The Thirty Nine Steps

Richard Hannay, the protagonist and narrator, an expatriate Scot, returns from a long stay in Southern Africa to his new home, a flat in London. One night he is buttonholed by a stranger, a well-travelled American, who claims to be in fear for his life. The man appears to know of an anarchist plot to destabilise Europe, beginning with a plan to assassinate the Greek Premier, Karolides, during his forthcoming visit to London. He reveals his name to be Franklin P. Scudder. Hannay lets Scudder hide in his flat, and returns later the next day to find that another man has been found shot dead in the same building, apparently a suicide. Four days later Hannay returns home to find Scudder dead with a knife through his heart.

Hannay fears that the murderers will come for him next, but cannot ask the police for help because he is the most likely suspect for the murders. Not only does he want to avoid imprisonment, but he also feels a duty to take up Scudder's cause and save Karolides from the assassination, planned in three weeks' time. He decides to go into hiding in Scotland and then to contact the authorities at the last minute. In order to escape from his flat unseen, he bribes the milkman to lend him his uniform and exits wearing it. Carrying Scudder's pocket-book, he catches a train to Scotland.

Arriving at the countryside somewhere near Galloway, Hannay lodges in a shepherd's cottage. The next morning he reads in a newspaper that the police are looking for him in Scotland. He boards a local train and jumps off between stations. He is seen but escapes, finding an inn where he stays the night. He tells the innkeeper a modified version of his story, and the man is persuaded to shelter him. While staying at the inn, Hannay cracks the substitution cipher used in Scudder's pocket-book. The next day two men arrive at the inn looking for Hannay, but the innkeeper sends them away. When they return later, Hannay steals their car and escapes.

On his way, Hannay reflects on what he has learnt from Scudder's notes. They contradict the story that Scudder first told to him, and mention an enemy group called the Black Stone and the mysterious Thirty-nine Steps. The United Kingdom appears to be in danger of an invasion by Germany and its allies. By this time, Hannay is being pursued by an aeroplane, and a policeman in a remote village has tried to stop him. Trying to avoid an oncoming car, Hannay crashes his own, but the other driver offers to take him home. The man is Sir Harry, a local landowner and prospective politician, although politically very naive. When he learns of Hannay's experience of South Africa, he invites him to address an election meeting that afternoon. Hannay's speech impresses Sir Harry, and Hannay feels able to trust him with his story. Sir Harry writes an introductory letter about Hannay to a relation in the Foreign Office.

Hannay leaves Sir Harry and tries to hide in the countryside, but is spotted by the aeroplane. Soon he spots a group of men on the ground searching for him. Miraculously, he meets a road mender out on the moor, and swaps places with him, sending the workman home. His disguise fools his pursuers, who pass him by. On the same road he meets a rich motorist, whom he recognises from London, and whom he forces to exchange clothes with him and drive him off the moor.

The next day, Hannay manages to stay ahead of the pursuers, and hides in a cottage occupied by an elderly man. Unfortunately, the man turns out to be one of the enemy, and with his accomplices he imprisons Hannay. Fortunately, the room in which Hannay is locked is full of bomb-making materials, which he uses to break out of the cottage, injuring himself in the process.

A day later, Hannay retrieves his possessions from the helpful roadmender and stays for a few days to recover from the explosion, and catches a train to England, to meet Sir Harry's relative at the Foreign Office, Sir Walter Bullivant, at his country home in Berkshire. As they discuss Scudder's notes, Sir Walter receives a phone call to tell him that Karolides has been assassinated.

Sir Walter, now at his house in London, lets Hannay in on some military secrets before releasing him to go home. Hannay is unable to shake off his sense of involvement in important events, and returns to Sir Walter's house where a high-level meeting is in progress. He is just in time to see a man, whom he recognises as one of his former pursuers in Scotland, leaving the house. Hannay warns Sir Walter that the man, ostensibly the First Sea Lord, is about to return to Europe with the information he has obtained from their meeting. At that point, Hannay realises that the phrase "the thirty-nine steps" could refer to the landing-point in England from which the spy is about to set sail. Throughout the night Hannay and the United Kingdom's military leaders try to work out the meaning of the mysterious phrase.

After some reasoning worthy of Sherlock Holmes, and with the help of a knowledgeable coastguard, the group decide on a coastal town in Kent. They find a path down from the cliff that has thirty-nine steps. Just offshore they see a yacht. Posing as fishermen, some of the party visit the yacht, the Ariadne, and find that at least one of the crew appears to be German. The only people onshore are playing tennis by a villa and appear to be English, but they match Scudder's description of the conspirators, The Black Stone. Hannay, alone, confronts the men at the villa. After a struggle, two of the men are captured while the third flees to the yacht, which meanwhile has been seized by the British authorities. The plot is thwarted, and the United Kingdom enters the First World War having kept its military secrets from the enemy.

