KHMER STRIKE CULTURE

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Downcleckhere
by Kennedy McConnell
The portable encoding machine used by all German Forces during the 1939/1945 war was the ENIGMA. This ingenious electro-mechanical device was designed to transpose plain text messages into scrambled output before radio transmission. Because of its complex mechanism and variable circuitry, the Enigma could produce an astronomical number of permutations. The encoded text was made even more baffling by daily changes in settings. Consequently, the Germans remained convinced throughout the war that the Enigma codes could not be broken. Nevertheless, British cryptographers and engineers succeeded in doing so. The resultant intelligence, which was codenamed ULTRA, made a major contribution to the Allied victory.
The main components of the Enigma were the keyboard, lamp board, scrambler unit and plug board. The keyboard had the alphabet arranged in three rows, but there were no numbers or punctuation keys. The same three rows layout was repeated in the lamp board, but behind each letter was a 4.5 volts electric bulb. When the key was pressed then a letter was illuminated. The most important part of the machine was the scrambler unit, in which three interchangeable rotors were mounted

Downcleckhere
by Francis Parkman, Jr.
THE FRONTIER
Last spring, 1846, was a busy season in the City of St. Louis. Not only were emigrants from every part of the country preparing for the journey to Oregon and California, but an unusual number of traders were making ready their wagons and outfits for Santa Fe. Many of the emigrants, especially of those bound for California, were persons of wealth and standing. The hotels were crowded, and the gunsmiths and saddlers were kept constantly at work in providing arms and equipments for the different parties of travelers. Almost every day steamboats were leaving the levee and passing up the Missouri, crowded with passengers on their way to the frontier.
In one of these, the Radnor, since snagged and lost, my friend and relative, Quincy A. Shaw, and myself, left St. Louis on the 28th of April, on a tour of curiosity and amusement to the Rocky Mountains. The boat was loaded until the water broke alternately over her guards. Her upper deck was covered with large weapons of a peculiar form, for the Santa Fe trade, and her hold was crammed with goods for the same destination. There were also the equipments and provisions of a party of Oregon emigrants, a band of mules
by Milan Lorman

Only when a man knows his roots can he make sense of the course of his life.
I don't know if it has always been so, but in these our times, when the future is becoming the present every day even before the sun goes down, young people are, with rare exceptions, not showing any particular interest in the past. And that is a pity! We oldies, around my age, feel that something of value is lost forever when any part of the future is forgotten. And even greater calamity happens when into the memories of people is implanted some distorted version of the past.
I am similarly guilty in that I have not 'pestered'? my father during my childhood years to tell me more about his early life's experiences and beyond. Still, I am thankful that at least something about him and the Lorman family was entered into my memory banks, most probably second-hand, by my mother. So, if I now begin to tell the story, I shall start in the seventeenth century. Please don't go away, after only two or three sentences we shall be in the twentieth.
The rulers of Hungary have decided to open until then rather dormant mining activity in the mineral-rich northern highlands of the kingdom, in the territory of
by Ron West
My story has to begin to with my father: he was a remarkable man, in many senses. He worked down a coal mine in a pit somewhere in the Huddersfield area, where the family came from.
When he was about twelve or thirteen, pushing tubs down the mine, he would get paid coppers per week which he used to spend buying books, etc., to educate himself.
Story has it he�d do maths on the back of a shovel with a piece of chalk, by the light of an oil lamp down the pit, and then he went to night school to pursue his education, eventually going to London University and gaining a BA and MA. He taught for many years, became a headmaster in the East End of London and then represented North Kensington as a Labour Member of Parliament for several years, and later on Hammersmith for another couple of years. He was a remarkable man, self taught, self educated.
My father was an ardent socialist and a pacifist. I was interested in aeroplanes at that time, which he regarded as bad. Aircraft, to him, were military objects. If I was caught reading an aircraft book, or making a model, then he would destroy it and send me to my room.
I'm afraid I wasn't brilliant at school. I did reasonably well,
by Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
CHAPTER I
THE SCATTERED CHILDREN OF EUROPE

The Emigrant and what he brings to America . The emigrant who lands at New York, Boston, Philadelphia, or any other seaport, brings with him something which we do not see. He may have in his hands only a small bundle of clothing and enough money to pay his railroad fare to his new home, but he is carrying another kind of baggage more valuable than bundles or boxes or a pocket full of silver or gold. This other baggage is the knowledge, the customs, and the memories he has brought from the fatherland.
He has already learned in Europe how to do the work at which he hopes to labor in America. In his native land he has been taught to obey the laws and to do his duty as a citizen. This fits him to share in our self-government. He also brings great memories, for he likes to think of the brave and noble deeds done by men of his race. If he is a religious man, he worships God just as his forefathers have for hundreds of years. To understand how the emigrant happens to know what he does and to be what he is, we must study the history of the country from which he comes.
All Americans are Emigrants . If this is true of
by Brian Armstrong
�HMS "Queen of Bermuda�
Her First Commission
Commissioned at Belfast on 4th November 1939 by Captain M. Brock Birkett RN and superseded by Captain G.A.B. Hawkins RN, 12th December 1939 who was relieved by
Captain Allan Peachey RN at Freetown 24th April 1941.
J.D. Armstrong (Lt. Cdr. R.N.R. 1942)
Officers.
Captain Brock Birkett RN
Lieut. Cdr. G.T. McInnes RN
Lieut. Cdr. N.A.F. Kingscote RNR
Lieut. H.J. Aldiss RNR
Surn. Lieut J.C.Boyd RNVR
Lieut. J.D. Armstrong RNR
Mr. Kingswell Commissioned Gunner RN
------------**-----------
Captain G.A.B. Hawkins superseded
Captain Brock Birkett at Portsmouth December 1939
Left at Freetown:
Midshipman Smith RNR
Midshipman Toynbee RNR
Midshipman Stretton RNR
Midshipman Scott RNR
Joined ship at Portsmouth
Midshipman Barton RNR
Midshipman Battrick RNR
Midshipman Murray RNR
Lieut. R. Richards Brown RNR joined ship Buenos Aires
Commander G. Healey relieved McInnes at Durban in August
Sub Lieut Caldwell RNVR joined ship at Freetown vice Stretton (Sept 41)
T.124 Officers
S. Burns Temporary Commander
by Various
Earthquake and famine, fire and sudden death—these are the destroyers that men fear when they come singly; but upon the unhappy people of California they came together, a hideous quartette, to slay human beings, to blot from existence the wealth that represented prolonged and strenuous effort, to bring hunger and speechless misery to three hundred thousand homeless and terror-stricken people.
The full measure of the catastrophe can probably never be taken. The summary cannot be made amid the panic, the confusion, the removal of ancient landmarks, the complete subversion of the ordinary machinery of society. When chaos comes, as it did in San Francisco, and all the channels of familiar life are closed, and human anguish grows to be intolerable, compilation of statistics is impossible, even if it were not repugnant to the feelings. And when order is once more restored, after the lapse of many weeks, months and perhaps years, the details of the calamity have merged into one undecipherable mass of misery which defies the analyst and the historian. It is the purpose of this book faithfully to record the story of these awful days when years were lived in a moment and to
by Alexis de Toqueville
In the eleven years that separated the Declaration of the Independence of the United States from the completion of that act in the ordination of our written Constitution, the great minds of America were bent upon the study of the principles of government that were essential to the preservation of the liberties which had been won at great cost and with heroic labors and sacrifices. Their studies were conducted in view of the imperfections that experience had developed in the government of the Confederation, and they were, therefore, practical and thorough.
When the Constitution was thus perfected and established, a new form of government was created, but it was neither speculative nor experimental as to the principles on which it was based. If they were true principles, as they were, the government founded upon them was destined to a life and an influence that would continue while the liberties it was intended to preserve should be valued by the human family. Those liberties had been wrung from reluctant monarchs in many contests, in many countries, and were grouped into creeds and established in ordinances sealed with blood,
by Robert Louis Stevenson

An affair which might be deemed worthy of a note of a few lines in any general history has been here expanded to the size of a volume or large pamphlet.  The smallness of the scale, and the singularity of the manners and events and many of the characters, considered, it is hoped that, in spite of its outlandish subject, the sketch may find readers.  It has been a task of difficulty.  Speed was essential, or it might come too late to be of any service to a distracted country.  Truth, in the midst of conflicting rumours and in the dearth of printed material, was often hard to ascertain, and since most of those engaged were of my personal acquaintance, it was often more than delicate to express.  I must certainly have erred often and much; it is not for want of trouble taken nor of an impartial temper.  And if my plain speaking shall cost me any of the friends that I still count, I shall be sorry, but I need not be ashamed.
In one particular the spelling of Samoan words has been altered; and the characteristic nasal n of the language written throughout ng instead of g .  Thus I put Pango-Pango, instead of Pago-Pago; the sound being that of
by James Wycliffe Headlam
BIRTH AND PARENTAGE.

Otto Eduard Leopold Von Bismarck was born at the manor-house of Schoenhausen, in the Mark of Brandenburg, on April 1, 1815. Just a month before, Napoleon had escaped from Elba; and, as the child lay in his cradle, the peasants of the village, who but half a year ago had returned from the great campaign in France, were once more called to arms. A few months passed by; again the King of Prussia returned at the head of his army; in the village churches the medals won at Waterloo were hung up by those of Grossbehren and Leipzig. One more victory had been added to the Prussian flags, and then a profound peace fell upon Europe; fifty years were to go by before a Prussian army again marched out to meet a foreign foe.
The name and family of Bismarck were among the oldest in the land. Many of the great Prussian statesmen have come from other countries: Stein was from Nassau, and Hardenberg was a subject of the Elector of Hanover; even Blücher and Schwerin were Mecklenburgers, and the Moltkes belong to Holstein. The Bismarcks are pure Brandenburgers; they belong to the old Mark, the district ruled over by the first Margraves who were sent by the Emperor
by Gertrude W. Morrison
THE ODDEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED
"Well, if that isn't the oddest thing that ever happened!" murmured Laura Belding, sitting straight up on the stool before the high desk in her father's glass-enclosed office, from which elevation she could look down the long aisles of his jewelry store and out into Market Street, Centerport's main business thoroughfare.
But Laura was not looking down the vista of the electrically lighted shop and into the icy street. Instead, she gave her attention to that which lay right under her eyes upon the desk top. She looked first at the neat figures she had written upon the page of the day ledger, after carefully proving them, and thence at the packet of bills and piles of coin on the desk at her right hand.
"It is the oddest thing that ever happened," she affirmed, as though in answer to her own first declaration.
It was Saturday evening, and it was always Laura's duty to straighten out her father's books for him on that day, for although she was a high school girl, she was usually so well prepared in her studies that she could give the books proper attention weekly. Laura had taken a course in bookkeeping and she was quite familiar
by Edited by James D. Richardson
Thomas Jefferson was born at Shadwell, Albemarle County, Va., on April 2 (old style), 1743. He was the oldest son of Peter Jefferson, who died in 1757. After attending private schools, he entered William and Mary College in 1760. In 1767 began the practice of the law. In 1769 was chosen to represent his county in the Virginia house of burgesses, a station he continued to fill up to the period of the Revolution. He married Mrs. Martha Skelton in 1772, she being a daughter of John Wayles, an eminent lawyer of Virginia. On March 12, 1773, was chosen a member of the first committee of correspondence established by the Colonial legislature. Was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1775; was placed on the Committee of Five to prepare the Declaration of Independence, and at the request of that committee he drafted the Declaration, which, with slight amendments, was adopted July 4, 1776. Resigned his seat in Congress and occupied one in the Virginia legislature in October, 1776. Was elected governor of Virginia by the legislature on June 1, 1779, to succeed Patrick Henry. Retired to private life at the end of his term as governor, but was the same year elected again to the
by Len (Snowie) Baynes
Britain disarmed during the thirties, our pacific government deciding to rely on The League of Nations, with what was called 'Collective Security'.
Meanwhile, Germany was re-arming fast. Hitler and Mussolini joined forces, forming 'The Axis', and Hitler later made a non-aggression pact with Stalin. Too late, a couple of years only before war was declared, we decided to re-arm, without putting the nation on a war footing.
After war broke out late 1939, we sent all our available forces to help France defend her borders (The Maginot Line) against the anticipated German assault, and began all-out re-arming.
For several months Hitler consolidated his gains in Poland, Czechoslovakia etc. in what was called 'The Phoney War'. Then he quickly conquered the low countries, which left The Allies' flank exposed. The French defence rapidly collapsed, and after retreating, leaving our flank exposed, they capitulated.
In our weakened state, Japan took the opportunity to attack, and as we had disbanded our Far Eastern Fleet, we could no longer defend our Far East empire.
In France, we were left with our only stratagem; to get out of the country as quickly as possible,
by Phyllis Lee
The clothes rationing scheme was imposed upon us by the government for the good of the country. It may be a little tough for some people who are used to buying a lot of clothing, but we have to make allowances in war-time, and grin and bear all sacrifices. It really is a very good idea, and it goes a long way in helping us to win the war. The scheme functions as follows. On June the first we were informed we have twenty-six margarine coupons to last us till December of 1941. The reason for using margarine coupons is because they are spare, and they will save paper for new coupons. We have to tender a limited number of coupons for each rationed article of clothing we purchase. Children under four, seem very lucky for they don�t need any coupons at all. Milliners won�t have to be worried with coupons, for hats aren�t rationed. Coupons are not transferable, but you can use the coupons of any member of your family. Rationing helps the country in various way. It saved the unnecessary import of raw materials such as cotton, silk, leather, flax etc. It also helps us to sell our goods to other countries for money, with which we can�t do without. Many people will save more. It will release
by C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
THE SECRET AND THE GIRL
The exciting part began in Cairo; but perhaps I ought to go back to what happened on the Laconia , between Naples and Alexandria. Luckily no one can expect a man who actually rejoices in his nickname of "Duffer" to know how or where a true story should begin.
The huge ship was passing swiftly out of the Bay of Naples, and already we were in the strait between Capri and the mainland. I had come on deck from the smoking-room for a last look at poor Vesuvius, who lost her lovely head in the last eruption. I paced up and down, acutely conscious of my great secret, the secret inspiring my voyage to Egypt. For months it had been the hidden romance of life; now it began to seem real. This is not the moment to tell how I got the papers that revealed the secret, before I passed them on to Anthony Fenton at Khartum, for him to say whether or not the notes were of real importance. But the papers had been left in Rome by Ferlini, the Italian Egyptologist, seventy years ago, when he gave to the museum at Berlin the treasures he had unearthed. It was Ferlini who ransacked the pyramids all about Meroë, that so-called island in the desert, where in its days
by Karl Marx
"The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte" is one of Karl Marx' most profound and most brilliant monographs. It may be considered the best work extant on the philosophy of history, with an eye especially upon the history of the Movement of the Proletariat, together with the bourgeois and other manifestations that accompany the same, and the tactics that such conditions dictate.
The recent populist uprising; the more recent "Debs Movement"; the thousand and one utopian and chimerical notions that are flaring up; the capitalist maneuvers; the hopeless, helpless grasping after straws, that characterize the conduct of the bulk of the working class; all of these, together with the empty-headed, ominous figures that are springing into notoriety for a time and have their day, mark the present period of the Labor Movement in the nation a critical one. The best information acquirable, the best mental training obtainable are requisite to steer through the existing chaos that the death-tainted social system of today creates all around us. To aid in this needed information and mental training, this instructive work is now made accessible to English readers, and is commended to the
by Brooks Adams
THE COLLAPSE OF CAPITALISTIC GOVERNMENT

