{"text": "The same law of eternal procession ranges all that we call the virtues, and extinguishes each in the light of a better. The great man will not be prudent in the popular sense; all his prudence will be so much deduction from his grandeur. But it behooves each to see, when he sacrifices prudence, to what god he devotes it; if to ease and pleasure, he had better be prudent still; if to a great trust, he can well spare his mule and panniers who has a winged chariot instead. Geoffrey draws on his boots to go through the woods, that his feet may be safer from the bite of snakes; Aaron never thinks of such a peril. In many years neither is harmed by such an accident. Yet it seems to me that with every precaution you take against such an evil you put yourself into the power of the evil. I suppose that the highest prudence is the lowest prudence. Is this too sudden a rushing from the centre to the verge of our orbit? Think how many times we shall fall back into pitiful calculations before we take up our rest in the great sentiment, or make the verge of to day the new centre. Besides, your bravest sentiment is familiar to the humblest men. The poor and the low have their way of expressing the last facts of philosophy as well as you. \"Blessed be nothing\" and \"The worse things are, the better they are\" are proverbs which express the transcendentalism of common life. One man's justice is another's injustice; one man's beauty another's ugliness; one man's wisdom another's folly; as one beholds the same objects from a higher point. One man thinks justice consists in paying debts, and has no measure in his abhorrence of another who is very remiss in this duty and makes the creditor wait tediously. But that second man has his own way of looking at things; asks himself Which debt must I pay first, the debt to the rich, or the debt to the poor? the debt of money, or the debt of thought to mankind, of genius to nature? For you, O broker, there is no other principle but arithmetic. For me, commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred; nor can I detach one duty, like you, from all other duties, and concentrate my forces mechanically on the payment of moneys. Let me live onward; you shall find that, though slower, the progress of my character will liquidate all these debts without injustice to higher claims. If a man should dedicate himself to the payment of notes, would not this be injustice? Does he owe no debt but money? And are all claims on him to be postponed to a landlord's or a banker's?", "word_count": 475, "estimated_duration": 211.1111}
{"text": "First of all, condemn the life thou art now leading: but when thou hast condemned it, do not despair of thyself - be not like them of mean spirit, who once they have yielded, abandon themselves entirely and as it were allow the torrent to sweep them away. No; learn what the wrestling masters do. Has the boy fallen? \"Rise,\" they say, \"wrestle again, till thy strength come to thee.\" Even thus should it be with thee. For know that there is nothing more tractable than the human soul. It needs but to will, and the thing is done; the soul is set upon the right path: as on the contrary it needs but to nod over the task, and all is lost. For ruin and recovery alike are from within. It is the critical moment that shows the man. So when the crisis is upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough and stalwart antagonist. - \"To what end?\" you ask. That you may prove the victor at the Great Games. Yet without toil and sweat this may not be! If thou wouldst make progress, be content to seem foolish and void of understanding with respect to outward things. Care not to be thought to know anything. If any should make account of thee, distrust thyself. Remember that in life thou shouldst order thy conduct as at a banquet. Has any dish that is being served reached thee? Stretch forth thy hand and help thyself modestly. Doth it pass thee by? Seek not to detain it. Has it not yet come? Send not forth thy desire to meet it, but wait until it reaches thee. Deal thus with children, thus with wife; thus with office, thus with wealth - and one day thou wilt be meet to share the Banquets of the Gods. But if thou dost not so much as touch that which is placed before thee, but despisest it, then shalt thou not only share the Banquets of the Gods, but their Empire also. Remember that thou art an actor in a play, and of such sort as the Author chooses, whether long or short. If it be his good pleasure to assign thee the part of a beggar, a ruler, or a simple citizen, thine it is to play it fitly. For thy business is to act the part assigned thee, well: to choose it, is another's. Keep death and exile daily before thine eyes, with all else that men deem terrible, but more especially Death. Then wilt thou never think a mean though, nor covet anything beyond measure.", "word_count": 441, "estimated_duration": 196.0}
{"text": "This is the time of all sufficing laughter At idiotic things some one has done, And there is neither past nor vague hereafter. And all your body stretches in the sun And drinks the light in like a liquid thing; Filled with the divine languor of late spring. I was just aiming at the jagged hole Torn in the yellow sandbags of their trench, When something threw me sideways with a wrench, And the skies seemed to shrivel like a scroll And disappear... and propped against the bole Of a big elm I lay, and watched the clouds Float through the blue, deep sky in speckless crowds, And I was clean again, and young, and whole. Lord, what a dream that was! And what a doze Waiting for Bill to come along to class! I've cut it now - and he - Oh, hello, Fred! Why, what's the matter? - here - don't be an ass, Sit down and tell me! - What do you suppose? I dreamed I... A.M. I... wounded? \"Y.O.U. A.R.E. DEAD.