A few weeks later, Hannay joins the army with a captain's rank.

DOWNLOAD HERE

The Time Machine

The book's protagonist is an English scientist and gentleman inventor living in Richmond, Surrey, identified by a narrator simply as the Time Traveller. The narrator recounts the Traveller's lecture to his weekly dinner guests that time is simply a fourth dimension, and his demonstration of a tabletop model machine for travelling through it. He reveals that he has built a machine capable of carrying a person, and returns at dinner the following week to recount a remarkable tale, becoming the new narrator:

The Time Traveller tests his device with a journey that takes him to the year 802,701 A.D., where he meets the Eloi, a society of small, elegant, androgynous, and childlike people. They live in small communities within large and futuristic yet slowly deteriorating buildings, doing no work and having a frugivorous diet. His efforts to communicate with them are hampered by their lack of curiosity or discipline, and he speculates that they are a peaceful communist society, the result of humanity conquering nature with technology, and subsequently evolving to adapt to an environment in which strength and intellect are no longer advantageous to survival.

Returning to the site where he arrived, the Time Traveller finds his time machine missing, and eventually works out that it has been dragged by some unknown party into a nearby structure with heavy doors, locked from the inside. Later in the dark, he is approached menacingly by the Morlocks, pale, apelike people who live in darkness underground, where he discovers the machinery and industry that makes the above-ground paradise possible. He alters his theory, speculating that the human race has evolved into two species: the leisured classes have become the ineffectual Eloi, and the downtrodden working classes have become the brutish light-fearing Morlocks. Deducing that the Morlocks have taken his time machine, he explores the Morlock tunnels, learning that they feed on the Eloi. His revised analysis is that their relationship is not one of lords and servants but of livestock and ranchers, and with no real challenges facing either species. They have both lost the intelligence and character of Man at its peak.

Meanwhile, he saves an Eloi named Weena from drowning as none of the other Eloi take any notice of her, and they develop an innocently affectionate relationship over the course of several days. He takes Weena with him on an expedition to a distant structure that turns out to be the remains of a museum, where he finds a fresh supply of matches and fashions a crude weapon against Morlocks, whom he fears he must fight to get back his machine. He plans to take Weena back to his own time. But because the long and tiring journey back to Weena's home is too much for them, they are overcome by Morlocks in the night, and Weena faints. The Traveller escapes only when a small fire he had left behind them to distract the Morlocks catches up to them as a forest fire; Weena is lost to the fire and the Morlocks are possibly killed by it.

The Morlocks use the time machine as bait to ensnare the Traveller, not understanding that he will use it to escape. He travels further ahead to roughly 30 million years from his own time. There he sees some of the last living things on a dying Earth, menacing reddish crab-like creatures slowly wandering the blood-red beaches of a world covered in simple vegetation. He continues to make short jumps through time, seeing Earth's rotation gradually cease and the sun grow dimmer, and the world falling silent and freezing as the last degenerate living things die out.

Overwhelmed, he returns to his laboratory, at just three hours after he originally left. Interrupting dinner, he relates his adventures to his disbelieving visitors, producing as evidence two strange flowers Weena had put in his pocket. The original narrator takes over and relates that he returned to the Time Traveller's house the next day, finding him in final preparations for another journey. The Traveler promises to return in half an hour, but three years later, the narrator despairs of ever learning what became of him, although just before he left the lab he saw a glimpse of him.

DOWNLOAD HERE

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll

Gabriel John Utterson, a lawyer, is on his weekly walk with his relative Richard Enfield, who proceeds to tell him of an encounter he had some months ago while coming home late at night (it is not known what he was coming home from). The tale describes a sinister figure named Mr Hyde who tramples a young girl, disappears into a door on the street, and re-emerges to pay off her relatives with a cheque signed by a respectable gentleman for 100 pounds. Because both Utterson and Enfield disapprove of gossip, they agree to speak no further of the matter. It happens, however, that one of Utterson’s clients and close friends, Dr Henry Jekyll, has written a will transferring all of his property to this same Mr Hyde. Soon, Utterson begins having dreams in which a faceless figure stalks through a nightmarish version of London. Puzzled, the lawyer visits Jekyll and their mutual friend Dr Hastie Lanyon to try to learn more. Lanyon reports that he no longer sees much of Jekyll, since they had a dispute over the course of Jekyll’s research, which Lanyon calls “unscientific balderdash”. Curious, Utterson stakes out a building that Hyde visits, which, it turns out, is a filthy shack attached to the back of Jekyll’s home.

