The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. By Washington Irving Found among the papers of the late Diedrech Knickerbocker. A pleasing land of drowsy head it was, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye; And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, Forever flushing round a summer sky. - Castle of Indolence. In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail and implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a small market town or rural port, which by some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly known by the name of Tarry Town.
This name was given, we are told, in former days, by the good housewives of the adjacent country, from the inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger about the village tavern on market days. He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple credulity. Americanliterature. By Jack London Day had broken cold and grey, exceedingly cold and grey, when the man turned aside from the main Yukon trail and climbed the high earth- bank, where a dim and little-travelled trail led eastward through the fat spruce timberland.
It was a steep bank, and he paused for breath at the top, excusing the act to himself by looking at his watch. It was nine o'clock. There was no sun nor hint of sun, though there was not a cloud in the sky. It was a clear day, and yet there seemed an intangible pall over the face of things, a subtle gloom that made the day dark, and that was due to the absence of sun. The man flung a look back along the way he had come. But all this--the mysterious, far-reaching hairline trail, the absence of sun from the sky, the tremendous cold, and the strangeness and weirdness of it all--made no impression on the man. As he turned to go on, he spat speculatively. He plunged in among the big spruce trees. That was why he had shied in such panic.
The Private History of a Campaign That Failed. By Mark Twain You have heard from a great many people who did something in the war, is it not fair and right that you listen a little moment to one who started out to do something in it but didn't? Thousands entered the war, got just a taste of it, and then stepped out again permanently. These, by their very numbers, are respectable and therefore entitled to a sort of voice, not a loud one, but a modest one, not a boastful one but an apologetic one.
They ought not be allowed much space among better people, people who did something. Out west there was a good deal of confusion in men's minds during the first months of the great trouble, a good deal of unsettledness, of leaning first this way then that, and then the other way. In that summer of 1861 the first wash of the wave of war broke upon the shores of Missouri. I was visiting in the small town where my boyhood had been spent, Hannibal, Marion County. That is one sample of us. Another sample was Smith, the blacksmith's apprentice.
The Cask of Amontillado. By Edgar Allan Poe The Cask of Amontillado and the accompanying illustration by Harry Clarke were published in 1919 in Edgar Allan Poe'sTales of Mystery and Imagination. THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.
You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitely, settled --but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will.
He had a weak point --this Fortunato --although in other regards he was a man to be respected and even feared. It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I encountered my friend. "How? " "Amontillado! " My Kinsman, Major Molineux. By Nathaniel Hawthorne "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" was written in 1831 and first published in 1832.
It was later included in the 1852 edition of The Snow-Image, and Other Twice-Told Tales, the final short story collection of short stories that was published while Hawthorne was still living. I have characterized it with its original publication date of 1832, but belonging to his final collection. AFTER the kings of Great Britain had assumed the right of appointing the colonial governors, the measures of the latter seldom met with the ready and generous approbation which had been paid to those of their predecessors, under the original charters.
It was near nine o'clock of a moonlight evening, when a boat crossed the ferry with a single passenger, who had obtained his conveyance at that unusual hour by the promise of an extra fare. He resumed his walk, and was glad to perceive that the street now became wider, and the houses more respectable in their appearance. ``What have we here? ''