\" Next, then, the peacock, gilt With all its feathers. Look, what gorgeous dyes Flow in the eyes! And how deep, lustrous greens are splashed and spilt Along the back, that like a sea wave's crest Scatters soft beauty o'er th' emblazoned breast! A strange fowl! But most fit For feasts like this, whereby I honor one Pure as the sun! Yet glowing with the fiery zeal of it! Some wine? Your goblet's empty? Let it foam! It is not often that you come to Rome! You like the Venice glass? Rippled with lines that float like women's curls, Neck like a girl's, Fierce glowing as a chalice in the Mass? You start - 'twas artist then, not Pope who spoke! Ave Maria stella! - ah, it broke! 'Tis said they break alone When poison writhes within. A foolish tale! What, you look pale? Caraffa, fetch a silver cup!... You own A Birth of Venus, now - or so I've heard, Lovely as the breast plumage of a bird. Also a Dancing Faun, Hewn with the lithe grace of Praxiteles; Globed pearls to please A sultan; golden veils that drop like lawn - How happy I could be with but a tithe Of your possessions, fortunate one! Don't writhe But take these cushions here! Now for the fruit! Great peaches, satin skinned, Rough tamarind, Pomegranates red as lips - oh they come dear! But men like you we feast at any price - A plum perhaps? They're looking rather nice!", "word_count": 424, "estimated_duration": 188.4444}
{"text": "Well, I was tired of life; the silly folk, The tiresome noises, all the common things I loved once, crushed me with an iron yoke. I longed for the cool quiet and the dark, Under the common sod where louts and kings Lie down, serene, unheeding, careless, stark, Never to rise or move or feel again, Filled with the ecstasy of being dead.... I put the shining pistol to my head And pulled the trigger hard - I felt no pain, No pain at all; the pistol had missed fire I thought; then, looking at the floor, I saw My huddled body lying there - and awe Swept over me. I trembled - and looked up. About me was - not that, my heart's desire, That small and dark abode of death and peace - But all from which I sought a vain release! The sky, the people and the staring sun Glared at me as before. I was undone. My last state ten times worse than was my first. Helpless I stood, befooled, betrayed, accursed, Fettered to Life forever, horribly; Caught in the meshes of Eternity, No further doors to break or bars to burst! Here, where men's eyes were empty and as bright As the blank windows set in glaring brick, When the wind strengthens from the sea - and night Drops like a fog and makes the breath come thick; By the deserted paths, the vacant halls, One may see figures, twisted shades and lean, Like the mad shapes that crawl an Indian screen, Or paunchy smears you find on prison walls. Turn the knob gently! There's the Thumbless Man, Still weaving glass and silk into a dream, Although the wall shows through him - and the Khan Journeys Cathay beside a paper stream. A Rabbit Woman chitters by the door - - Chilly the grave smell comes from the turned sod - Come - lift the curtain - and be cold before The silence of the eight men who were God! His black biretta clings like a hangman's cap; under his twitching fingers the beads shiver and click, As he mumbles in his corner, the shadow deepens upon him; I will not confess!... Is he there or is it intenser shadow? Dark huddled coilings from the obscene depths, Black, formless shadow, Shadow. Doors creak; from secret parts of the chateau come the scuffle and worry of rats. Orange light drips from the guttering candles, Eddying over the vast embroideries of the bed Stirring the monstrous tapestries, Retreating before the sable impending gloom of the canopy With a swift thrust and sparkle of gold, Lipping my hands, Then Rippling back abashed before the ominous silences Like the swift turns and starts of an overpowered fencer Who sees before him Horror Behind him darkness, Shadow.", "word_count": 467, "estimated_duration": 207.5556}
{"text": "Martin inquired about yaws, for here was a man who ought to know. He certainly did know, if we could judge by his scarred arms and legs and by the live ulcers that corroded in the midst of the scars. Oh, one got used to yaws, quoth Tom Butler. They were never really serious until they had eaten deep into the flesh. Then they attacked the walls of the arteries, the arteries burst, and there was a funeral. Several of the natives had recently died that way ashore. But what did it matter? If it wasn't yaws, it was something else in the Solomons. I noticed that from this moment Martin displayed a swiftly increasing interest in his own yaws. Dosings with corrosive sublimate were more frequent, while, in conversation, he began to revert with growing enthusiasm to the clean climate of Kansas and all other things Kansan. Charmian and I thought that California was a little bit of all right. Henry swore by Rapa, and Tehei staked all on Bora Bora for his own blood's sake; while Wada and Nakata sang the sanitary paean of Japan. One evening, as the Snark worked around the southern end of the island of Ugi, looking for a reputed anchorage, a Church of England missionary, a Mr. Drew, bound in his whaleboat for the coast of San Cristoval, came alongside and stopped for dinner. Martin, his legs swathed in Red Cross bandages till they looked like a mummy's, turned the conversation upon yaws. Yes, said Mr. Drew, they were quite common in the Solomons. All white men caught them. My heart almost stood still waiting the answer. By that answer my professional medical prestige stood or fell. Martin, I could see, was quite sure it was going to fall. And then the answer - O blessed answer! Martin gave in handsomely, I'll admit, and I am confident that at that moment, if I had asked permission to pull one of his teeth, he would not have denied me. All white men in the Solomons catch yaws, and every cut or abrasion practically means another yaw. Every man I met had had them, and nine out of ten had active ones. There was but one exception, a young fellow who had been in the islands five months, who had come down with fever ten days after he arrived, and who had since then been down so often with fever that he had had neither time nor opportunity for yaws.", "word_count": 415, "estimated_duration": 184.4444}