Downcleckhere
Civilization, I apprehend, is nearly synonymous with order. However much we may differ touching such matters as the distribution of property, the domestic relations, the law of inheritance and the like, most of us, I should suppose, would agree that without order civilization, as we understand it, cannot exist. Now, although the optimist contends that, since man cannot foresee the future, worry about the future is futile, and that everything, in the best possible of worlds, is inevitably for the best, I think it clear that within recent years an uneasy suspicion has come into being that the principle of authority has been dangerously impaired, and that the social system, if it is to cohere, must be reorganized. So far as my observation has extended, such intuitions are usually not without an adequate cause, and if there be reason for anxiety anywhere, it surely should be in the United States, with its unwieldy bulk, its heterogeneous population, and its complex government. Therefore, I submit, that an hour may not be quite wasted which is passed in considering some of the recent phenomena which have appeared about us, in order to
by Worcester Polytechnic Institute
The American Revolution chapter VII: Saratoga, 1777
Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company - 1891
The time for the summer campaign was now at hand. The first year of the independence of the United States was nearly completed, and up to this time the British had nothing to show for their work except the capture of the city of New York and the occupation of Newport. The army of Washington, which six months ago they had regarded as conquered and dispersed, still balked and threatened them from its inexpugnable position on the heights of Morristown. It was high time that something more solid should be accomplished, for every month of adverse possession added fresh weight to the American cause, and increased the probability that France would interfere.
A decisive blow was accordingly about to be struck. After careful study by Lord George Germain, and much consultation with General Burgoyne, who had returned to England for the winter, it was decided to adhere to the plan of the preceding year, with slight modifications. The great object was to secure firm possession of the entire valley of the Hudson, together with that of the Mohawk. It must be borne in mind that at this
by Edited by James D. Richardson
James Madison was born in King George County, Va., on the 16th of March, 1751. He was the son of James Madison, the family being of English descent, and among the early settlers of Virginia. Was fitted for college by private tutors, and entered Princeton College in 1769, graduating in 1771; remained a year at college pursuing his studies. After this he returned to Virginia and began the practice of law. In 1776 was elected a member of the general assembly of Virginia, and in 1778 was appointed a member of the executive council. In the winter of 1779-80 was chosen a delegate to the Continental Congress, of which body he continued an active and prominent member till 1784. The legislature of Virginia appointed him in 1786 a delegate to a convention at Annapolis, Md., to devise a system of commercial regulations for all the States. Upon their recommendation a convention of delegates from all the States was held in Philadelphia in May, 1787. This Convention framed the Constitution of the United States, and of it Mr. Madison was a leading member. He was next a member of the convention of his State which met to consider the new Constitution for the United States. Was a member of the House
by ss

The experiences related in this volume fell to me in the summer of 1902.  I went down into the under-world of London with an attitude of mind which I may best liken to that of the explorer.  I was open to be convinced by the evidence of my eyes, rather than by the teachings of those who had not seen, or by the words of those who had seen and gone before.  Further, I took with me certain simple criteria with which to measure the life of the under-world.  That which made for more life, for physical and spiritual health, was good; that which made for less life, which hurt, and dwarfed, and distorted life, was bad.
It will be readily apparent to the reader that I saw much that was bad.  Yet it must not be forgotten that the time of which I write was considered “good times” in England.  The starvation and lack of shelter I encountered constituted a chronic condition of misery which is never wiped out, even in the periods of greatest prosperity.
Following the summer in question came a hard winter.  Great numbers of the unemployed formed into processions, as many as a dozen at a time, and daily marched through the streets of

by Jacqueline Wilde
I was fire woman in the fire service C division headquarters, Cambridge Street in Birmingham which was area 24 from 1939 to 1945. I was also the divisional instructress Squad Drill and PE. In 1938 I joined the ARP which was Air Raid Precautions and it was being formed to protect the home front so if war was declared, and we had bombs or fires or anything over here it was the civilian population helping out with the forces. It was purely a voluntary organisation and I and many of my friends joined this. Later on in the year which was May 1939, I heard that the fire service were hoping to recruit people. They needed civilians to help out in the offices and back up the firemen when they went to fires, they wanted civilians for admin jobs, office jobs, cooking, switchboards, transport and help with training . So I rang up to see if I was qualified enough to help and the age limit was 18 but because they were in such need of people they said if I filled in the form and sent it in, by the time war was declared I'd be 18 and eligible to join. So I filled the form in sent it in and when war was declared on the 3rd of September, I was told on the radio to mobilise and to go to the nearest
by Thomas E. Davies

Brecon - October 1939
With my head still echoing to the sound of the long shrill blast from the guard’s whistle, blowing from my mind any last-minute thoughts I might have had like bits of straw in the wind, I waved goodbye to the little gathering of people on the platform of Neath General Station who had come to see me off on that grey and windy October day in 1939.
I felt strangely excited as the train chugged out past the drab backs of the houses with their gardens sprawling down almost to the edge of the railway line, washing on the clothes lines, as if sensing the mood I was in, gaily dancing themselves dry in the morning breeze.
A few weeks earlier, Hitler had marched into Poland and Prime Minister Chamberlain had made the dramatic announcement that Britain had no alternative but to enter into a state of war with Germany.
I had received my conscription papers instructing me to report at the barracks in Brecon for service with the South Wales Borderers, the twenty-fourth foot regiment of the line, which had a very distinguished record in the field, collecting a record number of Victoria Crosses at the famous battle of Rourke’s Drift in the Zulu Wars,
by na
Warsaw, 31.8.1939.

My darling Marushka,

You certainly will be astonished to receive this letter from Warsaw, as less than a week ago in Wilno you said goodbye to me, the called-up soldier.

I went east to my formation and now I am in Warsaw as a civilian. Here is what happened in this short time: after arrival at my regiment I presented my call-up card and, after completion of formalities, I was sent to the supply stores. Rushing from one corner of the barracks to another I received all my equipment consisting of wearing apparel and also utensils for eating as well as killing, such as mess tin, cutlery, rifle and bayonet, haversack and hand grenades.

In the afternoon I was detailed to my company which was bivouacked in the forest near the railway ramp. There was great activity in checking lists, etc. Liaison officers were running forwards and backwards, the field telephone situated under an old pear tree was chattering busily.

Before I had time to get acquainted with all my companions and commanders, the field telephone summoned me to the headquarters of the regiment. With my heart in my mouth, I ran to the barracks. What could
by Edited by James D. Richardson
John Adams was born on October 19 (old style), 1735, near Boston, Mass., in the portion of the town of Braintree which has since been incorporated as Quincy. He was fourth in descent from Henry Adams, who fled from persecution in Devonshire, England, and settled in Massachusetts about 1630. Another of his ancestors was John Adams, a founder of the Plymouth Colony in 1620. Entered Harvard College in 1751, and graduated therefrom four years later. Studied the law and taught school at Worcester; was admitted to the bar of Suffolk County in 1758. In 1768 removed to Boston, where he won distinction at the bar. In 1764 married Abigail Smith, whose father was Rev. William Smith and whose grandfather was Colonel Quincy. In 1770 was chosen a representative from Boston in the legislature of Massachusetts. In 1774 was a member of the Continental Congress, and in 1776 was the adviser and great supporter of the Declaration of Independence. The same year was a deputy to treat with Lord Howe for the pacification of the Colonies. He declined the offer of chief justice of Massachusetts. In December, 1777, was appointed a commissioner to France, and returned home in the summer of 1779. He was then
by Bernard Hallas
To the Post War population poverty has never been experienced to the same degree as it had been in the twenties and thirties; to the majority of the unemployed, life was merely an existence and acts that today would be considered degrading were every day occurrences.
To those who fell foul of the habit of smoking, it was not considered out of the ordinary to wait outside cinemas at the end of each performance and as the emergency doors were thrown open, to fight their way through the outgoing mass and once inside run along the rows of seats emptying the ash trays of their contents before they were caught by the cinema attendants.
It was then off to the city centre to wait outside the various hotels and as the �Toffs� stubbed out their smokes before entering their transports home, become engaged in scuffles to retrieve the much valued �Fag ends� from the gutter. Cigar butts were an extra dividend and a much-prized commodity. It was then home where the proceeds of the night�s activity were carefully shredded and rebuilt with the help of the faithful Rizla cigarette rolling machine, after which it was a case of selling them off to the highest bidder after retaining
by Rupert Lyons

War was declared on a Sunday. I remember Leslie Bloomfield and I were rowing on the river at Coddam (Suffolk) that day. There had been radio broadcasts telling everybody to carry their respirators, so on the Monday everyone went to work carrying them in boxes. I, of course, kept trying to join the army. At Colchester there was a medical board of 12 doctors, who examined your ears, eyes, heart, movement of limbs and all the rest of it. They quickly detected the fact that I was deaf in one ear. They simply said ‘rejected…’
The recruiting Sergeant said,
‘Well you’re lucky…off you go back to your job…’
I was thoroughly cheesed of; all I wanted was to go and see the fun of the war.
Back at work the next day, we received the list from the ministry, of all the people who were in reserved occupations, and my name was on it. People were congratulating each other at not having to join up. This, I thought, was a pretty terrible spirit to have. So I couldn’t see much hope of me joining up. I tried other recruitment centres, but they all had the same rigorous medical board procedure.
Then a miraculous thing happened…just like in a fairy tale.
I was in London
by Petty Officer Basil Woolf

THE SUPPORT SQUADRON EASTERN FLANK. (S.S.E.F) AND THE BATTLE FOR WALCHEREN ISLAND.
My name is Basil Woolf, I am 82 years of age, I was born in Hackney, London, in January 1923. I volunteered for the Royal Navy in September 1940 my first overseas draft was to America, in November 1940 where we commissioned an LCI and after some training we were to sail this frail craft, we found later, to North Africa, with eleven other LCIs, without any protection, we left Norfolk Virginia, January 1941, I was just 18 years old.
This trip was to take thirty days, we were now given sleeve badges. with the anchor, Tommy gun, and Eagle, and were told we were Naval Commandos, some time after we took supplies to Malta, smuggled Greek women guerrillas into Crete, took part in the Sicily and Italy landings, and finally received orders to return to England, where we were stationed in Poole, Dorset, and became a part of the Support Squadron Eastern Flank
The Support Squadron Eastern Flank, (SSEF) was established to land and protect Infantry on the eastern flank of “Sword Area,” the British section of the Normandy Invasion, it was in this position, off a small village called Ouistrehan, that
by William T. Sherman
FROM 1820 TO THE MEXICAN WAR.

1820-1846.

According to Cothren, in his "History of Ancient Woodbury, Connecticut," the Sherman family came from Dedham, Essex County, England. The first recorded name is of Edmond Sherman, with his three sons, Edmond, Samuel, and John, who were at Boston before 1636; and farther it is distinctly recorded that Hon. Samuel Sherman, Rev. John, his brother, and Captain John, his first cousin, arrived from Dedham, Essex County, England, in 1634. Samuel afterward married Sarah Mitchell, who had come (in the same ship) from England, and finally settled at Stratford, Connecticut. The other two (Johns) located at Watertown, Massachusetts.
From Captain John Sherman are descended Roger Sherman, the signer of the Declaration of Independence, Hon. William M. Evarts, the Messrs. Hoar, of Massachusetts, and many others of national fame. Our own family are descended from the Hon. Samuel Sherman and his son; the Rev. John, who was born in 1650-'51; then another John, born in 1687; then Judge Daniel, born in 1721; then Taylor Sherman, our grandfather, who was born in 1758. Taylor Sherman was a lawyer and judge in Norwalk, Connecticut, where he resided
by Leslie Davison
On the eighth of September we were briefed for an operation, which had it come off, would have been the biggest debacle in British army history. The first airborne division was to be spit into its three brigades and each brigade was to be sent to secure three bridges in Holland. The bridges were at Grave, on the river Maas, Nijmegen on the Waal and Arnhem on the Rhine.
These bridges were on a main road running from south to north in Western Holland with U.S. Airborne troops capturing other bridges further to the south around Eindhoven. The plan was that as these bridges were secured, the main land forces, namely the Second Army, under General Horrocks would be able to advance without hindrance. It was a pretty wild idea and fortunately it was cancelled.
However on the fifteenth of September we were assembled in the briefing room once more. The plan was basically the same except that the whole concept had been upgraded. Now the whole first airborne division was going to take the Arnhem bridge and the 82nd American the bridge at Nijmegen. The 101st American Airborne was to take the bridge at Grave and some smaller crossings to the South.
D-Day was Sunday the 17th of September,
by Hiram Bingham
Crossing the Desert A kind friend in Bolivia once placed in my hands a copy of a most interesting book by the late E. George Squier, entitled “Peru. Travel and Exploration in the Land of the Incas.” In that volume is a marvelous picture of the Apurimac Valley. In the foreground is a delicate suspension bridge which commences at a tunnel in the face of a precipitous cliff and hangs in mid-air at great height above the swirling waters of the “great speaker.” In the distance, towering above a mass of stupendous mountains, is a magnificent snow-capped peak. The desire to see the Apurimac and experience the thrill of crossing that bridge decided me in favor of an overland journey to Lima.

