-stage before we went up to the riverside inn, where we found our new acquaintance eating his dinner in dignified loneliness at the head of a long table, white and inhospitable like a snow bank....

Excerpt: Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens).

Excerpt: SING, O GODDESS, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another....

Excerpt: Here is a tale which extends over many years and travels into many countries. By a peculiar fitness of circumstance the writer began, continued it, and concluded it among distant and diverse scenes. Above all, he was much upon the sea. The character and fortune of the fraternal enemies, the hall and shrubbery of Durrisdeer, the problem of Mackellar?s homespun and how to shape it for superior flights; these were his company on deck in many star-reflecting harbours, ran often in his mind at sea to the tune of slatting canvas, and were dismissed (something of the suddenest) on the approach of squalls. It is my hope that these surroundings of its manufacture may to some degree find favour for my story with seafarers and sea-lovers like yourselves....

Excerpt: ?The Hunting of the Snark: an Agony in Eight Fits? by Lewis Carroll.

Excerpt: Chapter 1. The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi -- 2. I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob?s brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob -- 3. And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness -- 4. Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever -- 5. And your eyes shall see, and ye shall say, The LORD will be magnified from the border of Israel -- 6. A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the LORD of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name?...

Excerpt: Vanity Fair: Volume Three (Chapters Fifty-one through Sixty-seven) by William Makepeace Thackeray.

Excerpt: ?WHAT do you think she?d do if she caught us? We oughtn?t to have it, you know,? said Maisie. ?Beat me, and lock you up in your bedroom,? Dick answered, without hesitation. ?Have you got the cartridges?? ?Yes; they?re in my pocket, but they are joggling horribly. Do pin-fire cartridges go off of their own accord?? ?Don?t know. Take the revolver, if you are afraid, and let me carry them.? ?I?m not afraid.? Maisie strode forward swiftly, a hand in her pocket and her chin in the air. Dick followed with a small pin-fire revolver....

Excerpt: He sat, in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam Zammah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher -the Wonder House, as the natives call the Lahore Museum. Who hold Zam-Zammah, that ?fire-breathing dragon?, hold the Punjab, for the great green-bronze piece is always first of the conqueror?s loot....

Preface: A preface to the first edition of Jane Eyre being unnecessary, I gave none: this second edition demands a few words both of acknowledgment and miscellaneous remark. My thanks are due in three quarters. To the Public, for the indulgent ear it has inclined to a plain tale with few pretensions. To the Press, for the fair field its honest suffrage has opened to an obscure aspirant. To my Publishers, for the aid their tact, their energy, their practical sense and frank liberality have afforded an unknown and unrecommended author....

Excerpt: Barnaby Rudge, A Tale of the Riots of ?Eighty by Charles Dickens.

Excerpt: The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf.

Excerpt: This is a publication of The Pennsylvania State University

Excerpt: Of all the spots on the world?s surface that I, George Walker, of Friday Street, London, have ever visited, Suez in Egypt, at the head of the Red Sea, is by far the vilest, the most unpleasant, and the least interesting. There are no women there, no water, and no vegetation. It is surrounded, and indeed often filled, by a world of sand. A scorching sun is always overhead; and one is domiciled in a huge cavernous hotel, which seems to have been made purposely destitute of all the comforts of civilized life. Nevertheless, in looking back upon the week of my life which I spent there I always enjoy a certain sort of triumph;--or rather, upon one day of that week, which lends a sort of halo not only to my sojourn at Suez, but to the whole period of my residence in Egypt....

Excerpt: Chapter 1. Introduces Mr. Lewisham. The opening chapter does not concern itself with Love-- indeed that antagonist does not certainly appear until the third--and Mr. Lewisham is seen at his studies. It was ten years ago, and in those days he was assistant master in the Whortley Proprietary School, Whortley, Sussex, and his wages were forty pounds a year, out of which he had to afford fifteen shillings a week during term time to lodge with Mrs. Munday, at the little shop in the West Street....

Excerpt: Le Morte Darthur -- Glossary to volume one -- by Sir Thomas Malory.

Excerpt: In a Spanish city on an island in the Mediterranean, there stands a convent of the Order of Barefoot Carmelites, where the rule instituted by St. Theresa is still preserved with all the first rigour of the reformation brought about by that illustrious woman. Extraordinary as this may seem, it is none the less true....

Excerpt: On Being Human by Woodrow Wilson.

Excerpt: ACT I. SCENE I. Windsor. Before PAGE?s house. [Enter SHALLOW, SLENDER, and SIR HUGH EVANS.] SHALLOW: Sir Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star-chamber matter of it: if he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, esquire. SLENDER: In the county of Gloucester, justice of peace and ?Coram.? SHALLOW: Ay, cousin Slender, and ?Custalorum. SLENDER: Ay, and ?Rato-lorum? too; and a gentleman born, master parson; who writes himself ?Armigero,? in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation, ?Armigero.? SHALLOW: Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three hundred years....