{"text": "Rosier instantly discovered his friend, who had been hidden by intervening groups. He watched her, but her own attention was entirely given to her occupation. \"What on earth has he done to her?\" he asked again imploringly. \"He declares to me she has given me up.\" He had hardly spoken when he saw her change colour, and became aware that Osmond was coming toward her accompanied by the gentleman who had just entered. He judged the latter, in spite of the advantage of good looks and evident social experience, a little embarrassed. \"Isabel,\" said her husband, \"I bring you an old friend.\" Mrs. Osmond's face, though it wore a smile, was, like her old friend's, not perfectly confident. \"I'm very happy to see Lord Warburton,\" she said. Rosier turned away and, now that his talk with her had been interrupted, felt absolved from the little pledge he had just taken. He had a quick impression that Mrs. Osmond wouldn't notice what he did. Isabel in fact, to do him justice, for some time quite ceased to observe him. She had been startled; she hardly knew if she felt a pleasure or a pain. Lord Warburton, however, now that he was face to face with her, was plainly quite sure of his own sense of the matter; though his grey eyes had still their fine original property of keeping recognition and attestation strictly sincere. He was \"heavier\" than of yore and looked older; he stood there very solidly and sensibly. \"I suppose you didn't expect to see me,\" he said; \"I've but just arrived. Literally, I only got here this evening. You see I've lost no time in coming to pay you my respects. I knew you were at home on Thursdays.\" \"The hotel seems very good; I think it's the same at which I saw you four years since. You know it was here in Rome that we first met; it's a long time ago. Do you remember where I bade you goodbye?\" his lordship asked of his hostess. \"It was in the Capitol, in the first room.\" \"Yes, I remember you there. I was very sorry to leave Rome - so sorry that, somehow or other, it became almost a dismal memory, and I've never cared to come back till to day. But I knew you were living here,\" her old friend went on to Isabel, \"and I assure you I've often thought of you. It must be a charming place to live in,\" he added with a look, round him, at her established home, in which she might have caught the dim ghost of his old ruefulness.", "word_count": 439, "estimated_duration": 195.1111}
{"text": "Out there in the midst of such a succession of big smoky ones, a third man was added to our party, one Freeth. Shaking the water from my eyes as I emerged from one wave and peered ahead to see what the next one looked like, I saw him tearing in on the back of it, standing upright on his board, carelessly poised, a young god bronzed with sunburn. We went through the wave on the back of which he rode. Ford called to him. He turned an airspring from his wave, rescued his board from its maw, paddled over to us and joined Ford in showing me things. One thing in particular I learned from Freeth, namely, how to encounter the occasional breaker of exceptional size that rolled in. Such breakers were really ferocious, and it was unsafe to meet them on top of the board. But Freeth showed me, so that whenever I saw one of that calibre rolling down on me, I slid off the rear end of the board and dropped down beneath the surface, my arms over my head and holding the board. Thus, if the wave ripped the board out of my hands and tried to strike me with it (a common trick of such waves), there would be a cushion of water a foot or more in depth, between my head and the blow. When the wave passed, I climbed upon the board and paddled on. Many men have been terribly injured, I learn, by being struck by their boards. The whole method of surf riding and surf fighting, learned, is one of non resistance. Dodge the blow that is struck at you. Dive through the wave that is trying to slap you in the face. Sink down, feet first, deep under the surface, and let the big smoker that is trying to smash you go by far overhead. Never be rigid. Relax. Yield yourself to the waters that are ripping and tearing at you. When the undertow catches you and drags you seaward along the bottom, don't struggle against it. If you do, you are liable to be drowned, for it is stronger than you. Yield yourself to that undertow. Swim with it, not against it, and you will find the pressure removed. And, swimming with it, fooling it so that it does not hold you, swim upward at the same time. It will be no trouble at all to reach the surface.", "word_count": 411, "estimated_duration": 182.6667}
{"text": "Knowing all the menaces which might lie in wait, even in the shallows of the sea, Dalgard drew his knife once more as he plowed through water - ready to rescue or at least to offer what aid he could. The spacemen spent a cramped and almost sleepless night. Although in his training on Terra, on his trial trips to Mars and the harsh Lunar valleys, Raf had known weird surroundings and climates, inimical to his kind, he had always been able to rest almost by the exercise of his will. But now, curled in his roll, he was alert to every sound out of the moonless night, finding himself listening - for what he did not know. Though there were sounds in plenty. The whistling call of some night bird, the distant lap, lap of water which he associated with the river curving through the long deserted city, the rustle of grass as either the wind or some passing animal disturbed it. \"Not the best place in the world for a nap,\" Soriki observed out of the dark as Raf wriggled, trying to find a more comfortable position. \"I'll be glad to see these bandaged boys on the ground waving goodbye as we head away from them - fast - \" Raf stared up at the sky in which stars were sprinkled like carelessly flung dust motes. \"What is a 'man'?\" he returned, repeating the classical question which was a debating point in all the space training centers. For so long his kind had wondered that. Was a \"man\" a biped with certain easily recognized physical characteristics? Well, by that ruling the furry things which had fled fruitlessly from the flames of the globe might well qualify. Or was \"man\" a certain level of intelligence, no matter what form housed that intelligence? They were supposed to accept the latter definition. Though, in spite of the horror of prejudice, Raf could not help but believe that too many Terrans secretly thought of \"man\" only as a creature in their own general image. By that prejudiced rule it was correct to accept the aliens as \"men\" with whom they could ally themselves, to condemn the furry people because they were not smooth skinned, did not wear clothing, nor ride in mechanical transportation. Yet somewhere within Raf at that moment was the nagging feeling that this was all utterly wrong, that the Terrans had not made the right choice. And that now \"men\" were not standing together. But he had no intention of spilling that out to Soriki.", "word_count": 426, "estimated_duration": 189.3333}