As a result I went to Cuzco, the ancient capital of the mighty empire of the Incas, and was there urged by the Peruvian authorities to visit some newly re-discovered Inca ruins. As readers of “Across South America” will remember, these ruins were at Choqquequirau, an interesting place on top of a jungle-covered ridge several thousand feet above the roaring rapids of the great Apurimac. " id="d0e561"> Page 2 There was some doubt as to who had originally lived here.
by Terence Robertson
The Walker trio, father, mother and son, matured and learned to cope with recurrent minor financial crises. Father, always an individualist, acquired the reputation of being an outspoken critic of instruction he considered ill-advised or based on wrong precepts. Yet he was a popular figure at Osprey and regarded as one of the few pioneer experts in the developing art of tactical defence and attack against an underwater enemy. Mrs. Walker increased her authority over all things domestic by giving birth in 1924 to a second son, Nicholas, and a year later to their first daughter, Gillian. But the years ashore made Walker restless, even promotion to lieutenant-commander failing to induce him to settle down in his career. For many long hours, he discussed with his wife the attractive possibility of leaving the Navy and finding a more lucrative job in civilian life while they were both young. When he said that the Navy in peacetime was �not my cup of tea� he really meant it. He had enormous energy and an equally vast capacity for sheer hard work, but the Navy had returned to its pre-war role of providing a salty atmosphere in society ashore. Overshadowing this frustrating state of affairs
by E. F. Benson
In compiling the following pages I have had access to certain sources of official information, the nature of which I am not at liberty to specify further. I have used these freely in such chapters of this book as deal with recent and contemporary events in Turkey or in Germany in connection with Turkey: the chapter, for instance, entitled 'Deutschland über Allah,' is based very largely on such documents. I have tried to be discriminating in their use, and have not, as far as I am aware, stated anything derived from them as a fact, for which I had not found corroborative evidence. With regard to the Armenian massacres I have drawn largely on the testimony collected by Lord Bryce, on that brought forward by Mr. Arnold J. Toynbee in his pamphlet The Murder of a Nation , and The Murderous Tyranny of the Turks, and on the pamphlet by Dr. Martin Niepage, called The Horrors of Aleppo . In the first chapter I have based the short historical survey on the contribution of Mr. D.G. Hogarth to The Balkans (Clarendon Press, 1915). The chapter called 'Thy Kingdom is Divided' is in no respect at all an official utterance, and merely represents the individual opinions and surmises of the author.
by Henry A. Murray
Gratis and Explanatory .
What is the use of a preface? Who wants a preface? Nay, more—what is a preface? Who can define it? That which it is most unlike is the mathematical myth called a point, which may be said to have neither length nor breadth, and consequently no existence; whereas a preface generally has extreme length, all the breadth the printer can give it, and an universal existence.
But if prefaces cannot be described with mathematical accuracy, they admit of classification with most unmathematical inaccuracy. First, you have a large class which may be called CLAIMERS. Ex.: One claims a certain degree of consideration, upon the ground that it is the author's first effort; a second claims indulgence, upon the ground of haste; a third claims attention, upon the ground of the magnitude and importance of the subject, &c. &c. Another large class may be termed MAKERS. Ex.: One makes an excuse for tediousness; a second makes an apology for delay; a third makes his endeavours plead for favourable reception, &c. Then again you have the INTERROGATOR, wherein a reader is found before the work is printed, convenient questions are put into his mouth, and ready
by Mike Hazell
FOREWORD
I still can�t believe it - they don�t want me any more. Twenty-two years of bus conducting - cycling two miles each way to the garage summer and winter - in the rain, sunshine, fog, ice, snow and gales - late turn and early turn - happy in my job I thought - but no more - it�s true - I�ve got to face it - they just don�t want me. Of course I can�t pretend it came as a totally unexpected shock. When I first came to Staines Garage all those years ago there were rumours that the Country Buses might go to Windsor and the red buses of London Transport�s Central fleet take over instead. But we all laughed and said it would never happen and it hasn�t has it? Well, there was a rumour only last week - remember? Not quite the same rumour that went round in the middle fifties mind you - this time it�s just that Staines Garage was closing down completely - well that can�t be true- people will always want buses.
Doris Hazell 1979

�People will always want buses - so if you are lucky enough to pass your interviews, the medical tests and the exams at the end of your training course, then you have a job for life - the best paid unskilled labour in the country, a week�s
by Julia Corner
CHARLES'S PROGRESS IN LEARNING.
You have heard a great deal about Charles in the Seeds of Useful Knowledge; perhaps you would like to hear a little more about him; for, as he was never tired of learning good things, I might fill many books, if I were to speak of every thing that his papa and mamma taught him. But I dare say all the boys and girls who read this, have kind parents or friends who teach them, as well as Charles's papa and mamma taught him; so I will only mention such things as they may not perhaps yet have heard.
But first of all, I must tell you what Charles has been doing, since you heard of him last. He was now a year older than he was then, and he was also wiser, for he could write pretty well, and read without spelling the long words; he knew the multiplication table, and the pence table too; and could do sums in multiplication without a mistake, when he took pains; but sometimes, when he was careless, or in a hurry, the sums were wrong: however, I am happy to say that did not happen very often. Besides all these things, Charles learned grammar, and geography, and could decline many Latin nouns; which was very well for a little boy not quite seven years
by Charles Hague
I was called up for army service 24th June 1940 (age 25). Had to report for duty at Sigglesthorn, East Yorkshire. From there, taken to Hornsea by East Yorkshire Buses where we were billeted in a Girls' College awaiting for uniforms etc. After 6 days when we were kitted out, we were marched from Hornsea to Beverley in shirts - no jacket, too hot - 50 rounds of ammunition in a bandolier, with string on rifles (no straps!) Kept having a break now and again on route. Had to lay on our backs with feet above our head in the ditches to ease the pain. On arrival at Beverley railway station - first call was the Medical Room. Blood and blisters the main ailment, a good start to army life !!! Route marches and drills for weeks, plus night manoeuvres on Beverley Racecourse and target practice etc for 3 months - for each Platoon.
Posted to 8th Battalion East Yorks for coasta1 duty on N E Coast (Sunderland) in September. Billeted in terrace houses in Roker Park Road on arrival. More drilling and marching in the Park. Rifle practice took place on the cliffs at Seaburn also firing Bren Gun and tossing hand grenades.
Called out at 4 a.m. one morning and told to put denims on! Marched
by Tom Simkins
This story is taken from my father's unpublished autobiography, which covers the early years to the end of the war. He never finished the book, which he called Another Door , because he suffered a stroke which affected his speech and memory - and in fact now he cannot properly communicate with us.
I have also included his account of his time in the Far East on this website, but this story covers his account of the invasion of Africa. My father worked for the Marconi company as a ship's radio officer. He was a chief radio officer in the Merchant Navy. Here is his story:
Japan declared war on December 7/8th 1941 , the exact date depending upon where one was situated at the time.
They did this by attacking the American Naval base, Pearl Harbour, at Hawaii at dawn with a massive air strike by carrier-born aircraft of the Japanese fleet. That attack was co-coordinated closely in time with bombing attacks on Hong Kong and Singapore, and amphibious landings on the north-east coast of Malaya, between Kota Baru and the border with Thailand. But of course I knew nothing of this at the time. The first inclination I had that something was amiss was actually being shaken
by Thomas Arthur Russell
The year was 1938; I�d been offered a job boring the coalface and was proud of the fact that the under-manager sought me out for the job. He asked me personally, as man to man, and flattered me by saying that he knew it was a tough job, but thought I could be trusted to do my best. He helped me by first having me instructed for a shift by a surveyor who had been a very efficient borer himself, which meant colliers could fill coal more efficiently. Like all jobs, it had its bad points. The job was regular afternoons; I got my bike out and rode from home at about 11 o�clock, having first changed into my dirty work clothes, reposing at the bottom of a cupboard near the fireplace.
When I set out to work, I wore an old jacket, a waistcoat in which mother had sewn two large pockets and one in which I carried a quart bottle of water, and a snap tin with four large slices of her excellent home-baked bread, smeared with a thick covering of best butter and strawberry jam. Sometimes it was dripping, out of the Sunday joint, or sometimes I took half an onion. Simple fare, but as it was, I enjoyed it.
The job was tough and dusty. As I dragged the borer and cable along the face,
by Ralph Chaplin
This booklet is not an apology for murder. It is an honest effort to unravel the tangled mesh of circumstances that led up to the Armistice Day tragedy in Centralia, Washington. The writer is one of those who believe that the taking of human life is justifiable only in self-defense. Even then the act is a horrible reversion to the brute--to the low plane of savagery. Civilization, to be worthy of the name, must afford other methods of settling human differences than those of blood letting.
The nation was shocked on November 11, 1919, to read of the killing of four American Legion men by members of the Industrial Workers of the World in Centralia. The capitalist newspapers announced to the world that these unoffending paraders were killed in cold blood--that they were murdered from ambush without provocation of any kind. If the author were convinced that there was even a slight possibility of this being true, he would not raise his voice to defend the perpetrators of such a cowardly crime.
But there are two sides to every question and perhaps the newspapers presented only one of these. Dr. Frank Bickford, an ex-service man who participated in the affair, testified at
by John M. Taylor
"First, because Witchcraft is a rife and common sinne in these our daies, and very many are intangled with it, beeing either practitioners thereof in their owne persons, or at the least, yielding to seeke for helpe and counsell of such as practise it." A Discovrse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft , PERKINS, 1610.
"And just as God has his human servants, his church on earth, so also the Devil has his—men and women sworn to his service and true to his bidding. To win such followers he can appear to men in any form he pleases, can deceive them, enter into compact with them, initiate them into his worship, make them his allies for the ruin of their fellows. Now it is these human allies and servants of Satan, thus postulated into existence by the brain of a monkish logician, whom history knows as witches." The Literature of Witchcraft , BURR.

Witchcraft in its generic sense is as old as human history. It has written its name in the oldest of human records. In all ages and among all peoples it has taken firm hold on the fears, convictions and consciences of men. Anchored in credulity and superstition, in the dread and love of mystery, in
by Action Desk ? Sheffield
A letter written on 28th February 1942 (my 16th birthday) by the Engineer-in-Charge of the BBC transmitting station situated on top of Churchdown (Chosen) Hill near Gloucester, asked me to go there for an interview the following day, a Sunday, at 9.OOam, ".....in order to see if I would prove suitable for the vacancy". This had been instigated by a school friend, Ron Gittings, who was employed there, and was to be posted elsewhere, thus leaving a vacancy for a 'Youth-in-Training (Transmitters)'. Ron had previously discussed this with me and asked if I would be interested. INTERESTED! I should say so!


Therefore on the Sunday morning, I prepared myself in my best clothes and cycled the six or so miles to the bottom of the lane leading to the summit of the 154m (505ft) 'Chosen Hill', so called as the result of a legend concerning The Devil and the parish church which stood up there in a very isolated place. Apparently before the Water Authority built the road, coffins had to be carried all the way up. No mean feat! I then pushed my bike up this steep narrow road and eventually reached the wire fence enclosing the two semi-underground Gloucester and Cheltenham water reservoirs.
by Louis P. Benezet
The Great War The call from Europe.—Friend against friend.—Why?—Death and devastation.—No private quarrel.—Ordered by government.—What makes government?—The influence of the past.—Four causes of war.

Among the bricklayers at work on a building which was being erected in a great American city during the summer of 1914 were two men who had not yet become citizens of the United States. Born abroad, they still owed allegiance, one to the Emperor of Austria, the other to the Czar of Russia.
Meeting in a new country, and using a new language which gave them a chance to understand each other, they had become well acquainted. They were members of the same labor union, and had worked side by side on several different jobs. In the course of time, a firm friendship had sprung up between them. Suddenly, on the same day, each was notified to call at the office of the agent of his government in the city. Next morning the Russian came to his boss to explain that he must quit work, that he had been called home to fight for the "Little Father" of the Russians. He found his chum, the Austrian, there ahead of him, telling that he had to go,
by John R. Musick,
Written history is generally too scholastic to interest the great mass of readers. Dignified and formal, it deals mainly with great events, and often imperfectly with these, because, not pausing to present clear impression by the associations of individual life, it conveys a stiff and unnatural opinion of the past. Historians ignore the details which go to make up the grand sum total of history, and from the very best histories one can get but a meagre idea of the life and times of the people of bygone ages. It is these minor details of past events which lend to fiction its greatest charm, and attract the multitude, by appearing more like truth. Although untrue in the particular combinations, scenes and plots delineated, yet well written fiction is drawn from nature and experience, and these facts in life, as with chessmen, are only arranged in new but natural positions. History should include everything in the nature, character, customs and incidents, both general and individual, that contribute to originate what is peculiar in a people, or what causes their advancement or decline. So broad is its scope, that nothing is too mighty for its grasp--so searching, scarce anything is
by Marcus Dorman
This journal is practically my Diary reproduced with the minimum of editing in order that the impressions gained on the spot should be described without modification. It was never intended for publication, and was written only as an aid to memory. Consequently it is little more than a collection of rough notes.
Having left England with a prejudice against the Government of the Congo Free State and returned with a very strong feeling in its favour, I feel however that it is my duty to publish an account of what I did see for the benefit of those whose opinions are not already formed beyond recall.
As in all controversies where feelings subordinate reason and people judge more by their emotions than by evidence, many are too quick to-day to attribute interested motives to those whose opinions are not similar to their own. Since a great number of people in the Congo and at home are curious to know whether I was sent out by the Congo Government, the British Government or the Times , I will state here once for all that I went to the Congo entirely to please myself and with the hope of shooting big game. In order indeed to satisfy curiosity, I will go further and state that
by Alexander Aaronsohn
While Belgium is bleeding and hoping, while Poland suffers and dreams of liberation, while Serbia is waiting for redemption, there is a little country the soul of which is torn to pieces—a little country that is so remote, so remote that her ardent sighs cannot be heard.
It is the country of perpetual sacrifice, the country that saw Abraham build the altar upon which he was ready to immolate his only son, the country that Moses saw from a distance, stretching in beauty and loveliness,—a land of promise never to be attained,—the country that gave the world its symbols of soul and spirit. Palestine!
No war correspondents, no Red Cross or relief committees have gone to Palestine, because no actual fighting has taken place there, and yet hundreds of thousands are suffering there that worst of agonies, the agony of the spirit.
Those who have devoted their lives to show the world that Palestine can be made again a country flowing with milk and honey, those who have dreamed of reviving the spirit of the prophets and the great teachers, are hanged and persecuted and exiled, their dreams shattered, their holy places profaned, their work ruined. Cut
by William Lewis Manly
St. Albans, Vermont is near the eastern shore of Lake Champlain, and only a short distance south of "Five-and-forty north degrees" which separates the United States from Canada, and some sixty or seventy miles from the great St. Lawrence River and the city of Montreal. Near here it was, on April 6th, 1820, I was born, so the record says, and from this point with wondering eyes of childhood I looked across the waters of the narrow lake to the slopes of the Adirondack mountains in New York, green as the hills of my own Green Mountain State.

The parents of my father were English people and lived near Hartford, Connecticut, where he was born. While still a little boy he came with his parents to Vermont. My mother's maiden name was Phoebe Calkins, born near St. Albans of Welch parents, and, being left an orphan while yet in very tender years, she was given away to be reared by people who provided food and clothes, but permitted her to grow up to womanhood without knowing how to read or write. After her marriage she learned to do both, and acquired the rudiments of an education.