Encountering Hyde, Utterson is amazed by how ugly the man seems, as if deformed, though Utterson cannot say exactly how this is so. Much to Utterson’s surprise, Hyde willingly offers Utterson his address. Jekyll tells Utterson not to concern himself with the matter of Hyde. A year passes uneventfully. One night, a servant girl witnesses Hyde beat a man to death with a heavy cane - MP Sir Danvers Carew, also a client of Utterson. The police contact Utterson, who suspects Hyde of the murder. He leads the officers to Hyde’s apartment, feeling a sense of foreboding amid the eerie weather (the morning is dark and wreathed in fog). When they arrive at the apartment, the murderer has vanished, but they find half of the cane (described as being made of a strong wood but broken due to the beating) left behind a door. It is revealed to have been given to Jekyll by Utterson. Shortly thereafter, Utterson again visits Jekyll, who now claims to have ended all relations with Hyde. Jekyll shows Utterson a note, allegedly written to Jekyll by Hyde, apologizing for the trouble he has caused him and saying goodbye. That night, however, Utterson’s clerk points out that Hyde’s handwriting bears a remarkable similarity to Jekyll’s own.

For a few months, Jekyll reverts to his former friendly and sociable manner, as if a weight has been lifted from his shoulders. Later, Jekyll suddenly begins to refuse visitors, and Lanyon dies of shock after receiving information relating to Jekyll. Before his death, Lanyon gives Utterson a letter, with instructions that he not open it until after Jekyll's death or disappearance. Utterson goes out walking with Enfield, and they see Jekyll at a window of his laboratory; the three men begin to converse, but a look of horror comes over Jekyll’s face, and he slams the window and disappears. Soon afterward, Jekyll’s butler, Mr Poole, visits Utterson in a state of desperation and explains that Jekyll has secluded himself in his laboratory for several weeks, and that now the voice that comes from the room sounds nothing like the doctor’s. Utterson and Poole travel to Jekyll’s house through empty, windswept, sinister streets; once there, they find the servants huddled together in fear. After arguing for a time, the two of them resolve to break into Jekyll’s laboratory.

Inside, they find the body of Hyde, wearing Jekyll’s clothes and apparently dead by suicide. They find also a letter from Jekyll to Utterson promising to explain the entire mystery. Utterson takes the document home, where first he reads Lanyon’s letter and then Jekyll's. The first reveals that Lanyon’s deterioration and eventual death were caused by the shock of seeing Mr Hyde drink a potion and, as a result of doing so, metamorphose into Dr Jekyll. The second letter explains that Jekyll, seeking to separate his good side from his darker impulses, discovered a way to transform himself periodically into a creature free of conscience, this being Mr Hyde. The transformation was incomplete, however, in that it created a second, evil identity, but did not make the first identity purely good. At first, Jekyll reports, he delighted in becoming Hyde and rejoiced in the moral freedom that the creature possessed. Eventually, however, he found that he was turning into Hyde involuntarily in his sleep, even without taking the potion.

At this point, Jekyll resolved to cease becoming Hyde. One night, however, the urge gripped him too strongly, and after the transformation he immediately rushed out and violently killed Sir Danvers Carew. Horrified, Jekyll tried more adamantly to stop the transformations, and for a time he proved successful by engaging in philanthropic work. At a park, he considers how good a person he has become as a result of his deeds (in comparison to others), believing himself redeemed. However, before he completes his line of thought, he looks down at his hands and realizes that he has suddenly once again become Mr Hyde. This was the first time that an involuntary metamorphosis had happened in waking hours. Far from his laboratory and hunted by the police as a murderer, Hyde needed Lanyon’s help to get his potions and become Jekyll again; when he undertook the transformation in Lanyon’s presence, the shock of the sight instigated Lanyon’s deterioration and death. Meanwhile, Jekyll returned to his home, only to find himself ever more helpless and trapped as the transformations increased in frequency and necessitated even larger doses of potion in order to reverse themselves. It was the onset of one of these spontaneous metamorphoses that caused Jekyll to slam his laboratory window shut in the middle of his conversation with Enfield and Utterson.

Eventually, the potion began to run out, and Jekyll was unable to find a necessary ingredient to make more. Ironically, Jekyll learns that this most necessary ingredient was in the first instance of his experiments, sullied. Subsequent supplies are pure and thus lacking the quality that makes the potion successful for his experiments. His ability to change back from Hyde into Jekyll slowly vanished. Jekyll writes that even as he composes his letter he knows that he will soon become Hyde permanently, and he wonders if Hyde will face execution for his crimes or choose to kill himself. Jekyll notes that, in either case, the end of his letter marks the end of the life of Dr Jekyll. He ends the letter saying "This is the end of Dr Jekyll. Goodbye... Good..." . With these words, both the document and the novel come to a close.

download here

The Last of the Mohicans

The action takes place around Glens Falls in upstate New York. Cora and Alice Monro, daughters of Lieutenant Colonel Munro, are traveling with a column of reinforcements from Fort Edward to Fort William Henry. In the party are David Gamut the singing teacher, and Major Duncan Heyward, the group's military leader.