{"text": "BENEDICK. [Advancing from the arbour.] This can be no trick: the conference was sadly borne. They have the truth of this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady: it seems her affections have their full bent. Love me! why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censured: they say I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive the love come from her;they say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry: I must not seem proud: happy are they that hear their detractions, and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair: 'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous: 'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me: by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage; but doth not the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No; the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Here comes Beatrice. By this day! she's a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in her. BENEDICK. Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner,' there's a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me,' that's as much as to say, Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks. If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. HERO. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour; There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the prince and Claudio: Whisper her ear, and tell her, I and Ursala Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Is all of her; say that thou overheard'st us, And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honey suckles, ripen'd by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter; like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her, To listen our propose. This is thy office; Bear thee well in it and leave us alone.", "word_count": 450, "estimated_duration": 200.0}
{"text": "But I can point thee out a free man, that thou mayest be no more in search of an example. Diogenes was free. How so? Not because he was of free parentage (for that, indeed, was not the case), but because he was himself free. He had cast away every handle whereby slavery might lay hold of him to enslave him, nor was it possible for any to approach and take hold of him to enslave him. All things sat loose upon him - all things were to him attached by but slender ties. Hadst thou seized upon his possessions, he would rather have let them go than have followed thee for them - aye, had it been even a limb, or mayhap his whole body; and in like manner, relatives, friends, and country. For he knew whence they came - from whose hands and on what terms he had received them. His true forefathers, the Gods, his true Country, he never would have abandoned; nor would he have yielded to any man in obedience and submission to the one nor in cheerfully dying for the other. For he was ever mindful that everything that comes to pass has its source and origin there; being indeed brought about for the weal of that his true Country, and directed by Him in whose governance it is. Ponder on this - on these convictions, on these words: fix thine eyes on these examples, if thou wouldst be free, if thou hast thine heart set upon the matter according to its worth. And what marvel if thou purchase so great a thing at so great and high a price? For the sake of this that men deem liberty, some hang themselves, others cast themselves down from the rock; aye, time has been when whole cities came utterly to an end: while for the sake of Freedom that is true, and sure, and unassailable, dost thou grudge to God what He gave, when He claims it? Wilt thou not study, as Plato saith, to endure, not death alone, but torture, exile, stripes - in a word, to render up all that is not thine own? Else thou wilt be a slave amid slaves, wert thou ten thousand times a consul; aye, not a whit the less, though thou climb the Palace steps. And thou shalt know how true the saying of Cleanthes, that though the words of philosophers may run counter to the opinions of the world, yet have they reason on their side.", "word_count": 420, "estimated_duration": 186.6667}
{"text": "We were in hopes that we could rent out the large hall, together with the six other spacious rooms in the two upper stories, for schools, benevolent societies, &c., so as to pay the interest on our debt, if no more; but so far, we have not been able to do this. My own trials, with my family, have greatly retarded my efforts in this matter. We have had the largest and best week day school for colored children in the city - a part of the time with three teachers and over one hundred scholars - but for four years, no rent has been received from the school. The prices for tuition have been so low, that they have hardly sustained the teachers; but we trust that our people have derived much benefit from them already, and hope they may receive much more good from them in the future. Since the dedication of our Chapel, our Church has more than doubled its membership, and the congregation has increased four fold; while on our baptizing occasions the hall is generally full. We have always held three meetings for worship every Sunday, to accommodate many servants, who have no command of their time, and also regular Wednesday and Friday evening prayer and conference meetings. Our Sunday school has always had two sessions a day - an hour and a half in the morning, and an hour in the afternoon. I have been necessarily much hindered in