Grandfather and his boys, four in all, fairly carved a farm out of the big
by Le Page Du Pratz
Of the first Discovery and Settlement of LOUISIANA.
After the Spaniards came to have settlements on the Great Antilles, it was not long before they attempted to make discoveries on the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico. In 1520, Lucas Vasquez de Aillon landed on the continent to the north of that Gulf, being favourably received by the people of that country, who made him presents in gold, pearls, and plated silver. This favourable reception made him return thither four years after; but the natives having changed their friendly sentiments towards him, killed two hundred of his men, and obliged him to retire.
In 1528, Pamphilo Nesunez 16 landed also on that coast, receiving from the first nations he met in his way, presents made in gold; which, by signs, they made him to understand, came from the Apalachean mountains, in the country which at this day goes under the name of Florida: and thither he attempted to go, undertaking a hazardous journey of twenty-five days. In this march he was so often attacked by the new people he continually discovered, and lost so many of his men, as only to think of re-embarking with the few that were left, happy to have himself escaped the
by William T. Sherman
FROM THE BATTLE OF BULL RUN TO PADUCAH KENTUCKY AND MISSOURI

1861-1862.

And now that, in these notes, I have fairly reached the period of the civil war, which ravaged our country from 1861 to 1865—an event involving a conflict of passion, of prejudice, and of arms, that has developed results which, for better or worse, have left their mark on the world's history—I feel that I tread on delicate ground.
I have again and again been invited to write a history of the war, or to record for publication my personal recollections of it, with large offers of money therefor; all of which I have heretofore declined, because the truth is not always palatable, and should not always be told. Many of the actors in the grand drama still live, and they and their friends are quick to controversy, which should be avoided. The great end of peace has been attained, with little or no change in our form of government, and the duty of all good men is to allow the passions of that period to subside, that we may direct our physical and mental labor to repair the waste of war, and to engage in the greater task of continuing our hitherto wonderful national development.
What I
by James Fenimore Cooper

In one respect, this book is a parallel to Franklin's well-known apologue of the hatter and his sign. It was commenced with a sole view to exhibit the present state of society in the United States, through the agency, in part, of a set of characters with different peculiarities, who had freshly arrived from Europe, and to whom the distinctive features of the country would be apt to present themselves with greater force, than to those who had never lived beyond the influence of the things portrayed. By the original plan, the work was to open at the threshold of the country, or with the arrival of the travellers at Sandy Hook, from which point the tale was to have been carried regularly forward to its conclusion. But a consultation with others has left little more of this plan than the hatter's friends left of his sign. As a vessel was introduced in the first chapter, the cry was for "more ship," until the work has become "all ship;" it actually closing at, or near, the spot where it was originally intended it should commence. Owing to this diversion from the author's design--a design that lay at the bottom of all his projects--a necessity has been created of running the tale through
by John Owen Smith
The village of Headley in east Hampshire sits just across the River Wey from Bordon Camp. This was constructed at the turn of the century on land first purchased by the army in 1863 for use as a training area and, until the end of the 1920s, formed an integral part of Headley parish. Through the years, therefore, the village has become familiar with the presence of the military close at hand. Older residents tell of hearing the bugle calls from the Camp, and today we can hear quite distinctly the firing coming from the Woolmer ranges.
During the First World War, villagers saw troops, led by their military bands, marching through from Bordon to Ludshott Common in order to practice digging trenches. They remember a meat depot and bakery being established on the Village Green, bread being baked in open ovens for the soldiers of several local camps, and the Institute adjoining the back of the Congregational Chapel (both since demolished) being used to give soldiers a cup of tea on Sunday afternoons.
Sadly, all too few years were to pass before the village and common were again used for similar purposes.
The Village Prepares
Britain declared war on Germany on 3rd September 1939
by Mildred Aldrich

Note To Tenth Impression

The author wishes to apologize for the constant use of the word English in speaking of the British Expedition to France. At the beginning of the war this was a colloquial error into which we all fell over here, even the French press. Everything in khaki was spoken of as "English," even though we knew perfectly well that Scotch, Irish, and Welsh were equally well represented in the ranks, and the colors they followed were almost universally spoken of as the "English flag." These letters were written in the days before the attention of the French press was called to this error of speech, which accounts for the mistake's persisting in the book.

La Creste, Huiry,

France, February, 1916.

To My Grandmother
Judith Trask Baker
That Staunch New Englander And
Pioneer Universalist
To The Memory Of Whose Courage
And Example I Owe A Debt
Of Eternal Gratitude
June 3, 1914
Well, the deed is done. I have not wanted to talk with you much about it until I was here. I know all your objections. You remember that you did not spare me when, a year ago, I told you that this was my plan. I realize that you—more
by Charles Duke Yonge
Mr. Hallam's "Constitutional History" closes, as is well known, with the death of George II. The Reformation, the great Rebellion, and the Revolution, all of which are embraced in the period of which it treats, are events of such surpassing importance, and such all-pervading and lasting influence, that no subsequent transactions can ever attract entirely equal attention. Yet the century which has elapsed since the accession of George III. has also witnessed occurrences not only full of exciting interest at the moment, but calculated to affect the policy of the kingdom and the condition of the people, for all future time, in a degree only second to the Revolution itself. Indeed, the change in some leading features and principles of the constitution wrought by the Reform Bill of 1832, exceeds any that were enacted by the Bill of Rights or the Act of Settlement. The only absolutely new principle introduced in 1688 was that establishment of Protestant ascendency which was contained in the clause which disabled any Roman Catholic from wearing the crown. In other respects, those great statutes were not so much the introduction of new principles, as a recognition of privileges of the people
by Action Desk ? Sheffield
84 General
Hospital BNAF
11.4.43
Dear Mrs. Chambers,
I am the chaplain at the hospital your husband was taken to and I was with him when he died, and also took his funeral, so I want to tell you something about it.
He was terribly badly injured and it was not to be hoped that he would ever be a whole man again � if he had lived, it would have meant that he could never have been strong and it was better for him to go. I could not speak to him a lot, as he was mostly asleep or unconscious, but the morning of the last day, he felt much better and said he was getting better soon � he never realised he was dying and when he relapsed that afternoon, he was never conscious again. I was called about 5 am on the morning of the 9th and he died about 6 am.
I said prayers by his bedside, but he could not hear me. I saw him constantly and am sure he was not in great pain, but was uncomfortable. Certainly, he did not suffer; he was buried at the European Country here, no doubt the authorities will tell you the name of the place which I am not allowed to do.
He was covered with the Union Jack and the Welsh Guards made the funeral party � it is a lovely
by Tony King

HOW IT ALL BEGAN
When war was declared I was fifteen and on holiday at a remote farmhouse on the banks of Loch Tay, hearing Neville Chamberlain's fateful announcement on a crackling wireless set in the farmer's kitchen. With the threat of early petrol rationing our holiday was quickly curtailed and a search was made that Sunday for filling stations with petrol cans for sale to ensure our safe return to the family home in Bristol. My three sisters all played their part in the War Effort, Joan in the Land Army, Betty as theatre sister in a hospital treating war wounded and Ruth in the ATS.
The strong spirit of patriotism amongst most boys of my age at that time led to a strange hope that our elders. who claimed the War would soon be over were wrong, and that our chance would come to join the fight against
Fascism.With this is mind, my schoolfriends and I took every opportunity over the next year or two to prepare ourselves for the great day when we could enlist in the Armed Forces - for example I spent the
1940 summer holidays at a forestry camp in the Forest of Dean, helping to cut pit-props, etc., and after leaving school (having had my school certificate exams.
by H.A.B. White

"Stretcher-bearers"
by
H.A.B.White
"Stretcher-bearers" gives a description of World War II as experienced by a Royal Army Medical Corps Field Ambulance unit that served mainly in France, North Africa, Sicily and Italy. Two wartime diaries and the personal accounts of seven men who served in the unit, as well as over 100 letters written home from battle zones, tell the story.
Like scores of other medical units this one, as in all other engagements, went into action armed with stretchers, becoming part of the British Expeditionary Force in France. At that time it consisted mainly of regulars soldiers, well trained in treating the sick and, to a much smaller extent, battle casualties.
The retreat from Dunkirk caused the Army to reorganise in Britain. During this phoney period, when we were expecting invasion, digging a hasty third line of defence, training to cope with gas, being posted out on farm work, and experiencing air raids, the Army reached a high peak of fitness by methods both conventional and bizarre.
In June 1942, this Field Ambulance joined the newly formed 78th Division which invaded North Africa on November 8th, as part of the 1st Army. By
by Joseph Ellison
In 1939 I and my fiancé had arranged to get married on 2nd September at 10.30. I had joined the 6th Royal Northumberland Fusilier�s TA Regiment in 1938 at the age of 24. At 8.30 on the morning of my wedding I received my call up papers telling me to report to my Headquarters as I was now on active service. My wife to be panicked and I told her to leave it to me. I arranged with her brother who was going to be my best man to come with me to the drill hall where I had to report to. When I got there I asked the Sergeant |Major if I could see the CO as it was very important to me. Eventually I was seen by the CO and after I had explained I hadn�t arranged all this to avoid being called up he agreed to give me a 24hr pass so that I could get married. After the wedding, as we were about to have our meal, there was a knock on the door and two Red Caps (Military Police) came in and escorted me back to the drill hall because my pass had been cancelled due to my Company being moved to a new location. The next day we heard that we were moving to Tynemouth and that was the day England declared war on Germany. Then we were told that the 6th Battalion of the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers was
by Joseph Patrick Gray


Preface
Although the early and final parts of this very moving story do not directly convey events of WW2, the bulk of it does so and in the sections that are accounts of the war experiences, there are reflections of the early parts, as well as forward references to the final outcome. The entire story is adequately epitomised in the Introduction that has been written by the wife of the author, and this will facilitate synchronisation of the various parts of the entire story.
Bill Ross (BBC Volunteer Story Editor).
INTRODUCTION
By
Mary Gray
This presentation was written by my husband, Joseph Patrick Gray. His journal tells his story of a big part of his life, from him being born in Philadelphia in the USA, and his youthful years. But mainly, it�s about his long army career from 1937 to1946 (+ 3 years reserve). He then lived in Northern Ireland where he joined the Royal Irish Fusiliers, aged 19.
After a period of training, he, along with the regiment, was posted to Malta, although it was still peace time. He was still there when war broke out. In total, he was in Malta for almost 6 years. The only time he got away was when Churchill
by Geoffrey Dent
I suppose it really all started after my 21 birthday in 1939 when I felt that I ought to do something about the impending war.
Ever since Neville Chamberlain came back from Munich waving that piece of paper and talking about �peace in our time� .
We were all being urged to get involved in civil defence � they wanted air raid wardens, first aiders, heavy rescue and fire service. I opted for the fire thing and duly presented myself at the fire station in Coulsdon.
I was confronted by a huge bum, which was encased in blue serge being stretched to the limits. Eventually it turned round to reveal a portly man with a very red face. �Cor� he said, �dropped a fag end down there. It wouldn�t do to set this place on fire.
What can I do for you?� I soon became auxiliary fire man no 306 of the Coulsdon and Purley Fire Brigade. We trained for two hours every Friday evening.
When I started they were half way through a two year course � which raises a certain question over the degree of urgency. By my first training session they had reached the use of a 24 horse power pump with the largest hose nozzle in use it took three men to control it.
I
by Gwen Millward
On August 14th 1945 the Second World War ended.
Japan had surrendered after receiving two devastating blows. Atom bombs had been dropped
on Hiroshoma and Nagasaki.
I was thirteen years old, and had another few months of school to go before I left at fourteen. I went to Milverton School in Rugby Road, Leamington Spa, having failed my 11-plus by one mark.My parents were so upset at my failure that they went and had a chat with my headmistress, and she told them about about the one mark. Thinking back over the exam after the papers had been collected,I suddenly realised I had made a stupid mistake on one of the questions. So -I never got to go to the Leamington College for Girls with my friend Shirley Harper.
The day after the war ended, August 15th, was declared VJ day, Victory in Japan. Previously, when the Germans had surrended and the war in Europe had ended, May 8th 1948 had been declared
VE day.
I remembered I was up very early on the morning of VJ day and I slipped out of the house where I lived
in Woodbine Street.It was a beautiful day weatherwise, briliant sunshine and blue skies, and I walked along the street and stood at the top of Church Hill that adjoined
by cornwallcsv
Helen and I kept writing to each other until the end of the war.
The romantic interlude became just that when we sailed off, heading north to an unknown destination. Some said Indian waters, others the east, and yet others Malta, this last guess frightening us silly. 1942 was the year of the deadly �Malta Convoys�.
Malta lay in the middle of the Med and was supplied by ships running either from Suez or from Gibraltar. Both had to run the gauntlet of enemy attacks by air and sea by forces which had only short distances to travel, whether from North Africa, the Mediterranean islands or mainland Europe. Our losses were immense with only one or two cargoes succeeding out of the dozen or so that set off.
Off we went up the coast, usually with naval vessels in tow, our favourite companion being an aircraft tender. Its Captain had a sense of humour and would exchange teasing comments about seamanship and manoeuvre procedures with our �old man� after the evening visual signals. In risky waters, ships proceeded in a series of zigzags to deter submarines from anticipating one�s position. The course changes were made according to an arranged pattern of time changes. Ten
by Anne Misselke


Part one of an edited oral history interview with Mrs. Anne Misselke (n�e Alexandre) conducted by Jenny Ford on behalf of Bedford Museum.

�I was born on the Channel Island of Guernsey in January 1930 and I lived there very happily with my parents. We had my father�s father living with us because that grandmother had died just before I was born and I had lots of aunts and uncles and cousins all living on the Island. Guernsey is a lovely place for a child to grow up, it was then and it still is now safe - you could go out to play and things like that.

Life continued very nicely all the way through the Thirties and I can remember the day war was declared because my cousin Imelda had come to stay with us for the weekend. On the Sunday morning we girls were playing at dressing up on our landing, we had quite a big landing but it only had lino on the floor so when we had my mum�s high heeled shoes on we could make a lovely clippy cloppy noise. My dad came in from the garden for his elevenses and he put the wireless on. He had to have the wireless on very loudly because he wouldn�t admit to the fact that he was deaf and so we could hear the man on the wireless say,
by Edward A. Johnson
THE CAUSE OF THE WAR WITH SPAIN.
Many causes led up to the Spanish-American war. Cuba had been in a state of turmoil for a long time, and the continual reports of outrages on the people of the island by Spain greatly aroused the Americans. The "ten years war" had terminated, leaving the island much embarrassed in its material interests, and woefully scandalized by the methods of procedure adopted by Spain and principally carried out by Generals Campos and Weyler, the latter of whom was called the "butcher" on account of his alleged cruelty in attempting to suppress the former insurrection. There was no doubt much to complain of under his administration, for which the General himself was not personally responsible. He boasted that he only had three individuals put to death, and that in each of these cases he was highly justified by martial law.
FINALLY THE ATTENTION OF THE UNITED STATES was forcibly attracted to Cuba by the Virginius affair, which consisted in the wanton murder of fifty American sailors--officers and crew of the Virginius, which was captured by the Spanish off Santiago bay, bearing arms and ammunition to the insurgents--Captain Fry, a West Point graduate,
by sapperawgh

In 1940, the 14th June to be precise, which was only days after war was declared between South Africa and Italy, I joined up and became a Sapper, Army number 189654, in the South African Engineering Corps.