The Huron scout, Magua, offers to take the Monro party by a shorter route than that which the column must take. Unknown to them, Magua - who they believe to have been expelled from his tribe in disgrace - has been reinstated as chief and is a supporter of the French cause. Magua intends to lead the party into an ambush, but is foiled when they meet Natty Bumppo, also referred to in this novel as Hawkeye, and the two Mohicans, Chingachgook and his son Uncas, on the road. Magua flees, and Bumppo and the Mohicans take the party by canoe to an island at the foot of Glenn Falls, where they are partly hidden by the falling waters.

Magua returns with his Hurons, and steals the canoe containing all the available gunpowder and ammunition. Bumppo and the Mohicans, believing that the Hurons will not kill white captives, escape down the river to fetch help. Magua finds Cora and Alice, and the two men, and lead the captives into the forest. Unnoticed to the Hurons, Cora blazes a trail so that Hawkeye can follow them. Heyward tries to persuade Magua to take them to Fort William Henry. Magua instead offers a choice. He will release the other three if Cora will go with him as his wife. His motive for this is revenge on Munro, rather than attraction to Cora, who refuses him.

When Cora asks about the motive behind his hatred of Munro, Magua tells her that Munro once fed him 'fire-water' (whiskey) leading him to be expelled from the Huron tribe. He subsequently joined the Mohawks and went to war against the Hurons on the British side. Magua became addicted to whiskey and was punished by Munro for drunken behavior; Munro tied him to a post and whipped him. Magua then left the Mohawks to rejoin the Hurons, but has never forgiven Munro for the humiliation. When Cora again refuses Magua's demands he orders his men to tie up and torment the captives. As Heyward struggles with his captors and is about to be killed, a shot from La Longue Carabine (Hawkeye) fells his attacker.

Hawkeye and his companions come out of the woods to attack the Hurons. The Hurons are defeated but Magua again escapes. Heyward and Bumppo lead the Munro women to Fort William Henry, which is by now surrounded by the French. Only Heyward's fluent French allows them to pass the French piquets without detection and gain the fort.

The fort comes under siege. Munro sends Bumppo to Fort Edward to request reinforcements but, bearing General Webb's reply, he is captured by the French, who deliver him to Fort William Henry without the letter. Heyward attempts to parley with the French, but learns nothing. He then returns to Colonel Munro and announces his love for Alice. Munro reveals Cora's heritage - the Colonel's first wife was of mixed race - then gives his permission for Heyward to pay court to Alice.

The French general, Montcalm, invites Munro to a parley. He shows him Webb's letter: the English general has refused to send further reinforcements. Realising that his cause is lost, Munro reluctantly agrees to Montcalm's terms. The British soldiers, together with their wounded, and women and children, are allowed to leave the fort and withdraw. Outside the fort, the column is set upon by 2000 French allied Indian warriors, an action which Montcalm seeks to dissuade but does not attempt to stop by force. In the chaos of the massacre, Magua finds Cora and Alice, and leads them away towards the Huron village. David Gamut follows at a distance.

Three days later, Natty Bumpo and the Mohicans, Heyward and Colonel Munro follow Magua's trail. Outside the Huron village, they come across David Gamut, teaching beavers to sing psalms. The Huron have not killed him as they will not harm a madman. Gamut tells them that Alice is in the village, Cora is in another village belonging to the Lenni Lenape (Delaware) tribe, and Magua has gone moose hunting. Heyward disguises himself as a French medicine man and enters the village with Gamut, intending to rescue Alice. Hawkeye and Uncas set out to rescue Cora. Chingachgook remains with Colonel Munro, who has become somewhat deranged as a result of events.

Heyward's disguise is successful, but before he can find Alice, Uncas is led into the village, having been captured by the Hurons. The Mohican is made to 'run the gauntlet', being struck and insulted, until he reaches a sacred pole in the centre of the village, which acts as a form of sanctuary. Magua returns, and demands that Uncas be put to death, but does not recognise Hayward in his guise as a medicine man. Heyward is asked to cure a sick woman. As he goes to her cave, he is followed by what he believes to be a bear. The Huron believe it is their conjurer, who wears the bearskin in his role as a medicine man. In fact, the occupant of the bearskin is Natty Bumppo, who has overpowered the conjurer and left him tied up elsewhere.

Magua is suspicious and follows the party, but Heyward and Hawkeye overpower him and tie him up. They find Alice in the cave, and bring her out wrapped in blankets, telling everyone that she is the sick woman and they are taking her away from the evil spirits. Outside the camp, Bumppo sends Heyward and Alice off towards the Delaware village, and goes back to rescue Uncas, which he does with the help of David Gamut. Leaving Gamut behind dressed as Uncas, Hawkeye dresses in Gamut's clothes and Uncas wears the bearskin, and the two of them flee to the Delaware village.