my own labors, from pecuniary embarrassments, arising from the sale of my children, who were left in Virginia - two daughters and three sons. The first of these, who was about to be sold, and taken away South, was my oldest daughter; and it was with great difficulty and the help of friends that I raised eight hundred and fifty dollars, and got her on to Baltimore. But I was soon called upon to make a similar effort to save my eldest son from being sold far from me. Entirely unexpected, I received the painful news that my boy was in one of the trader's jails in Richmond, and for sale. The dealer knew me, and was disposed to let me have him, if I could get any one to purchase him. I was, of course, deeply anxious to help my boy; but I began to think that I had already drawn so heavily on the liberality of all my friends, that to appeal to them again seemed out of the question. I immediately wrote to the owners of my son, and received an answer - that his price was fixed at seven hundred dollars.", "word_count": 440, "estimated_duration": 195.5556}
{"text": "One day I sat in the temple, in the huge court with the great double row of columns that stands on the banks of the Nile and looks so splendid from it. The pale brown of the stone became almost yellow in the sunshine. From the river, hidden from me stole up the songs of the boatmen. Nearer at hand I heard pigeons cooing, cooing in the sun, as if almost too glad, and seeking to manifest their gladness. Behind me, through the columns, peeped some houses of the village: the white home of Ibrahim Ayyad, the perfect dragoman, grandson of Mustapha Aga, who entertained me years ago, and whose house stood actually within the precincts of the temple; houses of other fortunate dwellers in Luxor whose names I do not know. For the village of Luxor crowds boldly about the temple, and the children play in the dust almost at the foot of the obelisks and statues. High on a brown hump of earth a buffalo stood alone, languishing serenely in the sun, gazing at me through the columns with light eyes that were full of a sort of folly of contentment. Some goats tripped by, brown against the brown stone - the dark brown earth of the native houses. Intimate life was here, striking the note of coziness of Luxor. Here was none of the sadness and the majesty of Denderah. Grand are the ruins of Luxor, noble is the line of columns that boldly fronts the Nile, but Time has given them naked to the air and to the sun, to children and to animals. Instead of bats, the pigeons fly about them. There is no dreadful darkness in their sanctuaries. Before them the life of the river, behind them the life of the village flows and stirs. Upon them looks down the Minaret of Abu Haggag; and as I sat in the sunshine, the warmth of which began to lessen, I saw upon its lofty circular balcony the figure of the muezzin. He leaned over, bending toward the temple and the statues of Rameses II. and the happy dancers on the wall. He opened his lips and cried to them: \"God is great. God is great ... I bear witness that there is no god but God... . I bear witness that Mohammed is the Apostle of God... . Come to prayer! Come to prayer! ... God is great. God is great. There is no god but God.\"", "word_count": 412, "estimated_duration": 183.1111}
{"text": "And after the city clerk had quieted the people with these words he sent them away. When the riot was over, and all was peaceful again, Paul met the disciples of Christ and spoke to them once more. He had been in Ephesus for three years preaching; and while there he had written, besides the epistle or letter to the Galatians, that to the Romans, and two letters to the Corinthians, the believers in Christ at Corinth in Greece. He now sailed away from Ephesus, across the gean Sea to Macedonia, where he had preached the gospel before on his second journey. F.T.E.R. his three years at Ephesus in Asia Minor, Paul sailed across the gean Sea to Macedonia. There he visited again the churches in Philippi, Thessalonica and Berea. Then he went southward into Greece, and saw again the church at Corinth, to which shortly before he had written two long letters. While Paul was visiting these churches he told them of the believers in Christ among the Jews in Jerusalem and Judea; that many of these were very poor, and since they had become disciples of Christ the other Jews would not help them. Therefore Paul asked the Gentile churches everywhere to send gifts to these poor people. He said in his letters: \"These people have sent the word of Christ to you; now send to them your gifts to show that you love them, and to show that you thank God for the gift of his Son who saves you from your sins.\" From each of the churches men were chosen to go with Paul to Jerusalem and to carry these gifts. From Berea, the place where so many had studied the Scriptures, as we read in Story , went a man named Sopater. From Thessalonica went Aristarchus and Secundus. From Derbe in Asia Minor, Gaius and Timothy were sent; and from the other churches in Asia Minor, Tychicus and Trophimus. All these went on before, and waited for Paul at Troas, on the shore of the gean Sea. Paul's friend Luke the doctor joined him again at Philippi, and they sailed together to Troas. There the other disciples met them, and they stayed for a week. On the evening of the first day of the week, a farewell meeting was held at Troas, for Paul and his party, who on the next day were to start on their journey to Jerusalem. The meeting was in a large upper room on the third story of a house, and it was filled with people who had come to hear Paul. While Paul was speaking, one young man, named Eutychus, who was sitting in a window, dropped asleep, and in his sleep fell out of the window upon the ground, two stories below. He was taken up dead; but Paul went down, and fell on him, and placed his arms around him, saying, \"Do not weep for him, for his life is still in him.\"", "word_count": 496, "estimated_duration": 220.4444}