We arrived at Sonderwater Camp in the late afternoon and were immediately led off to the Quartermasters Stores where we were issued with our kit, needless to say all in sizes that did not match our own! We were then led stumbling in the dark loaded down with all our kit through an area where Sappers had been carrying out training in digging trenches (shades of World War 1) to a temporary tented area and shown in batches of the magical number of 21 to our respective tents. The reason for the 21 batching soon became apparent when we discovered that a bell tent is made up of 22 segments so that the maximum number that could be accommodated was 21 with the extra segment the door. Sleeping 21 to a bell tent is an art and necessitates sleeping with feet to the central pole, and it can be imagined what a restful night 21 feet bunched around a central tent pole provides!! That June at Sonderwater was bitterly cold and on our first morning we noticed that there was a stream of
by John Lord
CONTENTS.
">ALFRED THE GREAT .
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
The early Saxons
Their conquest of England
Division of England into petty kingdoms
Conversion of the Saxons
The Saxon bishoprics
Early distinguished men
Isadore, Caedmon, and Baeda, or Bede
Birth and early life of Alfred
Succession to the throne of Wessex
Danish invasions
Humiliation and defeat of Alfred
His subsequent conquests
Final settlement of the Danes
Alfred fortifies his kingdom
Reorganizes the army and navy
His naval successes
Renewed Danish invasions
The laws of Alfred
Their severity
Alfred's judicial reforms
Establishment of shires and parishes
Administrative reforms
Financial resources of Alfred
His efforts in behalf of education
His literary labors
Final defeat of the Danes
Death and character of Alfred
His services to civilization
Authorities
">QUEEN ELIZABETH .
WOMAN AS A SOVEREIGN.
The reign of Queen Elizabeth associated with progress
Her birth and education
Her trials of the heart
Her critical situation during the reign of Mary
Her expediences
Her
by H.A.B. White
Interviewer: Er, could you tell me when and where you were born Mr. Adams?
George Adams: 19th of January, 1922 at New Whittington, Chesterfield.
Int: What did your father do for a living?
GA: He was a works clerk at Staveley, he worked at Staveley.
Int: And how many of you were there in the family?
GA: Just mother and father and myself, just the three of us.
Int: Which school did you go to?
GA: New Whittington first of all, then on to Tapton.
Int: What did you want to do when you left school?
GA: I didn�t know actually, it just happened that this job came up at Staveley where my father worked. They asked if it would be any use, they said, �Yes, send him down,� so I went to see them and I went into the laboratory there on the foundry side.
Int: What were you actually doing?
GA: Training as a metallurgist. I stayed there until I went into the forces in 1940.
Int: Had you been in the Boy Scouts or the Rover Scouts?
GA: Yes, both the Scouts and Rover Scouts.
Int: What sort of activities were you doing with them?
GA: Camping, walking, all that kind of thing.
Int: Did it
by E. A. WALLIS BUDGE
A study of ancient Egyptian religious texts will convince the reader that the Egyptians believed in One God, who was self-existent, immortal, invisible, eternal, omniscient, almighty, and inscrutable; the maker of the heavens, earth, and underworld; the creator of the sky and the sea, men and women, animals and birds, fish and creeping things, trees and plants, and the incorporeal beings who were the messengers that fulfilled his wish and word. It is necessary to place this definition of the first part of the belief of the Egyptian at the beginning of the first chapter of this brief account of the principal religious ideas which he held, for the whole of his theology and religion was based upon it; and it is also necessary to add that, however far back we follow his literature, we never seem to approach a time when he was without this remarkable belief. It is true that he also developed polytheistic ideas and beliefs, and that he cultivated them at certain periods of his history with diligence, and to such a degree that the nations around, and even the stranger in his country, were misled by his actions, and described him as a polytheistic idolater.
by John Leighton
Early in June of the present year I was making notes and sketches, without the least idea of what I should do with them. I was at the Mont-Parnasse Station of the Western Railway, awaiting a train from Paris to St. Cloud. Our fellow passengers, as we discovered afterwards, were principally prisoners for Versailles; the guards, soldiers; and the line, for two miles at least, appeared desolation and ruin.
The façade of the station, a very large one, was pockmarked all over by Federal bullets, whilst cannon balls had cut holes through the stone wall as if it had been cheese, and gone down the line, towards Cherbourg or Brest! The restaurant below was nearly annihilated, the counters, tables, and chairs being reduced to a confused heap. But there was a book-stall and on that book-stall reposed a little work, entitled the "Bataille des Sept Jours," a brochure which a friend bought and gave to me, saying, " Voilà la texte de vos croquis ," From seven days my ideas naturally wandered to seventy-three—the duration of the reign of the Commune—and then again to two hundred and twenty days—that included the Commune of 1871 and its antecedents. Hence this
by Ernest Favenc
In presenting to the public this history of those makers of Australasia whose work consisted in the exploration of the surface of the continent of Australia, I have much pleasure in drawing the reader's attention to the portraits which illustrate the text. It is, I venture to say, the most complete collection of portraits of the explorers that has yet been published in one volume. Some of them of course must needs be conventional; but many of them, such as the portrait of Oxley when a young man, and of A.C. Gregory, have never been given publicity before; and in many cases I have selected early portraits, whenever I had the opportunity, in preference to the oft published portrait of the same subject when advanced in years.
There are many who assisted me in the collection of these portraits. To Mr. F. Bladen, of the Public Library, Sydney; Mr. Malcolm Fraser, of Perth, Western Australia; Mr. Thomas Gill, of Adelaide; Sir John Forrest; The Reverend J. Milne Curran; Mr. Archibald Meston; and many others my best thanks are due. In fact, in such a work as this, one cannot hope for success unless he seek the assistance of those who remembered the explorers in life, or have heard their
by John Lord
PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.
The remarks made in the preface to the volume on "American Founders" are applicable also to this volume on "American Leaders." The lecture on Daniel Webster has been taken from its original position in "Warriors and Statesmen" (a volume the lectures of which are now distributed for the new edition in more appropriate groupings), and finds its natural neighborhood in this volume with the paper on Clay and Calhoun.
Since the intense era of the Civil War has passed away, and Northerners and Southerners are becoming more and more able to take dispassionate views of the controversies of that time, finding honorable reasons for the differences of opinion and of resultant conduct on both sides, it has been thought well to include among "American Leaders" a man who stands before all Americans as the chief embodiment of the "cause" for which so many gallant soldiers died--Robert E. Lee. His personal character was so lofty, his military genius so eminent, that North and South alike looked up to him while living and mourned him dead. His career is depicted by one who has given it careful study, and who, himself a
by John Lord
CONTENTS.
">MIRABEAU .
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
First act of the Revolution
Remote causes
Louis XVI
Derangement of finances
Assembly of notables
Mirabeau; his writings and extraordinary eloquence
Assembly of States-General
Usurpation of the Third Estate
Mirabeau's ascendency
Paralysis of government
General disturbances; fall of the Bastille
Extraordinary reforms by the National Assembly
Mirabeau's conservatism
Talleyrand, and confiscation of Church property
Death of Mirabeau; his characteristics
Revolutionary violence; the clubs
The Jacobin orators
The King arrested
The King tried, condemned, and executed
The Reign of Terror
Robespierre, Marat, Danton
Reaction
The Directory
Napoleon
What the Revolution accomplished
What might have been done without it
Carlyle
True principles of reform
The guide of nations
">EDMUND BURKE .
POLITICAL MORALITY.
Early life and education of Burke
Studies law
Essay on "The Sublime and Beautiful"
First political step
Enters Parliament
Debates on American difficulties
Burke opposes
by John Lord
A SUPPLEMENTARY VOLUME, BY RECENT WRITERS,
AS SET FORTH IN THE PREFACE AND TABLE OF CONTENTS. PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.
In preparing the new edition of Dr. Lord's great work, it has been thought desirable to do what the venerable author's death in 1894 did not permit him to accomplish, and add a volume summarizing certain broad aspects of achievement in the last fifty years. It were manifestly impossible to cover in any single volume--except in the dry, cyclopaedic style of chronicling multitudinous facts, so different from the vivid, personal method of Dr. Lord--all the growths of the wonderful period just closed. The only practicable way has been to follow our author's principle of portraying selected historic forces ,--to take, as representative or typical of the various departments, certain great characters whose services have signalized them as "Beacon Lights" along the path of progress, and to secure adequate portrayal of these by men known to be competent for interesting exposition of the several themes.
Thus the volume opens with a paper on "Richard Wagner: Modern Music," by Henry T. Finck, the musical critic of the New York Evening Post , and author
by John Lord
PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.
Dr. Lord's volume on "American Statesmen" was written some years after the issue of his volume on "Warriors and Statesmen," which was Volume IV of his original series of five volumes. The wide popular acceptance of the five volumes encouraged him to extend the series by including, and rewriting for the purpose, others of his great range of lectures. The volume called "Warriors and Statesmen" (now otherwise distributed) included a number of lectures which in this new edition have been arranged in more natural grouping. Among them were the lectures on Hamilton and Webster. It has been deemed wise to bring these into closer relation with their contemporaries, and thus Hamilton is now placed in this volume, among the other "American Founders," and Webster in the volume on "American Leaders."
Of the "Founders" there is one of whom Dr. Lord did not treat, yet whose services--especially in the popular confirmation of the Constitution by the various States, and notably in its fundamental interpretation by the United States Supreme Court--rank as vitally important. John Marshall, as Chief Justice of that
by John Lord
CONTENTS.
">WILLIAM IV .
ENGLISH REFORMS.
Social evils in England on the accession of William IV.
Political agitations.
Premiership of Lord Grey.
Aristocratic character of the reformers.
Lord John Russell.
The Reform Bill.
Its final passage.
Henry Brougham.
Lord Melbourne, Prime Minister.
Troubles in Ireland.
O'Connell.
Sir Robert Peel, Prime Minister.
His short administration.
Succeeded by Lord Melbourne.
Abolition of West India slavery.
Thomas Babington Macaulay.
Popular reforms.
Trades unions.
Reform of municipal corporations.
Death of William IV.
Penny postage.
Second ministry of Sir Robert Peel.
The Duke of Wellington.
Agitations for repeal of the Corn Laws.
">SIR ROBERT PEEL .
POLITICAL ECONOMY.
Birth and education of Sir Robert Peel.
His conservative views.
His High Church principle.
Enters the Cabinet of Lord Liverpool.
Catholic Emancipation.
Resigns the representation of Oxford.
Member of Tamworth.
Opposes the Reform Bill.
Prime Minister in 1841.
Financial genius.
His sliding scale.
O'Connell's death.
The
by John Lord
DR LORD'S UNCOMPLETED PLAN,
SUPPLEMENTED WITH ESSAYS BY
EMERSON, MACAULAY, HEDGE, AND MERCER ADAM. PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.

This being the last possible volume in the series of "Beacon Lights of History" from the pen of Dr. Lord, its readers will be interested to know that it contains all the lectures that he had completed (although not all that he had projected) for his review of certain of the chief Men of Letters. Lectures on other topics were found among his papers, but none that would perfectly fit into this scheme; and it was thought best not to attempt any collection of his material which he himself had not deemed worthy or appropriate for use in this series, which embodies the best of his life's work,--all of his books and his lectures that he wished to have preserved. For instance, "The Old Roman World," enlarged in scope and rewritten, is included in the volumes on "Old Pagan Civilizations," "Ancient Achievements," and "Imperial Antiquity;" much of his "Modern Europe" reappears in "Great Rulers," "Modern European Statesmen," and "European National Leaders," etc.
The
by Herbert George Wells

THE WORLD SET FREE was written in 1913 and published early in 1914, and it is the latest of a series of three fantasias of possibility, stories which all turn on the possible developments in the future of some contemporary force or group of forces. The World Set Free was written under the immediate shadow of the Great War. Every intelligent person in the world felt that disaster was impending and knew no way of averting it, but few of us realised in the earlier half of 1914 how near the crash was to us. The reader will be amused to find that here it is put off until the year 1956. He may naturally want to know the reason for what will seem now a quite extraordinary delay. As a prophet, the author must confess he has always been inclined to be rather a slow prophet. The war aeroplane in the world of reality, for example, beat the forecast in Anticipations by about twenty years or so. I suppose a desire not to shock the sceptical reader's sense of use and wont and perhaps a less creditable disposition to hedge, have something to do with this dating forward of one's main events, but in the particular case of The World Set Free there was, I think, another motive in holding the Great
by Charlotte Bronte
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.
The Press and the Public are but vague personifications for me, and
I must thank them in vague terms; but my Publishers are definite:
so are certain generous critics who have encouraged me as only
large-hearted and high-minded men know how to encourage a struggling
stranger; to them, i.e., to my Publishers and the select Reviewers,
I say cordially, Gentlemen, I thank you from my heart.
Having thus acknowledged what I owe those who have aided and
approved me, I turn to another class; a small one, so far as I know,
but not, therefore, to be overlooked. I mean the timorous or
carping few who doubt the tendency...
by H G Wells
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 as it seemed 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 as it seemed, 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 ready acquiescence to terms and a couple of sovereigns flung upon the table, he took up his quarters in the inn.
Mrs. Hall lit the fire and left him there while she went to prepare him a meal with her own hands. A guest to stop at Iping in the winter-time was an unheard-of piece of luck, let alone a guest who was no "haggler," and she was resolved
by A Bushman

The author of these pages considered that a lengthened explanation might be necessary to account for the present work.
He had therefore, at some length, detailed the motives that influenced him in its composition. He had shown that as a solitary companionless bushman, it had been a pleasure to him in his lone evenings
"To create, and in creating live A being more intense."
He had expatiated on the love he bears his adopted country, and had stated that he was greatly influenced by the hope that although
"Sparta hath many a worthier son than he,"
this work might be the humble cornerstone to some enduring and highly ornamented structure.
The author however fortunately remembered, that readers have but little sympathy with the motives of authors; but expect that their works should amuse or instruct them. He will therefore content himself, with giving a quotation from one of those old authors, whose "well of English undefined" shames our modern writers.
He intreats that the indulgence prayed for by the learned Cowell may be accorded to his humble efforts.
"My true end is the advancement of knowledge, and therefore have I published
by H. P. Lovecraft
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
Theosophists have guessed at the awesome grandeur of the cosmic cycle wherein our world and human race form transient incidents. They have hinted at strange survival in terms which would freeze the blood if not masked by a bland optimism. But it is not from them that there came the single glimpse of forbidden aeons which chills me when I think of it and maddens me when I dream of it. That glimpse, like all dread glimpses of truth, flashed out from an accidental piecing together of separated things - in this case an old newspaper item and the notes of a dead professor. I hope that no one else will accomplish
by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is one of Mark Twain's most beloved works.  A mischievous young boy carries on under the watchful eye of his Aunt Polly. Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer is one part trickster, one escape artist and one part very lucky fellow!