The Hurons discover Gamut and realize that Uncas has escaped. Later they find Magua tied up in the cave where the woman is already dead. Magua tells them everything about Hawkeye's and Heyward's deception, enraging the other Hurons, who vow revenge against Hawkeye and his companions and quickly reaffirm Magua as their chief.

Magua then makes his way to the Delaware village, and demands his prisoners. At the council of chiefs, the venerable sage Tamenund is called on to make the final judgement. He asks which of the prisoners is La Longue Carabine, and Heyward claims that it is he, so a shooting match is organised at which Hawkeye outshoots the Major. Tamenund is initially minded to give judgement to Magua, despite Cora's pleas for mercy. Uncas then speaks in a way that the listeners find high-handed, so they tear off his shirt in order to torture him, revealing that he has a sacred sea turtle, totem of the Lenni Lenape, tattooed on his chest.

Realising that he is in the presence of the last descendent of a great chief, Tamenund accedes to all that Uncas asks, except that he says he cannot free Cora as it was Magua who brought her to the village. Magua reluctantly agrees to Uncas's demands but announces his intention to keep Cora as his wife, and leaves the village. According to custom, Tamenund has agreed to give Magua a three hour head start, so Uncas leads them in a ritual dance while they wait. Just as the Delawares are preparing for war, David Gamut enters the village. He has seen Magua take Cora back to the Huron village and hide her in the cave where Alice was hidden. With that in mind, Hawkeye, Uncas, Heyward, and the Delaware warriors set out into the forest to fight the Hurons.

A battle breaks out between the Hurons and the Delaware, who are in three parties - one led by Hawkeye and Heyward, one by Uncas, and one by Chingachgook and Munro. The Hurons are gradually pushed back to their village as the Delawares press their attack with the three parties. Magua escapes with Cora and two of his warriors, and they seek to flee by a mountain path which has a precipitous drop on one side, but Cora stops on a rocky ledge and refuses to go further. Magua threatens to stab her, but is unable or unwilling to go through with his threat. Uncas, who has caught the party up, leaps from a higher ledge but lands flat on his face and is stabbed in the back by Magua. The warrior holding Cora stabs her. Uncas rises to his feet and slays her murderer, and is then killed by Magua. The Huron is finally killed by a shot from La Longue Carabine and falls over the precipice.

The novel concludes with a lengthy account of the funerals of Uncas and Cora. The Lenni Lenape sing that Uncas and Cora will marry in the afterlife. Hawkeye does not believe this, but he renews his friendship with Chingachgook. Tamenund foresees that "The pale-faces are masters of the earth, and the time of the red-men has not yet come again...."

download here

The Scarlet Letter

The story starts during the summer, near 17th century Boston, Massachusetts, in a Puritan village. A young woman, named Hester Prynne, has been led from the town prison with her infant daughter in her arms and on the breast of her gown "a rag of scarlet cloth" that "assumed the shape of a letter." It is the uppercase letter "A." The Scarlet Letter "A" represents the act of adultery that she has committed and it is to be a symbol of her sin—a badge of shame—for all to see. A man, who is elderly and a stranger to the town, enters the crowd and asks another onlooker what's happening. The second man responds by explaining that Hester is being punished for adultery. Hester's husband, who is much older than she, and whose real name is unknown, has sent her ahead to America whilst settling affairs in Europe. However, her husband does not arrive in Boston and the consensus is that he has been lost at sea. It is apparent that, while waiting for her husband, Hester has had an affair, leading to the birth of her daughter. She will not reveal her lover's identity, however, and the scarlet letter, along with her subsequent public shaming, is the punishment for her sin and secrecy. On this day, Hester is led to the town scaffold and harangued by the town fathers, but she again refuses to identify her child's father.^[2]

The elderly onlooker is Hester's missing husband, who is now practicing medicine and calling himself Roger Chillingworth. He settles in Boston, intent on revenge. He reveals his true identity to no one but Hester, whom he has sworn to secrecy. Several years pass. Hester supports herself by working as a seamstress, and her daughter, Pearl, grows into a willful, impish child, and is said to be the scarlet letter come to life as both Hester's love and her punishment. Shunned by the community, they live in a small cottage on the outskirts of Boston. Community officials attempt to take Pearl away from Hester, but with the help of Arthur Dimmesdale, an eloquent minister, the mother and daughter manage to stay together. Dimmesdale, however, appears to be wasting away and suffers from mysterious heart trouble, seemingly caused by psychological distress. Chillingworth attaches himself to the ailing minister and eventually moves in with him so that he can provide his patient with round-the-clock care. Chillingworth also suspects that there may be a connection between the minister's torments and Hester's secret, and he begins to test Dimmesdale to see what he can learn. One afternoon, while the minister sleeps, Chillingworth discovers something undescribed to the reader, supposedly an "A" burned into Dimmesdale's chest, which convinces him that his suspicions are





download here

Google tool lets you track word use over 500 years

Google Ngram Viewer is all but guaranteed to eat away at your precious time (or save you from the forced family togetherness of the holidays). The new tool allows you to punch in whatever words or phrases you want, graph their occurrences in publications over five centuries and browse the results using Google Books.