{"text": "When reeds are dead and a straw to thatch the marshes, And feathered pampas grass rides into the wind Like aged warriors westward, tragic, thinned Of half their tribe, and over the flattened rushes, Stripped of its secret, open, stark and bleak, Blackens afar the half forgotten creek, - Then leans on me the weight of the year, and crushes My heart. I know that Beauty must ail and die, And will be born again, - but ah, to see Beauty stiffened, staring up at the sky! Oh, Autumn! Autumn! - What is the Spring to me? Aye, but she? Your other sister and my other soul Grave Silence, lovelier Than the three loveliest maidens, what of her? Clio, not you, Not you, Calliope, Nor all your wanton line, Not Beauty's perfect self shall comfort me For Silence once departed, For her the cool tongued, her the tranquil hearted, Whom evermore I follow wistfully, Wandering Heaven and Earth and Hell and the four seasons through; Thalia, not you, Not you, Melpomene, Not your incomparable feet, O thin Terpsichore, I seek in this great hall, But one more pale, more pensive, most beloved of you all. I seek her from afar, I come from temples where her altars are, From groves that bear her name, Noisy with stricken victims now and sacrificial flame, And cymbals struck on high and strident faces Obstreperous in her praise They neither love nor know, A goddess of gone days, Departed long ago, Abandoning the invaded shrines and fanes Of her old sanctuary, A deity obscure and legendary, Of whom there now remains, For sages to decipher and priests to garble, Only and for a little while her letters wedged in marble, Which even now, behold, the friendly mumbling rain erases, And the inarticulate snow, Leaving at last of her least signs and traces None whatsoever, nor whither she is vanished from these places. \"She will love well,\" I said, \"If love be of that heart inhabiter, The flowers of the dead; The red anemone that with no sound Moves in the wind, and from another wound That sprang, the heavily sweet blue hyacinth, That blossoms underground, And sallow poppies, will be dear to her. And will not Silence know In the black shade of what obsidian steep Stiffens the white narcissus numb with sleep? (Seed which Demeter's daughter bore from home, Uptorn by desperate fingers long ago, Reluctant even as she, Undone Persephone, And even as she set out again to grow In twilight, in perdition's lean and inauspicious loam). She will love well,\" I said, \"The flowers of the dead; Where dark Persephone the winter round, Uncomforted for home, uncomforted, Lacking a sunny southern slope in northern Sicily, With sullen pupils focussed on a dream, Stares on the stagnant stream That moats the unequivocable battlements of Hell, There, there will she be found, She that is Beauty veiled from men and Music in a swound.\"", "word_count": 491, "estimated_duration": 218.2222}
{"text": "From the vast inequality of conditions and fortunes, from the great variety of passions and of talents, of useless arts, of pernicious arts, of frivolous sciences, would issue clouds of prejudices equally contrary to reason, to happiness, to virtue. We should see the chiefs foment everything that tends to weaken men formed into societies by dividing them; everything that, while it gives society an air of apparent harmony, sows in it the seeds of real division; everything that can inspire the different orders with mutual distrust and hatred by an opposition of their rights and interest, and of course strengthen that power which contains them all. 'Tis from the bosom of this disorder and these revolutions, that despotism gradually rearing up her hideous crest, and devouring in every part of the state all that still remained sound and untainted, would at last issue to trample upon the laws and the people, and establish herself upon the ruins of the republic. The times immediately preceding this last alteration would be times of calamity and trouble: but at last everything would be swallowed up by the monster; and the people would no longer have chiefs or laws, but only tyrants. At this fatal period all regard to virtue and manners would likewise disappear; for despotism, cui ex honesto nulla est spes, tolerates no other master, wherever it reigns; the moment it speaks, probity and duty lose all their influence, and the blindest obedience is the only virtue the miserable slaves have left them to practise. This is the last term of inequality, the extreme point which closes the circle and meets that from which we set out. 'Tis here that all private men return to their primitive equality, because they are no longer of any account; and that, the subjects having no longer any law but that of their master, nor the master any other law but his passions, all notions of good and principles of justice again disappear. 'Tis here that everything returns to the sole law of the strongest, and of course to a new state of nature different from that with which we began, in as much as the first was the state of nature in its purity, and the last the consequence of excessive corruption. There is, in other respects, so little difference between these two states, and the contract of government is so much dissolved by despotism, that the despot is no longer master than he continues the strongest, and that, as soon as his slaves can expel him, they may do it without his having the least right to complain of their using him ill. The insurrection, which ends in the death or despotism of a sultan, is as juridical an act as any by which the day before he disposed of the lives and fortunes of his subjects. Force alone upheld him, force alone overturns him. Thus all things take place and succeed in their natural order; and whatever may be the upshot of these hasty and frequent revolutions, no one man has reason to complain of another's injustice, but only of his own indiscretion or bad fortune.", "word_count": 523, "estimated_duration": 232.4444}