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer takes the reader along on a series of entertaining adventures and pranks with his unruly companion Huckleberry Finn while Tom's youthful romance with his sweetheart Becky Thatcher blooms in the background.  Enjoy the adventures of Tom Sawyer.  Available for free download to TomeRaider ebook readers.
by Victor Hugo
In 1815, M. Charles-Francois-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of D---- He was an old man of about seventy-five years of age; he had occupied the see of D---- since 1806.
Although this detail has no connection whatever with the real substance of what we are about to relate, it will not be superfluous, if merely for the sake of exactness in all points, to mention here the various rumors and remarks which had been in circulation about him from the very moment when he arrived in the diocese. True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do. M. Myriel was the son of a councillor of the Parliament of Aix; hence he belonged to the nobility of the bar. It was said that his father, destining him to be the heir of his own post, had married him at a very early age, eighteen or twenty, in accordance with a custom which is rather widely prevalent in parliamentary families. In spite of this marriage, however, it was said that Charles Myriel created a great deal of talk. He was well formed, though rather short in stature, elegant, graceful, intelligent; the whole of the first portion of his life had
by D. H. Lawrence
Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.
by Alexandre Dumas
Marseilles -- The Arrival.
On the 24th of February, 1810, the look-out at Notre-Dame de la Garde signalled the three-master, the Pharaon from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples.
As usual, a pilot put off immediately, and rounding the Chateau d'If, got on board the vessel between Cape Morgion and Rion island.
Immediately, and according to custom, the ramparts of Fort Saint-Jean were covered with spectators; it is always an event at Marseilles for a ship to come into port, especially when this ship, like the Pharaon, has been built, rigged, and laden at the old Phocee docks, and belongs to an owner of the city.
The ship drew on and had safely passed the strait, which some volcanic shock has made between the Calasareigne and Jaros islands; had doubled Pomegue, and approached the harbor under topsails, jib, and spanker, but so slowly and sedately that the idlers, with that instinct which is the forerunner of evil, asked one another what misfortune could have happened on board. However, those experienced in navigation saw plainly that if any accident had occurred, it was not to the vessel herself, for she bore down with all the evidence of being skilfully handled, the anchor a-cockbill,
by Bram Stoker
Jonathan Harker's Journal Continued
5 May.--I must have been asleep, for certainly if I had been fully awake I must have noticed the approach of such a remarkable place. In the gloom the courtyard looked of con- siderable size, and as several dark ways led from it under great round arches, it perhaps seemed bigger than it really is. I have not yet been able to see it by daylight. When the caleche stopped, the driver jumped down and held out his hand to assist me to alight. Again I could not but notice his prodigious strength. His hand actually seemed like a steel vice that could have crushed mine if he had chosen. Then he took my traps, and placed them on the ground beside me as I stood close to a great door, old and studded with large iron nails, and set in a projecting doorway of massive stone. I could see even in th e dim light that the stone was massively carved, but that the carving had been much worn by time and weather. As I stood, the driver jump- ed again into his seat and shook the reins.The horses start- ed forward,and trap and all disappeared down one of the dark openings. I stood in silence where I was, for I did not know what to do. Of bell or knocker there was no
by N/A
THE EVE OF THE WAR
No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scru- tinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a mis- sionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic,
by Joseph Conrad

Mr Verloc, going out in the morning, left his shop nominally in charge of his brother-in-law.  It could be done, because there was very little business at any time, and practically none at all before the evening.  Mr Verloc cared but little about his ostensible business.  And, moreover, his wife was in charge of his brother-in-law.
The shop was small, and so was the house.  It was one of those grimy brick houses which existed in large quantities before the era of reconstruction dawned upon London.  The shop was a square box of a place, with the front glazed in small panes.  In the daytime the door remained closed; in the evening it stood discreetly but suspiciously ajar.
The window contained photographs of more or less undressed dancing girls; nondescript packages in wrappers like patent medicines; closed yellow paper envelopes, very flimsy, and marked two-and-six in heavy black figures; a few numbers of ancient French comic publications hung across a string as if to dry; a dingy blue china bowl, a casket of black wood, bottles of marking ink, and rubber stamps; a few books, with titles hinting at impropriety; a few apparently old copies
by N/A

by Jules Verne
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is about the adventures of Captain Nemo and his crew aboard the submarine. Written by celebrated author Jules Verne.

The deepest parts of the ocean are totally unknown to us," admits Professor Aronnax early in this novel. "What goes on in those distant depths? What creatures inhabit, or could inhabit, those regions twelve or fifteen miles beneath the surface of the water? It's almost beyond conjecture."

Jules Verne (1828-1905) published the French equivalents of these words in 1869, and little has changed since. 126 years later, a Time cover story on deep-sea exploration made much the same admission: "We know more about Mars than we know about the oceans." This reality begins to explain the dark power and otherworldly fascination of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas.

Born in the French river town of Nantes, Verne had a lifelong passion for the sea. First as a Paris stockbroker, later as a celebrated author and yachtsman, he went on frequent voyages to Britain, America, the Mediterranean. But the specific stimulus for this novel was an 1865 fan letter from a fellow writer, Madame George Sand. She praised Verne's two early novels Five Weeks in a Balloon (1863) and Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), then added: "Soon I hope you'll take us into the ocean depths, your characters traveling in diving equipment perfected by your science and your imagination."
by ZONA GALE
“Cat-boats and house-boats and yawls, look here. You're bound to observe that this is my steam yacht. I own her—do you see? She belongs to me, St. George, who never before owned so much as a piece of rope.”

Instead—mindful, perhaps, that “a man should not communicate his own glorie”—he stepped sedately down to the trim green skiff and was rowed ashore by a boy who, for aught that either knew, might three months before have jostled him at some ill-favoured lunch counter. For in America, dreams of gold—not, alas, golden dreams—do prevalently come true; and of all the butterfly happenings in this pleasant land of larvae, few are so spectacular as the process by which, without warning, a man is converted from a toiler and bearer of loads to a taker of his bien. However, to none, one must believe, is the changeling such gazing-stock as to himself...
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY
SOME DETAILS OF THE BIOGRAPHY OF THAT HIGHLY RESPECTED GENTLEMAN STEFAN TEOFIMOVITCH VERHOVENSKY.
IN UNDERTAKING to describe the recent and strange incidents in our town, till lately wrapped in uneventful obscurity, I find' myself forced in absence of literary skill to begin my story rather far back, that is to say, with certain biographical details concerning that talented and highly-esteemed gentleman, Stepan Trofimovitch Verhovensky. I trust that these details may at least serve as an introduction, while my projected story itself will come later.
I will say at once that Stepan Trofimovitch had always filled a particular role among us, that of the progressive patriot, so to say, and he was passionately fond of playing the part—so much so that I really believe he could not have existed without it. Not that I would put him on a level with an actor at a theatre, God forbid, for I really have a respect for him. This may all have been the effect of habit, or rather, more exactly of a generous propensity he had from his earliest years for indulging in an agreeable day-dream in which he figured as a picturesque public character. He fondly loved,
by J. Walker McSpadden
HOW ROBIN HOOD BECAME AN OUTLAW
List and hearken, gentlemen,
That be of free-born blood,
I shall you tell of a good yeoman,
His name was Robin Hood.
Robin was a proud outlaw,
While as he walked on the ground.
So courteous an outlaw as he was one
Was never none else found.

In the days of good King Harry the Second of England—he of the warring sons—there were certain forests in the north country set aside for the King's hunting, and no man might shoot deer therein under penalty of death. These forests were guarded by the King's Foresters, the chief of whom, in each wood, was no mean man but equal in authority to the Sheriff in his walled town, or even to my lord Bishop in his abbey.
One of the greatest of royal preserves was Sherwood and Barnesdale forests near the two towns of Nottingham and Barnesdale. Here for some years dwelt one Hugh Fitzooth as Head Forester, with his good wife and son Robert. The boy had been born in Lockesley town—in the year 1160, stern records say—and was often called Lockesley, or Rob of Lockesley. He was a comely, well-knit stripling, and as soon as he was strong enough to walk
by Charles Dickens
Book the First--Recalled to Life
Chapter I The Period Chapter II The Mail Chapter III The Night Shadows Chapter IV The Preparation Chapter V The Wine-shop Chapter VI The Shoemaker
Book the Second--the Golden Thread
Chapter I Five Years Later Chapter II A Sight Chapter III A Disappointment Chapter IV Congratulatory Chapter V The Jackal Chapter VI Hundreds of People Chapter VII Monseigneur in Town Chapter VIII Monseigneur in the Country Chapter IX The Gorgon's Head Chapter X Two Promises Chapter XI A Companion Picture Chapter XII The Fellow of Delicacy Chapter XIII The Fellow of no Delicacy Chapter XIV The Honest Tradesman Chapter XV Knitting Chapter XVI Still Knitting Chapter XVII One Night Chapter XVIII Nine Days Chapter XIX An Opinion Chapter XX A Plea Chapter XXI Echoing Footsteps Chapter XXII The Sea still Rises Chapter XXIII Fire Rises Chapter XXIV Drawn to the Loadstone Rock
Book the Third--the Track of a Storm
Chapter I In Secret Chapter II The Grindstone Chapter III The Shadow Chapter IV Calm in Storm Chapter V The Wood-sawyer Chapter VI Triumph Chapter VII A Knock at the Door Chapter VIII A Hand at Cards Chapter IX The Game Made Chapter X The Substance of the Shadow
by Shane Raffa
There are no original plots, only differing expressions of a single
plot. Existence is a view to that plot, pleasure and suffering its
vocabulary – Anonymous Shadow
I dodged a forward fist thrust aimed at my face. Air stirred near my
ear, rustled my short hair, hinting that the miss was closer than it
should have been. I knocked the fist away and followed through with a
directed knee jab, straight to the fist owner’s gut. A greasy,
chunky brute with lots of weight but little poise, he exhaled hot,
smelly breath before cleverly rolling with the impact. He finished
behind me, his hairy arms about my chest. They tightened, grating my
linen breast strap painfully. I grunted, gritted my teeth. Curse it,
I was fighting badly today!
Frowning, I wriggled my tall, lithe frame downwards and
simultaneously heaved the brute using my shoulder. He spun in front
of me and I lashed for him; one of my palms found his bare chest
while the other nipped his shoulder. I twirled beside him and
extended my leg near his ankles. His balance faltered and he tripped.
A moment later his loinclothed buttocks slapped the stamped clay
floor. Finally!
Contest
by H. G. Wells
The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us. His grey eyes shone and twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and animated. The fire burned brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescent lights in the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that flashed and passed in our glasses. Our chairs, being his patents, embraced and caressed us rather than submitted to be sat upon, and there was that luxurious after-dinner atmosphere when thought roams gracefully free of the trammels of precision. And he put it to us in this way--marking the points with a lean forefinger--as we sat and lazily admired his earnestness over this new paradox (as we thought it:) and his fecundity.
`You must follow me carefully. I shall have to controvert one or two ideas that are almost universally accepted. The geometry, for instance, they taught you at school is founded on a misconception.'
`Is not that rather a large thing to expect us to begin upon?' said Filby, an argumentative person with red hair.
`I do not mean to ask you to accept anything without reasonable ground for it. You will soon admit as much as I need from you. You know
by Herman Melville
(Supplied by a Late Consumptive Usher to a Grammar School)
The pale Usher- threadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain; I see him now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, with a queer handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay flags of all the known nations of the world. He loved to dust his old grammars; it somehow mildly reminded him of his mortality.
"While you take in hand to school others, and to teach them by what name a whale-fish is to be called in our tongue leaving out, through ignorance, the letter H, which almost alone maketh the signification of the word, you deliver that which is not true."
HACKLUYT
"WHALE. * * * Sw. and Dan. hval. This animal is named from roundness or rolling; for in Dan. hvalt is arched or vaulted."
WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY
"WHALE. * * * It is more immediately from the Dut. and Ger. Wallen; A.S. Walw-ian, to roll, to wallow."
RICHARDSON'S DICTIONARY
KETOS, Greek.
CETUS, Latin.
WHOEL, Anglo-Saxon.
HVALT, Danish.
WAL, Dutch.
HWAL, Swedish.
WHALE, Icelandic.
WHALE, English.
BALEINE, French.
BALLENA, Spanish.
PEKEE-NUEE-NUEE, Fegee.
PEKEE-NUEE-NUEE, Erromangoan.
by Daniel Defoe
I WAS born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull. He got a good estate by merchandise, and leaving off his trade, lived afterwards at York, from whence he had married my mother, whose relations were named Robinson, a very good family in that country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer; but, by the usual corruption of words in England, we are now called - nay we call ourselves and write our name - Crusoe; and so my companions always called me.
I had two elder brothers, one of whom was lieutenant-colonel to an English regiment of foot in Flanders, formerly commanded by the famous Colonel Lockhart, and was killed at the battle near Dunkirk against the Spaniards. What became of my second brother I never knew, any more than my father or mother knew what became of me.
Being the third son of the family and not bred to any trade, my head began to be filled very early with rambling thoughts. My father, who was very ancient, had given me a competent share of learning, as far as house-education and a country free school generally go, and designed me for the law; but
by Alexandre Dumas
THE THREE PRESENTS OF D'ARTAGNAN THE ELDER
On the first Monday of the month of April, 1625, the market town of Meung, in which the author of ROMANCE OF THE ROSE was born, appeared to be in as perfect a state of revolution as if the Huguenots had just made a second La Rochelle of it. Many citizens, seeing the women flying toward the High Street, leaving their children crying at the open doors, hastened to don the cuirass, and supporting their somewhat uncertain courage with a musket or a partisan, directed their steps toward the hostelry of the Jolly Miller, before which was gathered, increasing every minute, a compact group, vociferous and full of curiosity.
In those times panics were common, and few days passed without some city or other registering in its archives an event of this kind. There were nobles, who made war against each other; there was the king, who made war against the cardinal; there was Spain, which made war against the king. Then, in addition to these concealed or public, secret or open wars, there were robbers, mendicants, Huguenots, wolves, and scoundrels, who made war upon everybody. The citizens always took up arms readily against thieves, wolves or scoundrels,
by James Joyce
ONCE upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo....
His father told him that story: his father looked at him through a glass: he had a hairy face.
He was baby tuckoo. The moocow came down the road where Betty Byrne lived: she sold lemon platt.
O, the wild rose blossoms
On the little green place.
He sang that song. That was his song.
O, the green wothe botheth.
When you wet the bed first it is warm then it gets cold. His mother put on the oilsheet. That had the queer smell.
His mother had a nicer smell than his father. She played on the piano the sailor's hornpipe for him to dance. He danced:
Tralala lala
Tralala tralaladdy
Tralala lala
Tralala lala.
Uncle Charles and Dante clapped. They were older than his father and mother but uncle Charles was older than Dante.
Dante had two brushes in her press. The brush with the maroon velvet back was for Michael Davitt and the brush with the green velvet back was for Parnell. Dante gave him a cachou every time he brought her a piece of tissue paper.
by Henry James

