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Excerpt: The Divine Comedy, Volume Three, Paradise [Paradiso] by Dante Aligheri, trans Charles Eliot Norton.

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Contents CANTO I. Proem.?Invocation.?Beatrice and Dante ascend to the Sphere of Fire.?Beatrice explains the cause of their ascent.......................................................................................................................................................... 6 CANTO II. Proem.?Ascent to the Moon.?The cause of Spots on the Moon.?Influence of the Heavens. ........ 10 CANTO III. The Heaven of the Moon.?Spirits whose vows had been broken.?Piccarda Donati.?The Empress Constance. ............................................................................................................................................................. 13 CANTO IV. Doubts of Dante, respecting the justice of Heaven and the abode of the blessed, solved by Beatrice.? Question of Dante as to the possibility of reparation for broken vows. .............................................................. 16 CANTO V. The sanctity of vows, and the seriousness with which they are to be made or changed.?Ascent to the Heaven of Mercury.?The shade of Justinian. .........................................................................................

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Excerpt: This is the saddest story I have ever heard. We had known the Ashburnhams for nine seasons of the town of Nauheim with an extreme intimacy--or, rather with an acquaintanceship as loose and easy and yet as close as a good glove?s with your hand. My wife and I knew Captain and Mrs Ashburnham as well as it was possible to know anybody, and yet, in another sense, we knew nothing at all about them. This is, I believe, a state of things only possible with English people of whom, till today, when I sit down to puzzle out what I know of this sad affair, I knew nothing whatever. Six months ago I had never been to England, and, certainly, I had never sounded the depths of an English heart. I had known the shallows....

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Excerpt: War and Peace: Fourteen by Leo Tolstoy.

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Excerpt: The Narrative of Sojourner Truth (1850), Dictated by Sojourner Truth, edited by Olive Gilbert.

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Contents NARRATIVE OF SOJOURNER TRUTH ................................................................................................................................................................................ 4 HER BIRTH AND PARENTAGE.............................................................................................................................................................................................. 4 ACCOMMODATIONS ............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 5 HER BROTHERS AND SISTERS ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 6 HER RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 7 THE AUCTION .....................................................

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Excerpt: ACT I. It is after dinner on a January night, in the library in Lady Britomart Undershaft?s house in Wilton Crescent. A large and comfortable settee is in the middle of the room, upholstered in dark leather. A person sitting on it [it is vacant at present] would have, on his right, Lady Britomart?s writing table, with the lady herself busy at it; a smaller writing table behind him on his left; the door behind him on Lady Britomart?s side; and a window with a window seat directly on his left. Near the window is an armchair....

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Excerpt: A Plea for Captain John Brown by Henry David Thoreau.

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Excerpt: The First Book of Samuel, otherwise Called The First Book of the Kings, the Ninth Book of the King James Version of the Bible.

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. The Levins had been three months in Moscow. The date had long passed on which, according to the most trustworthy calculations of people learned in such matters, Kitty should have been confined. But she was still about, and there was nothing to show that her time was any nearer than two months ago. The doctor, the monthly nurse, and Dolly and her mother, and most of all Levin, who could not think of the approaching event without terror, began to be impatient and uneasy. Kitty was the only person who felt perfectly calm and happy....

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. At the end of the winter, in the Shtcherbatskys? house, a consultation was being held, which was to pronounce on the state of Kitty?s health and the measures to be taken to restore her failing strength. She had been ill, and as spring came on she grew worse. The family doctor gave her cod liver oil, then iron, then nitrate of silver, but as the first and the second and the third were alike in doing no good, and as his advice when spring came was to go abroad, a celebrated physician was called in. The celebrated physician, a very handsome man, still youngish, asked to examine the patient. He maintained, with peculiar satisfaction, it seemed, that maiden modesty is a mere relic of barbarism, and that nothing could be more natural than for a man still youngish to handle a young girl naked. He thought it natural because he did it every day, and felt and thought, as it seemed to him, no harm as he did it and consequently he considered modesty in the girl not merely as a relic of barbarism, but also as an insult to himself....

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Excerpt: Are these the only works of Providence within us? What words suffice to praise or set them forth? Had we but understanding, should we ever cease hymning and blessing the Divine Power, both openly and in secret, and telling of His gracious gifts? Whether digging or ploughing or eating, should we not sing the hymn to God....

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Excerpt: Narrative of the Live of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglas.

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Excerpt: I had better explain why, in this little piece d?occasion, written for a performance in aid of the funds of the project for establishing a National Theatre as a memorial to Shakespear, I have identified the Dark Lady with Mistress Mary Fitton. First, let me say that I do not contend that the Dark Lady was Mary Fitton, because when the case in Mary?s favor (or against her, if you please to consider that the Dark Lady was no better than she ought to have been) was complete, a portrait of Mary came to light and turned out to be that of a fair lady, not of a dark one. That settles the question, if the portrait is authentic....

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Excerpt: Jonathan Swift?s ?A Modest Proposal?.

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Introduction: Nicolo Machiavelli was born at Florence on 3rd May 1469. He was the second son of Bernardo di Nicolo Machiavelli, a lawyer of some repute, and of Bartolommea di Stefano Nelli, his wife. Both parents were members of the old Florentine nobility....

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Excerpt: Rosmersholm. A Play in Four Acts by Henrik Ibsen, translated by R. Farquharson Sharp.

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Introduction: In an age of materialism like our own the phenomenon of spiritual power is as significant and inspiring as it is rare. No longer associated with the ?divine right? of kings, it has survived the downfall of feudal and theocratic systems as a mystic personal emanation in place of a coercive weapon of statecraft....

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Contents INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................................... 4 LIST OF POSTHUMOUS WORKS......................................................................................................................... 34 THE FORGED COUPON ........................................................................................................................................ 35 AFTER THE DANCE ............................................................................................................................................. 108 ALYOSHA THE POT ............................................................................................................................................. 118 MY DREAM ............................................................................................................................................................ 123 THERE ARE NO GUILTY PEOPLE .................................................................................................................... 136 THE YOUNG TSAR .............

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Excerpt: The Book of Nehemiah, the Sixteenth Book of the King James Version of the Bible.

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Excerpt: The Revelation of St. John the Divine, the sixty-sixth book of the King James Version of the Bible.

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Introduction: ?For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost; and is found.? He was lost by the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps. He was officially dead as a result of official misinformation....

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Excerpt: Press Cuttings by George Bernard Shaw.