I tried it out using a hodge podge of words and phrases that are fairly commonplace in current events and pop culture discussion: the ever-present "pornography," "openly gay," "angry birds."

Since it also allows you to compare several words/phrases, I chose "zombies," "vampires" and "werewolves." (What? I watch a lot of horror movies.) As you can see in the graph above, vampires sucked more life out of zombies and vanquished their arch-enemy Lycans — chalk that up to Team Edward for carrying on Bram Stoker's tradition.

I was actually surprised to find that "pornography" really didn't pick up steam until after 1960. Before then, it's almost a flatline. For phrases or words to be tracked, they have to have appeared in 40 books/publications. Google reminds us that only about 500,000 books were published prior to the 19th century, but modern publishing doesn't necessarily skew the results. As Google explains on the Ngram FAQ, they "normalize by the number of books published in each year."


The 1960s sees the rise of "pornography" as a common term. From 1961's "Phoenix: the posthumous papers" by David Herbert Lawrence (yes, the D.H. of the highly controversial "Lady Chatterley's Lover"), pornography is mentioned several times.

Lately, with the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, it seems that finding "openly gay" is hot in stories and on social media feeds, but it's been around long enough, too. Looking back through the Ngram Viewer, the use of the phrase "openly gay" results in only 2 pages of results per 50-year increment from 1800 to about 1970, when the results jump to 11 pages. But this was also the beginning of the gay rights movement, Harvey Milk, and scores of other pioneers.

Moby Dick

Moby-Dick, also known as The Whale, is a novel first published in 1851 by American author Herman Melville. Moby-Dick is widely considered to be a Great American Novel and a treasure of world literature. The story tells the adventures of the wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod, commanded by Captain Ahab. Ishmael soon learns that Ahab seeks one specific whale, Moby Dick, a ferocious, enigmatic white sperm whale. In a previous encounter, the whale destroyed Ahab's boat and bit off his leg. Ahab intends to take revenge.

In Moby-Dick, Melville employs stylized language, symbolism, and metaphor to explore numerous complex themes. Through the main character's journey, the concepts of class and social status, good and evil, and the existence of gods are all examined as Ishmael speculates upon his personal beliefs and his place in the universe. The narrator's reflections, along with his descriptions of a sailor's life aboard a whaling ship, are woven into the narrative along with Shakespearean literary devices such as stage directions, extended soliloquies and asides. The book portrays insecurity that is still seen today when it comes to non-human beings along with the belief that these beings understand and act like humans. The story is based on the actual events around the whaleship Essex, which was attacked by a sperm whale while at sea and sank.

Moby-Dick has been classified as American Romanticism. It was first published by Richard Bentley in London on October 18, 1851, in an expurgated three-volume edition titled The Whale, and weeks later as a single volume, by New York City publisher Harper and Brothers as Moby-Dick; or, The Whale on November 14, 1851. Although the book initially received mixed reviews, Moby-Dick is now considered part of the Western canon.



download here

Buddhist Pilgrimage

download here

Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad’s famous novella “Heart of Darkness” is about what happens to a person’s heart, outlook, and character when they are surrounded by dark, unethical, and hopeless environments. It is a story-within-a-story by an unnamed narrator.

The book suggests that a person with a good quality of heart can become trapped, horrorified, and even a facilitator of evil if they allow themselves to remain in poor environments.

The heart of darkness is not necessarily a heart that is sinful by nature or dark at its core. Rather, the best of hearts can become darkened when they reside in environments that are poorly lit, poorly illuminated, or poorly enlightened.

For some people, a key realization is not simply that they should improve the quality of their heart, but in order to do so they may need to improve the quality of their environments (plural).

For many people, one characteristic of an environment that can make it dark is the inability to remove yourself from that one environment. It is not so much that the environment is dark, but rather the inability to ever remove yourself from it could make most any environment darker.

My father has not been very good with some traditional relationship roles. The older I became, the more I realized this was probably because he had experienced the genuinely unique and beautiful characteristics of various intimate environments. And for him, I think at some point he realized his best bet was not to place all his hopes (and that burden) onto one other person to try to create one environment that would meet all their needs. For him, as best I understand him, and I’ve spent my whole life trying to understand him, he reasoned that a better way to live might be living regularly in separate environments at different intervals.

Some artists can paint, draw, or photograph themselves out of their dark places. I have rarely been able to do that.

For me, more often I’ve been able to read, to listen, to think, to write, and to share my way out of dark environments. For me, this blog is a separate environment (a separate world) I’ve created apart from my daily environments. It is a place I go to shine lights against darknesses. However, in the real world, I rarely attempt to similarly shine for others.