{"text": "T.H.I.S. E.T.E.X.T. I.S. O.T.H.E.R.W.I.S.E. P.R.O.V.I.D.E.D. T.O. Y.O.U. \"A.S. I.S.\". N.O. O.T.H.E.R. W.A.R.R.A.N.T.I.E.S. O.F. A.N.Y. K.I.N.D., E.X.P.R.E.S.S. O.R. I.M.P.L.I.E.D., A.R.E. M.A.D.E. T.O. Y.O.U. A.S. T.O. T.H.E. E.T.E.X.T. O.R. A.N.Y. M.E.D.I.U.M. I.T. M.A.Y. B.E. O.N., I.N.C.L.U.D.I.N.G. B.U.T. N.O.T. L.I.M.I.T.E.D. T.O. W.A.R.R.A.N.T.I.E.S. O.F. M.E.R.C.H.A.N.T.A.B.I.L.I.T.Y. O.R. F.I.T.N.E.S.S. F.O.R. A P.A.R.T.I.C.U.L.A.R. PURPOSE. Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you may have other legal rights. I.N.D.E.M.N.I.T.Y. You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors, officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause: [] distribution of this etext, [] alteration, modification, or addition to the etext, or [] any Defect. D.I.S.T.R.I.B.U.T.I.O.N. U.N.D.E.R. \"P.R.O.J.E.C.T. G.U.T.E.N.B.E.R.G. tm\" You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this \"Small Print!\" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, or: [] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the etext or this \"small print!\" statement. You may however, if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable binary, compressed, mark up, or proprietary form, including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as E.I.T.H.E.R.: [ ] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and does not contain characters other than those intended by the author of the work, although tilde (~), asterisk ( ) and underline ( ) characters may be used to convey punctuation intended by the author, and additional characters may be used to indicate hypertext links; O.R. [ ] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at no expense into plain A.S.C.I.I., E.B.C.D.I.C. or equivalent form by the program that displays the etext (as is the case, for instance, with most word processors); O.R. [ ] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the etext in its original plain A.S.C.I.I. form (or in E.B.C.D.I.C. or other equivalent proprietary form). [] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of % of the net profits you derive calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are payable to \"Project Gutenberg Association Carnegie Mellon University\" within the days following each date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.", "word_count": 440, "estimated_duration": 195.5556}
{"text": "It was not of him, nevertheless, that she was thinking while she stood at the window near which we found her a while ago, and it was not of any of the matters I have rapidly sketched. She was not turned to the past, but to the immediate, impending hour. She had reason to expect a scene, and she was not fond of scenes. She was not asking herself what she should say to her visitor; this question had already been answered. What he would say to her - that was the interesting issue. It could be nothing in the least soothing - she had warrant for this, and the conviction doubtless showed in the cloud on her brow. For the rest, however, all clearness reigned in her; she had put away her mourning and she walked in no small shimmering splendour. She only, felt older - ever so much, and as if she were \"worth more\" for it, like some curious piece in an antiquary's collection. She was not at any rate left indefinitely to her apprehensions, for a servant at last stood before her with a card on his tray. \"Let the gentleman come in,\" she said, and continued to gaze out of the window after the footman had retired. It was only when she had heard the door close behind the person who presently entered that she looked round. Caspar Goodwood stood there - stood and received a moment, from head to foot, the bright, dry gaze with which she rather withheld than offered a greeting. Whether his sense of maturity had kept pace with Isabel's we shall perhaps presently ascertain; let me say meanwhile that to her critical glance he showed nothing of the injury of time. Straight, strong and hard, there was nothing in his appearance that spoke positively either of youth or of age; if he had neither innocence nor weakness, so he had no practical philosophy. His jaw showed the same voluntary cast as in earlier days; but a crisis like the present had in it of course something grim. He had the air of a man who had travelled hard; he said nothing at first, as if he had been out of breath. This gave Isabel time to make a reflexion: \"Poor fellow, what great things he's capable of, and what a pity he should waste so dreadfully his splendid force! What a pity too that one can't satisfy everybody!\" It gave her time to do more to say at the end of a minute: \"I can't tell you how I hoped you wouldn't come!\"", "word_count": 433, "estimated_duration": 192.4444}
{"text": "Dalgard was not surprised at Sssuri's negative answer. \"Within days they have been here. But they have gone once more. It will be wise for us to learn what they wanted here.\" \"Have they come to establish a base here once more?\" Dalgard brought into the open the one threat which had hung over his own clan since they first learned that a few of Those Others still lived - even if overseas. \"If that is their plan, they have not yet done it.\" Sssuri rolled over on his back and stretched. He had lost that tenseness of a hound in leash which had marked him the night before. \"This was one of their secret places, holding much of their knowledge. They may return here on quest for that learning.\" All at once Dalgard was conscious of a sense of urgency. Suppose that what Sssuri suggested was the truth, that Those Others were attempting to recover the skills which had brought on the devastating war that had turned this whole eastern continent into a wilderness? Equipped with even the crumbs of such discoveries, they would be enemies against which the Terran colonists could not hope to stand. The few weapons their outlaw ancestors had brought with them on their desperate flight to the stars were long since useless, and they had had no way of duplicating them. Since childhood Dalgard had seen no arms except the bows and the sword knives carried by all venturing away from Homeport. And what use would a bow or a foot or two of sharpened metal be against things which could kill from a distance or turn rock itself into a flowing, molten river? He was impatient to move on, to reach this city of forgotten knowledge which Sssuri was sure lay before them. Perhaps the colonists could draw upon what was stored there as well as Those Others could. Then he remembered - not only remembered but was corrected by Sssuri. \"Think not of taking their weapons into your hands.\" Sssuri did not look up as he gave that warning. \"Long ago your fathers' fathers knew that the knowledge of Those Others was not for their taking.\" A dimly remembered story, a warning impressed upon him during his first guided trips into the ruins near Homeport flashed into Dalgard's mind. Yes, he knew that some things had been forbidden to his kind. For one, it was best not to examine too closely the bands of color patterns which served Those Others as a means of written record. Tapes of the aliens' records had been found and stored at Homeport. But not one of the colonists had ventured to try to break the color code and learn what lay locked in those bands. Once long ago such an experiment had led to the brink of disaster, and such delvings were now considered too dangerous to be allowed.", "word_count": 483, "estimated_duration": 214.6667}