It was in the early days of April; Bernard Longueville had been spending the winter in Rome. He had travelled northward with the consciousness of several social duties that appealed to him from the further side of the Alps, but he was under the charm of the Italian spring, and he made a pretext for lingering. He had spent five days at Siena, where he had intended to spend but two, and still it was impossible to continue his journey. He was a young man of a contemplative and speculative turn, and this was his first visit to Italy, so that if he dallied by the way he should not be harshly judged. He had a fancy for sketching, and it was on his conscience to take a few pictorial notes. There were two old inns at Siena, both of them very shabby and very dirty. The one at which Longueville had taken up his abode was entered by a dark, pestiferous arch-way, surmounted by a sign which at a distance might have been read by the travellers as the Dantean injunction to renounce all hope. The other was not far off, and the day after his arrival, as he passed it, he saw two ladies going in who evidently belonged to the large fraternity of Anglo-Saxon tourists, and one of whom was young and
by Jane Austen
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a large fortune must be in want of a wife.
However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of someone or other of their daughters.
"My dear Mr. Bennet," said his lady to him one day, "have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?"
Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.
"But it is, returned she; "for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it.
Mr. Bennet made no answer.
"Do you not want to know who has taken it?" cried his wife impatiently.
"YOU want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it."
This was invitation enough.
"Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so much delighted with it, that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that he is to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end
by Edgar Rice Burroughs
As we advanced up the river which winds beneath the Golden Cliffs out of the bowels of the Mountains of Otz to mingle its dark waters with the grim and mysterious Iss the faint glow which had appeared before us grew gradually into an all-enveloping radiance.
The river widened until it presented the aspect of a large lake whose vaulted dome, lighted by glowing phosphorescent rock, was splashed with the vivid rays of the diamond, the sapphire, the ruby, and the countless, nameless jewels of Barsoom which lay incrusted in the virgin gold which forms the major portion of these magnificent cliffs.
Beyond the lighted chamber of the lake was darkness--what lay behind the darkness I could not even guess.
To have followed the thern boat across the gleaming water would have been to invite instant detection, and so, though I was loath to permit Thurid to pass even for an instant beyond my sight, I was forced to wait in the shadows until the other boat had passed from my sight at the far extremity of the lake.
Then I paddled out upon the brilliant surface in the direction they had taken.
When, after what seemed an eternity, I reached the shadows at the upper end of the lake I found
by Edgar Rice Burroughs
As we advanced up the river which winds beneath the Golden Cliffs out of the bowels of the Mountains of Otz to mingle its dark waters with the grim and mysterious Iss the faint glow which had appeared before us grew gradually into an all-enveloping radiance.
The river widened until it presented the aspect of a large lake whose vaulted dome, lighted by glowing phosphorescent rock, was splashed with the vivid rays of the diamond, the sapphire, the ruby, and the countless, nameless jewels of Barsoom which lay incrusted in the virgin gold which forms the major portion of these magnificent cliffs.
Beyond the lighted chamber of the lake was darkness--what lay behind the darkness I could not even guess.
To have followed the thern boat across the gleaming water would have been to invite instant detection, and so, though I was loath to permit Thurid to pass even for an instant beyond my sight, I was forced to wait in the shadows until the other boat had passed from my sight at the far extremity of the lake.
Then I paddled out upon the brilliant surface in the direction they had taken.
When, after what seemed an eternity, I reached the shadows at the upper end of the lake I found
by Leo Tolstoy/Tolstoi
by Cory Doctorow I once had a Tai Chi instructor who explained the difference between Chinese and Western medicine thus: "Western medicine is based on corpses, things that you discover by cutting up dead bodies and pulling them apart. Chinese medicine is based on living flesh, things observed from vital, moving humans." by Grace Livingston Hill THE GIRL, AND A GREAT PERIL The late afternoon sun was streaming in across the cabin floor as the girl stole around the corner and looked cautiously in at the door. There was a kind of tremulous courage in her face. She had a duty to perform, and she was resolved to do it without delay. She shaded her eyes with her hand from the glare of the sun, set a firm foot upon the threshold, and, with one wild glance around to see whether all was as she had left it, entered her home and stood for a moment shuddering in the middle of the floor. A long procession of funerals seemed to come out of the past and meet her eye as she looked about upon the signs of the primitive, unhallowed one which had just gone out from there a little while before. The girl closed her eyes, and pressed their hot, dry lids hard with her cold fingers; but the vision was clearer even than with her eyes open. She could see the tiny baby sister lying there in the middle of the room, so little and white and pitiful; and her handsome, careless father sitting at the head of the rude home-made coffin, sober for the moment; and her tired, disheartened mother, faded before her time, dry-eyed and by Zane Grey A SEPTEMBER sun, losing some of its heat if not its brilliance, was dropping low in the west over the black Colorado range. Purple haze began to thicken in the timbered notches. Gray foothills, round and billowy, rolled down from the higher country. They were smooth, sweeping, with long velvety slopes and isolated patches of aspens that blazed in autumn gold. Splotches of red vine colored the soft gray of sage. Old White Slides, a mountain scarred by avalanche, towered with bleak rocky peak above the valley, sheltering it form the north. A girl rode along the slope, with gaze on the sweep and range and color of the mountain fastness that was her home. She followed an old trail which led to a bluff overlooking an arm of the valley. Once it had been a familiar lookout for her, but she had not visited the place of late. It was associated with serious hours of her life. Here seven years before, when she was twelve, she had made a hard choice to please her guardian - the old rancher whom she loved and called father, who had indeed been a father to her. That choice had been to go to school in Denver. Four years she had lived away from her beloved gray hills and black mountains. Only by Cory Doctorow I lived long enough to see the cure for death; to see the rise of the Bitchun Society, to learn ten languages; to compose three symphonies; to realize my boyhood dream of taking up residence in Disney World; to see the death of the workplace and of work. I never thought I'd live to see the day when Keep A-Movin� Dan would decide to deadhead until the heat death of the Universe. by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "There Are Heroisms All Round Us" Mr. Hungerton, her father, really was the most tactless person upon earth,--a fluffy, feathery, untidy cockatoo of a man, perfectly good-natured, but absolutely centered upon his own silly self. If anything could have driven me from Gladys, it would have been the thought of such a father-in-law. I am convinced that he really believed in his heart that I came round to the Chestnuts three days a week for the pleasure of his company, and very especially to hear his views upon bimetallism, a subject upon which he was by way of being an authority. For an hour or more that evening I listened to his monotonous chirrup about bad money driving out good, the token value of silver, the depreciation of the rupee, and the true standards of exchange. "Suppose," he cried with feeble violence, "that all the debts in the world were called up simultaneously, and immediate payment insisted upon,--what under our present conditions would happen then?" I gave the self-evident answer that I should be a ruined man, upon which he jumped from his chair, reproved me for my habitual levity, which made it impossible for him to discuss any reasonable subject in my presence, by Robert Louis Stevenson SQUIRE TRELAWNEY, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17__ and go back to the time when my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn and the brown old seaman with the sabre cut first took up his lodging under our roof. I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door, his sea-chest following behind him in a hand-barrow--a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man, his tarry pigtail falling over the shoulder of his soiled blue coat, his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails, and the sabre cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white. I remember him looking round the cover and whistling to himself as he did so, and then breaking out in that old sea-song that he sang so often afterwards: "Fifteen men on the dead man's chest-- Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!" in the high, old tottering voice that seemed to have been tuned and broken at the capstan bars. Then he rapped on the door with a by James Branch Cabell How Manuel Left the Mire They of Poictesme narrate that in the old days when miracles were as common as fruit pies, young Manuel was a swineherd, living modestly in attendance upon the miller's pigs. They tell also that Manuel was content enough: he knew not of the fate which was reserved for him. Meanwhile in all the environs of Rathgor, and in the thatched villages of Lower Targamon, he was well liked: and when the young people gathered in the evening to drink brandy and eat nuts and gingerbread, nobody danced more merrily than Squinting Manuel. He had a quiet way with the girls, and with the men a way of solemn, blinking simplicity which caused the more hasty in judgment to consider him a fool. Then, too, young Manuel was very often detected smiling sleepily over nothing, and his gravest care in life appeared to be that figure which Manuel had made out of marsh clay from the pool of Haranton. This figure he was continually reshaping and realtering. The figure stood upon the margin of the pool; and near by were two stones overgrown with moss, and supporting a cross of old worm-eaten wood, which commemorated what had been done there. One day, toward autumn, by Baroness Orczy A surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate. The hour, some little time before sunset, and the place, the West Barricade, at the very spot where, a decade later, a proud tyrant raised an undying monument to the nation's glory and his own vanity. During the greater part of the day the guillotine had been kept busy at its ghastly work: all that France had boasted of in the past centuries, of ancient names, and blue blood, had paid toll to her desire for liberty and for fraternity. The carnage had only ceased at this late hour of the day because there were other more interesting sights for the people to witness, a little while before the final closing of the barricades for the night. And so the crowd rushed away from the Place de la Greve and made for the various barricades in order to watch this interesting and amusing sight. It was to be seen every day, for those aristos were such fools! They were traitors to the people of course, all of them, men, women, and children, who happened to be descendants by N/A 1801. - I have just returned from a visit to my landlord - the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect misanthropist's heaven: and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us. A capital fellow! He little imagined how my heart warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under their brows, as I rode up, and when his fingers sheltered themselves, with a jealous resolution, still further in his waistcoat, as I announced my name... by N/A 1801. - I have just returned from a visit to my landlord - the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect misanthropist's heaven: and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us. A capital fellow! He little imagined how my heart warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under their brows, as I rode up, and when his fingers sheltered themselves, with a jealous resolution, still further in his waistcoat, as I announced my name... by Robert Hichens Alick Craven, who was something in the Foreign Office, had been living in London, except for an interval of military service during the war, for several years, and had plenty of interesting friends and acquaintances, when one autumn day, in a club, Frances Braybrooke, who knew everybody, sat down beside him and began, as his way was, talking of people. Braybrooke talked well and was an exceedingly agreeable man, but he seldom discussed ideas. His main interest lay in the doings of the human race, the "human animal," to use a favorite phrase of his, in what the human race was "up to." People were his delight. He could not live away from the centre of their activities. He was never tired of meeting new faces, and would go to endless trouble to bring an interesting personality within the circle of his acquaintance. Craven's comparative indifference about society, his laziness in social matters, was a perpetual cause of surprise to Braybrooke, who nevertheless was always ready to do Craven a good turn, whether he wanted it done to him or not. Indeed, Craven was indebted to his kind old friend for various introductions which had led to pleasant times, and for these he was quite grateful. by Mary Roberts Rinehart THIS is the story of how a middle-aged spinster lost her mind, deserted her domestic gods in the city, took a furnished house for the summer out of town, and found herself involved in one of those mysterious crimes that keep our newspapers and detective agencies happy and prosperous. For twenty years I had been perfectly comfortable; for twenty years I had had the window-boxes filled in the spring, the carpets lifted, the awnings put up and the furniture covered with brown linen; for as many summers I had said good-by to my friends, and, after watching their perspiring hegira, had settled down to a delicious quiet in town, where the mail comes three times a day, and the water supply does not depend on a tank on the roof. And then -- the madness seized me. When I look back over the months I spent at Sunnyside, I wonder that I survived at all. As it is, I show the wear and tear of my harrowing experiences. I have turned very gray -- Liddy reminded me of it, only yesterday, by saying that a little bluing in the rinse-water would make my hair silvery, instead of a yellowish white. I hate to be reminded of unpleasant things and I snapped her off. "No," I said sharply, "I'm not going by Bram Stoker Adam Salton sauntered into the Empire Club, Sydney, and found awaiting him a letter from his grand-uncle.  He had first heard from the old gentleman less than a year before, when Richard Salton had claimed kinship, stating that he had been unable to write earlier, as he had found it very difficult to trace his grand-nephew’s address.  Adam was delighted and replied cordially; he had often heard his father speak of the older branch of the family with whom his people had long lost touch.  Some interesting correspondence had ensued.  Adam eagerly opened the letter which had only just arrived, and conveyed a cordial invitation to stop with his grand-uncle at Lesser Hill, for as long a time as he could spare. “Indeed,” Richard Salton went on, “I am in hopes that you will make your permanent home here.  You see, my dear boy, you and I are all that remain of our race, and it is but fitting that you should succeed me when the time comes.  In this year of grace, 1860, I am close on eighty years of age, and though we have been a long-lived race, the span of life cannot be prolonged beyond reasonable bounds.  I am prepared to like you, and to make by Homer Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achæans. 