It is not true that a person can only be as good as their environment. But it is probably true that our environment can greatly deter the degree, the frequency, and the ways we can be good.

Some artists who realize they are living in dark environments escape into other environments by reading, by submerging into their work, or by acting (the activity of becoming someone different in a different reality). Art for them is not so much ”escapist” as it is a healthy escape. They are creating and inhabiting better worlds than the real worlds that confine them.

For some of us, “darkness” is the absence of a light we once experienced. And no amount of other wonderful lights will remove that memory. When we close our eyes, that visual rememberance often comes to mind.

download here

Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist is the second novel by English author Charles Dickens, published by Richard Bentley in 1838. The story is about an orphan Oliver Twist, who escapes from a workhouse and travels to London where he meets the Artful Dodger, leader of a gang of juvenile pickpockets. Oliver is led to the lair of their elderly criminal trainer Fagin, naively unaware of their unlawful activities.



download here

Agnes Grey

Anne Bronte drew on her own life and work experience as a governess to write this story. She focusses on the detail of life in a manor house set in the moors of England. Anne the heroine is young and idealistic when she starts work as a teacher. And even though she increases her experience, she keeps her sweetness and strength. Patience and virtue are rewarded in the story. This story also shows a quiet but sharp critique and satire of the class life of the times. Bronte's style has been described as gothic but realistic rather than romantic, and similar to Jane Austen.

download here

The Divine Message of the DNA

Characteristic-genetic characteristics handed down from generation to generation have been considered to be fixed (no change) and inevitable. There was a recent discovery in the field of genetics that shows:

* Positive thinking will generate useful genes
* Always sensitive and are inspired to make you stay young and a long life
* New information could change your life
* Good Intentions will give a positive effect on gene

Based on these findings, and the fact that the genetic code is too complex to be formed by chance, Dr. Murakami finds that there is a greater force in the universe. He called it "the great." He believes that all life came from that source-the origin, or what we call God.

He wrote that "Some Factors Affecting Genes More than other factors."

Each gene contains information that is very much comparable with the thousands of books. Because the gene is the blueprint that underlies every living organism, gene content never changes except in unusual situations, such as mutation. Genetic information stored in the code of four bases are represented by the letters A, T, C and G. The order was they who gave the instructions of protein synthesis. Each gene contains more than three billion chemical letters. However, if one letter is missing only the letter of the sequence, the protein can not be established in accordance with the instructions. For example, a baby will be born without a hand if the gene is essential for the formation of the damaged hand. (On the take from the book The Divine Message of DNA)
I have a new book that seems very very very interesting gak * heart * the title of The Divine Message of the DNA, the God in our genes. Beraaat. wkk DNA contains all information every living creature. Respective DNA controls the basic behavior of animals, plants and humans. It is that people know and trust until now.
So most of us think that our lives are already determined the results since our birth. So the point is if we have a good DNA for arts activities, however we will be successful as an art worker. This led to a fatalist attitude that seemed to get a scientific justification. -Gilaaaa, beraaat bangettt niii-words

The mantra is you can not change it Because it is hereditary. It is your destiny ...

Well, the book Dr. Murakami is opening new horizons in the concept of DNA.
From his research found that the actual results of the effort each person will vary widely depending on their attitude and outlook. When a cancer patient to maintain the spirit of strength to beat the disease, it is likely he will survive longer than other patients who view cancer as the twist her fate or view cancer as a whole as being negative.

According to scientists world-class bio-chemistry of this, many doctors find a cure cases of malignant cancer thanks to a strong spirit is maintained by the patient.

This book begins with the presentation of basic facts about genetics with a very straightforward language. Murakami went on to explain that the gene function and change over time. Genes are passive (dormant) have the potential to "wake up" and change one's personality and life. In a simple quality of life can be determined by clicking'on is it good genes and her'off is it a bad gene. ahaaa,

The next section shows how the mental and emotional factors - a negative example, stress, and a positive example of joy, satisfaction, sincerity and spirituality - also plays a role in the mechanism of flame-padamnya genes. Which is also a highlight of this book is that only a small portion of active genes.

In other words, man, whoever he is - has a tremendous hidden potential.

Overall, this book presents that the mind is positive and optimistic way of looking at life (which has been more widely discussed in the level of study of psychology) can activate genes that are able to bring happiness and success in one's life.

Dr. Murakami calls this as "genetic thinking" (think genetic) is a science-based approach for controlling gene with instilling inspiration and optimistic thoughts.

Ok, that was a brief review of the medical world.
But there is more than this book, namely the side that lifted spirituality.
It is interesting that Murakami is raised, career and life in the modern world has a statement as follows: Modern people tend to rationalize everything, so it does not have a chance to see the spiritual aspect of "beyond rationale."