{"text": "Rash man!\" she said; \"like Acton, thou hast had thy will; be careful lest, like Acton, thou too dost perish miserably, torn to pieces by the ban hounds of thine own passions. I too, oh Holly, am a virgin goddess, not to be moved of any man, save one, and it is not thou. Say, hast thou seen enough!\" Suddenly she paused, and through my fingers I saw an awful change come over her countenance. Her great eyes suddenly fixed themselves into an expression in which horror seemed to struggle with some tremendous hope arising through the depths of her dark soul. The lovely face grew rigid, and the gracious willowy form seemed to erect itself. \"Man,\" she half whispered, half hissed, throwing back her head like a snake about to strike - \"Man, whence hadst thou that scarab on thy hand? Speak, or by the Spirit of Life I will blast thee where thou standest!\" and she took one light step towards me, and from her eyes there shone such an awful light - to me it seemed almost like a flame - that I fell, then and there, on the ground before her, babbling confusedly in my terror. \"Peace,\" she said, with a sudden change of manner, and speaking in her former soft voice. \"I did affright thee! Forgive me! But at times, oh Holly, the almost infinite mind grows impatient of the slowness of the very finite, and am I tempted to use my power out of vexation - very nearly wast thou dead, but I remembered - - . But the scarab - about the scarabus!\" \"I picked it up,\" I gurgled feebly, as I got on to my feet again, and it is a solemn fact that my mind was so disturbed that at the moment I could remember nothing else about the ring except that I had picked it up in Leo's cave. \"It is very strange,\" she said with a sudden access of womanlike trembling and agitation which seemed out of place in this awful woman - \"but once I knew a scarab like to that. It - hung round the neck - of one I loved,\" and she gave a little sob, and I saw that after all she was only a woman, although she might be a very old one. \"There,\" she went on, \"it must be one like to it, and yet never did I see one like to it, for thereto hung a history, and he who wore it prized it much.[ ] But the scarab that I knew was not set thus in the bezel of a ring. Go now, Holly, go, and, if thou canst, try to forget that thou hast of thy folly looked upon Ayesha's beauty,\" and, turning from me, she flung herself on her couch, and buried her face in the cushions.", "word_count": 478, "estimated_duration": 212.4444}
{"text": "I'm not afraid; I should fold my arms and admire you. I'm speaking very seriously.\" He leaned forward, a hand on each knee; for some moments he bent his eyes on the floor. \"What I wish to say to you,\" he went on at last, looking up, \"is that I find I'm in love with you.\" \"Tired of hearing it from others?\" He sat there raising his eyes to her. \"No, you may heed it now or never, as you please. But after all I must say it now.\" She had turned away, but in the movement she had stopped herself and dropped her gaze upon him. The two remained a while in this situation, exchanging a long look - the large, conscious look of the critical hours of life. Then he got up and came near her, deeply respectful, as if he were afraid he had been too familiar. \"I'm absolutely in love with you.\" He had repeated the announcement in a tone of almost impersonal discretion, like a man who expected very little from it but who spoke for his own needed relief. The tears came into her eyes: this time they obeyed the sharpness of the pang that suggested to her somehow the slipping of a fine bolt - backward, forward, she couldn't have said which. The words he had uttered made him, as he stood there, beautiful and generous, invested him as with the golden air of early autumn; but, morally speaking, she retreated before them - facing him still - as she had retreated in the other cases before a like encounter. \"Oh don't say that, please,\" she answered with an intensity that expressed the dread of having, in this case too, to choose and decide. What made her dread great was precisely the force which, as it would seem, ought to have banished all dread - the sense of something within herself, deep down, that she supposed to be inspired and trustful passion. It was there like a large sum stored in a bank - which there was a terror in having to begin to spend. If she touched it, it would all come out. \"I haven't the idea that it will matter much to you,\" said Osmond. \"I've too little to offer you. What I have - it's enough for me; but it's not enough for you. I've neither fortune, nor fame, nor extrinsic advantages of any kind. So I offer nothing. I only tell you because I think it can't offend you, and some day or other it may give you pleasure. It gives me pleasure, I assure you,\" he went on, standing there before her, considerately inclined to her, turning his hat, which he had taken up, slowly round with a movement which had all the decent tremor of awkwardness and none of its oddity, and presenting to her his firm, refined, slightly ravaged face. \"It gives me no pain, because it's perfectly simple. For me you'll always be the most important woman in the world.\"", "word_count": 505, "estimated_duration": 224.4444}