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. And which of the gods was it that set them on to quarrel? It was the son of Jove and Leto; for he was angry with the king and sent a pestilence upon the host to plague the people, because the son of Atreus had dishonoured Chryses his priest. Now Chryses had come to the ships of the Achæans to free his daughter, and had brought with him a great ransom: moreover he bore in his hand the sceptre of Apollo wreathed with a suppliant's wreath and he besought the Achæans, but most of all the two sons of Atreus, who were their chiefs. "Sons of Atreus," he cried, "and all other Achæans, may the gods who dwell in Olympus grant you to sack the city of Priam, and to reach your homes in safety; but free my daughter, and accept a ransom for her, in reverence to Apollo, son of Jove." On this the rest of by Jane Austen The family of Dashwood had long been settled in Sussex. Their estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of their property, where, for many generations, they had lived in so respectable a manner as to engage the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance. The late owner of this estate was a single man, who lived to a very advanced age, and who for many years of his life, had a constant companion and housekeeper in his sister. But her death, which happened ten years before his own, produced a great alteration in his home; for to supply her loss, he invited and received into his house the family of his nephew Mr. Henry Dashwood, the legal inheritor of the Norland estate, and the person to whom he intended to bequeath it. In the society of his nephew and niece, and their children, the old Gentleman's days were comfortably spent. His attachment to them all increased. The constant attention of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Dashwood to his wishes, which proceeded not merely from interest, but from goodness of heart, gave him every degree of solid comfort which his age could receive; and the cheerfulness of the children added a relish to his existence. By by Baroness Orczy PARIS: SEPTEMBER, 1792 A SURGING, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate. The hour, some little time before sunset, and the place, the West Barricade, at the very spot where, a decade later, a proud tyrant raised an undying monument to the nation's glory and his own vanity. During the greater part of the day the guillotine had been kept busy at its ghastly work: all that France had boasted of in the past centuries, of ancient names, and blue blood, had paid toll to her desire for liberty and for fraternity. The carnage had only ceased at this late hour of the day because there were other more interesting sights for the people to witness, a little while before the final closing of the barricades for the night. And so the crowd rushed away from the Place de la Grève and made for the various barricades in order to watch this interesting and amusing sight. It was to be seen every day, for those aristos were such fools! They were traitors to the people of course, all of them, men, women, and children, who by Milo Hastings When but a child of seven my uncle placed me in a private school in which one of the so-called redeemed sub-sailors was a teacher of the German language. As I look back now, in the light of my present knowledge, I better comprehend the docile humility and carefully nurtured ignorance of this man. In his class rooms he used as a text a description of German life, taken from the captured submarine. From this book he had secured his own conception of a civilization of which he really knew practically nothing. I recall how we used to ask Herr Meineke if he had actually seen those strange things of which he taught us. To this he always made answer, "The book is official, man's observation errs." "He can talk it," said my playmates who attended the public schools where all teaching of the language of the outcast nation was prohibited. They invariably elected me to be "the Germans," and locked me up in the old garage while they rained a stock of sun-dried clay bombs upon the roof and then came with a rush to "batter down the walls of Berlin" by breaking in the door, while I, muttering strange guttural oaths, would be led forth to be "exterminated." On rainy days I would sometimes take my favoured playmates into my uncle's library where five great maps hung in ordered sequence on the panelled wall. The first map was labelled "The Age of Nations--1914," and showed the black spot of Germany, like in size to many of the surrounding countries, the names of which one recited in the history class. The second map--"Germany's Maximum Expansion of the First World War--1918"--showed the black area trebled in size, crowding into the pale gold of France, thrusting a hungry arm across the Hellespont towards Bagdad, and, from the Balkans to the Baltic, blotting out all else save the flaming red of Bolshevist Russia, which spread over the Eastern half of Europe like a pool of fresh spilled blood. by Max Brand PAN OF THE DESERT EVEN to a high-flying bird this was a country to be passed over quickly. It was burned and brown, littered with fragments of rock, whether vast or small, as if the refuse were tossed here after the making of the world. A passing shower drenched the bald knobs of a range of granite hills and the slant morning sun set the wet rocks aflame with light. In a short time the hills lost their halo and resumed their brown. The moisture evaporated. The sun rose higher and looked sternly across the desert as if he searched for any remaining life which still struggled for existence under his burning curse. And he found life. Hardy cattle moved single or in small groups and browsed on the withered bunch grass. Summer scorched them, winter humped their backs with cold and arched up their bellies with famine, but they were a breed schooled through generations for this fight against nature. In this junk-shop of the world, rattlesnakes were rulers of the soil. Overhead the buzzards, ominous black specks pendant against the white-hot sky, ruled the air. It seemed impossible that human beings could live in this rock-wilderness. If so, they must be to other men what by R. Austin Freeman The Mysterious Patient As I look back through the years of my association with John Thorndyke, I am able to recall a wealth of adventures and strange experiences such as falls to the lot of very few men who pass their lives within hearing of Big Ben. Many of these experiences I have already placed on record; but it now occurs to me that I have hitherto left unrecorded one that is, perhaps, the most astonishing and incredible of the whole series; an adventure, too, that has for me the added interest that it inaugurated my permanent association with my learned and talented friend, and marked the close of a rather unhappy and unprosperous period of my life. Memory, retracing the journey through the passing years to the starting-point of those strange events, lands me in a shabby little ground-floor room in a house near the Walworth end of Lower Kennington Lane. A couple of framed diplomas on the wall, a card of Snellen's test-types and a stethoscope lying on the writing-table, proclaim it a doctor's consulting-room; and my own position in the round-backed chair at the said table, proclaims me the practitioner in charge. It was nearly nine o'clock. The noisy little by Francis Hodgson Burnett THE NEW LODGERS AT NO. 7 PHILIBERT PLACE There are many dreary and dingy rows of ugly houses in certain parts of London, but there certainly could not be any row more ugly or dingier than Philibert Place. There were stories that it had once been more attractive, but that had been so long ago that no one remembered the time. It stood back in its gloomy, narrow strips of uncared-for, smoky gardens, whose broken iron railings were supposed to protect it from the surging traffic of a road which was always roaring with the rattle of busses, cabs, drays, and vans, and the passing of people who were shabbily dressed and looked as if they were either going to hard work or coming from it, or hurrying to see if they could find some of it to do to keep themselves from going hungry. The brick fronts of the houses were blackened with smoke, their windows were nearly all dirty and hung with dingy curtains, or had no curtains at all; the strips of ground, which had once been intended to grow flowers in, had been trodden down into bare earth in which even weeds had forgotten to grow. One of them was used as a stone-cutter's yard, and cheap monuments, crosses, and slates were set out for sale, by Rudyard Kipling "Or ever the knightly years were gone      With the old world to the grave, I was a king in Babylon      And you were a Christian slave,"         — W.E. Henley . His name was Charlie Mears; he was the only son of his mother who was a widow, and he lived in the north of London, coming into the City every day to work in a bank. He was twenty years old and suffered from aspirations. I met him in a public billiard-saloon where the marker called him by his given name, and he called the marker "Bullseyes." Charlie explained, a little nervously, that he had only come to the place to look on, and since looking on at games of skill is not a cheap amusement for the young, I suggested that Charlie should go back to his mother. That was our first step toward better acquaintance. He would call on me sometimes in the evenings instead of running about London with his fellow-clerks; and before long, speaking of himself as a young man must, he told me of his aspirations, which were all literary. He desired to make himself an undying name chiefly through verse, though he was not above by Arthur Conan Doyle "I am afraid, Watson, that I shall have to go," said Holmes, as we sat down together to our breakfast one morning. "Go! Where to?" "To Dartmoor; to King's Pyland." I was not surprised. Indeed, my only wonder was that he had not already been mixed upon this extraordinary case, which was the one topic of conversation through the length and breadth of England. For a whole day my companion had rambled about the room with his chin upon his chest and his brows knitted, charging and recharging his pipe with the strongest black tobacco, and absolutely deaf to any of my questions or remarks. Fresh editions of every paper had been sent up by our news agent, only to be glanced over and tossed down into a corner. Yet, silent as he was, I knew perfectly well what it was over which he was brooding. There was but one problem before the public which could challenge his powers of analysis, and that was the singular disappearance of the favorite for the Wessex Cup, and the tragic murder of its trainer. When, therefore, he suddenly announced his intention of setting out for the scene of the drama it was only what I had both expected and hoped for. "I should be most happy to go down with you if by Lucy Maud Montgomery The Shadow of Change "Harvest is ended and summer is gone," quoted Anne Shirley, gazing across the shorn fields dreamily. She and Diana Barry had been picking apples in the Green Gables orchard, but were now resting from their labors in a sunny corner, where airy fleets of thistledown drifted by on the wings of a wind that was still summer-sweet with the incense of ferns in the Haunted Wood. But everything in the landscape around them spoke of autumn. The sea was roaring hollowly in the distance, the fields were bare and sere, scarfed with golden rod, the brook valley below Green Gables overflowed with asters of ethereal purple, and the Lake of Shining Waters was blue—blue—blue; not the changeful blue of spring, nor the pale azure of summer, but a clear, steadfast, serene blue, as if the water were past all moods and tenses of emotion and had settled down to a tranquility unbroken by fickle dreams. "It has been a nice summer," said Diana, twisting the new ring on her left hand with a smile. "And Miss Lavendar's wedding seemed to come as a sort of crown to it. I suppose Mr. and Mrs. Irving are on the Pacific coast now." "It seems to me they by Jane Austen Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there any unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs changed naturally into pity and contempt as he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century; and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with an interest which never failed. This was the page at which the favorite volume always opened: "ELLIOT OF KELLYNCH HALL. "Walter Elliot, born March 1, 1760, married, July 15, 1784, Elizabeth, daughter of James Stevenson, Esq. of South Park, in the county of Gloucester, by which lady (who died 1800) he has issue Elizabeth, born June 1, 1785; Anne, born August 9, 1787; a still-born son, November 5, 1789; Mary, born November 20, 1791." Precisely such had the paragraph originally stood from the printer's hands; but Sir Walter had improved it by adding, for the information of himself and his family, by Charles Dickens ON THE LOOK OUT In these times of ours, though concerning the exact year there is no need to be precise, a boat of dirty and disreputable appearance, with two figures in it, floated on the Thames, between Southwark bridge which is of iron, and London Bridge which is of stone, as an autumn evening was closing in. The figures in this boat were those of a strong man with ragged grizzled hair and a sun-browned face, and a dark girl of nineteen or twenty, sufficiently like him to be recognizable as his daughter. The girl rowed, pulling a pair of sculls very easily; the man, with the rudder-lines slack in his hands, and his hands loose in his waistband, kept an eager look out. He had no net, hook, or line, and he could not be a fisherman; his boat had no cushion for a sitter, no paint, no inscription, no appliance beyond a rusty boathook and a coil of rope, and he could not be a waterman; his boat was too crazy and too small to take in cargo for delivery, and he could not be a lighterman or river-carrier; there was no clue to what he looked for, but he looked for something, with a most intent and searching gaze. The tide, which had turned an hour before, was running down, and by RUBY M. AYRES James Challoner, known to his friends and intimates as Jimmy, brushed an imaginary speck of dust from the shoulder of his dinner jacket, and momentarily stopped his cheery whistling to stare at himself in the glass with critical eyes... by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ">BOOK I. ">Epigraph ">CHAPTER I. THE HERO. ">CHAPTER II. THE CHRIST OF ANDERNACH. ">CHAPTER III. HOMUNCULUS. ">CHAPTER IV. THE LANDLADY'S DAUGHTER. ">CHAPTER V. JEAN PAUL, THE ONLY-ONE. ">CHAPTER VI. HEIDELBERG AND THE BARON. ">CHAPTER VII. LIVES OF SCHOLARS. ">CHAPTER VIII. LITERARY FAME. ">BOOK II. ">Epigraph ">CHAPTER I. SPRING. ">CHAPTER II. A COLLOQUY. ">CHAPTER III. OWL-TOWERS. ">CHAPTER IV. A BEER-SCANDAL. ">CHAPTER V. THE WHITE LADY'S SLIPPER AND THE PASSION-FLOWER. ">CHAPTER VI. GLIMPSES INTO CLOUD-LAND. ">CHAPTER VII. MILL-WHEELS AND OTHER WHEELS. ">CHAPTER VIII. OLD HUMBUG. ">CHAPTER IX. THE DAYLIGHT OF THE DWARFS, AND THE FALLING STAR. ">CHAPTER X. THE PARTING. ">BOOK III. ">Epigraph ">CHAPTER I. SUMMER-TIME. ">CHAPTER II. FOOT-TRAVELLING. ">CHAPTER III. INTERLACHEN. ">CHAPTER IV. THE EVENING AND THE MORNING STAR. ">CHAPTER V. A RAINY DAY. ">CHAPTER VI. AFTER DINNER, AND AFTER THE MANNER OF THE BEST CRITICS. ">CHAPTER VII. TAKE CARE! ">CHAPTER VIII. THE FOUNTAIN OF OBLIVION. ">CHAPTER IX. A TALK ON THE STAIRS. ">BOOK IV. ">Epigraph ">CHAPTER I. A MISERERE. ">CHAPTER II. CURFEW BELLS. ">CHAPTER III. SHADOWS ON THE WALL. ">CHAPTER IV. MUSICAL SUFFERINGS OF JOHN KREISLER. by Upton Sinclair It was four o'clock when the ceremony was over and the carriages began to arrive. There had been a crowd following all the way, owing to the exuberance of Marija Berczynskas. The occasion rested heavily upon Marija's broad shoulders- it was her task to see that all things went in due form, and after the best home traditions; and, flying wildly hither and thither, bowling every one out of the way, and scolding and exhorting all day with her tremendous voice, Marija was too eager to see that others conformed to the proprieties to consider them herself. She had left the church last of all, and, desiring to arrive first at the hall, had issued orders to the coachman to drive faster. When that personage had developed a will of his own in the matter, Marija had flung up the window of the carriage, and, leaning out, proceeded to tell him her opinion of him, first in Lithuanian, which he did not understand, and then in Polish, which he did. Having the advantage of her in altitude, the driver had stood his ground and even ventured to attempt to speak; and the result had been a furious altercation, which, continuing all the way down Ashland Avenue, had added a new swarm of urchins to the cortege by James Fenimore Cooper "What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse? Or shall we on without apology." Romeo and Juliet. The fine estuary which penetrates the American coast, between the fortieth and forty-first degrees of latitude, is formed by the confluence of the Hudson, the Hackensack, the Passaic, the Raritan, and a multitude of smaller streams; all of which pour their tribute into the ocean, within the space named. The islands of Nassau and Staten are happily placed to exclude the tempests of the open sea, while the deep and broad arms of the latter offer every desirable facility for foreign trade and internal intercourse. To this fortunate disposition of land and water, with a temperate climate, a central position, and an immense interior, that is now penetrated, in every direction, either by artificial or by natural streams, the city of New-York is indebted for its extraordinary prosperity. Though not wanting in beauty, there are many bays that surpass this in the charms of scenery; but it may be questioned if the world possesses another site that unites so many natural advantages for the growth and support of a widely extended commerce. As if never wearied with her kindness, Nature by Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley TO Mrs. Saville, England St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17- 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. I am already far north of London, and as I walk in the streets of Petersburgh, I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves and fills me with delight. Do you understand this feeling? This breeze, which has travelled from the regions towards which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes. Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent and vivid. I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight. There, Margaret, the sun is forever visible, its broad disk just skirting the horizon and diffusing a perpetual splendour. There--for with your leave, my sister, I will put some trust in preceding navigators--there snow and frost are banished; and, sailing over a calm sea,

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