This book has the original title of "The Divine Code of Life: Awaken your genes and discover hidden talents" and available at Amazon.com. Book translation in the Indonesian language has a cover and a title that more living. I think this book is worth reading by anyone who wants to make his life more meaningful and happy ...
but unfortunately, I have not finished this book, because the photo copies, so lazy to read, tapii from reviews and the list of contents "cool."

Aesop's Fables

Aesop's Fables or Aesopica refers to a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and story-teller who lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BC. His fables are some of the most well known in the world. The fables remain a popular choice for moral education of children today. Many stories included in Aesop's Fables, such as The Fox and the Grapes (from which the idiom "sour grapes" derives), The Tortoise and the Hare, The North Wind and the Sun, The Boy Who Cried Wolf and The Ant and the Grasshopper are well-known throughout the world.

Apollonius of Tyana, a 1st century AD philosopher, is recorded as having said about Aesop:

download here

Abbey Church

The Abbey Church

The Ancient Concept of Church as Abbey

The concept we’re building our church celtic-abbey.jpgaround is the old Celtic Christian abbey — a center for worship, refuge, hospitality, learning, art, and community. The ancient abbey embraced its neighbors in adjoining towns and countryside as its parish, and served the needs of the community. The Celtic abbeys were not closed monastic compounds that excluded the outside world; rather, they were open to travelers, neighbors, inquirers, and those seeking help. Every person they encountered did not show up for worship on Sundays, but the witness of the abbey impacted the community it served every day of the week.

download here

LACAK NOMOR

Silakan masukkan nomor MSISDN

A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol (full title, A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being A Ghost Story of Christmas) is a novella by English author Charles Dickens

This book was first published in December 1843 and quickly became a commercial success and won critical acclaim. The story has been credited with returning the holiday to one of merriment and festivity throughout Britain and America. A Christmas Carol remains popular, has never been out of print - it has been adapted to film, opera, and other media.

Ebenezer Scrooge is a miserly, cold, unfeeling, old man who denounces Christmas. In one last attempt to redeem his soul, Scrooge is visited by four ghosts on Christmas Eve seven years after the death of his business partner, Jacob Marley. The ghost of Marley is the first to appear before Scrooge and warns him that his soul will be bearing heavy chains for eternity if he does not change his greedy ways. Marley tells Scrooge he will be visited by 3 more ghosts.

The first, The Ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge to the scenes of his boyhood and youth which stir the old skinflint's gentle and tender side. The Ghost of Christmas Present, takes Scrooge to the market with people buying the makings of Christmas dinner and to the family feast of Scrooge's near-impoverished clerk Bob Crachit. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows Scrooge his impending death.

I'm sure most of you have watched some version of A Christmas Carol on television or at the movies, but you are missing a treat if you have never read the book. Why not check it out this year with your family? It could be the start of a new Christmas tradition for your family.

download here

GET PAID TO SURF

Join today and we will give you $0.35 per hour to start surfing through our associated network through websites which you can choose that are of interest to you.

Surf With Money will be operating as long as the members want it to. While I provide the fast service and amazing earning opportunities, you in turn provide the support and be an accolade for the longevity of the program. You simply choose which type of sites you want to see from your user control panel and we will automatically rotate the most relevant sponsors in your own browser!


* With our referral commission system, it's possible to earn $1,000 or more monthly just referring friends. There is no limit to how much you can earn and you can start earning in just 2 minutes!



* Get your payments on or before the 15th of every month for the previous months earnings. You will never have to wait weeks to get paid in the mail again!


Referral Program
While referring others is not a requirement to earn at Surf With Money, but for those who refer other like-minded people into this awesome opportunity, they will be hugely compensated. That's five levels deep! They will be paid up to 10% commission on everyone they directly refer that take advantage of the income opportunity we present. There has never been an easier way to rack up serious cash with such an easy program!

EDGAR ALLAN POE quotes

A strong argument for the religion of Christ is this - that offences against Charity are about the only ones which men on their death-beds can be made - not to understand - but to feel - as crime.
Edgar Allan Poe

All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.
Edgar Allan Poe

All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
Edgar Allan Poe

Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.
Edgar Allan Poe

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.
Edgar Allan Poe

Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.
Edgar Allan Poe

I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity.
Edgar Allan Poe

I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.
Edgar Allan Poe

I have great faith in fools; self-confidence my friends call it.
Edgar Allan Poe

I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.
Edgar Allan Poe

I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect - in terror.
Edgar Allan Poe

I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.
Edgar Allan Poe

I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of Beauty.
Edgar Allan Poe

If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.
Edgar Allan Poe

In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.
Edgar Allan Poe

In one case out of a hundred a point is excessively discussed because it is obscure; in the ninety-nine remaining it is obscure because it is excessively discussed.
Edgar Allan Poe

It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream.
Edgar Allan Poe

It is the nature of truth in general, as of some ores in particular, to be richest when most superficial.
Edgar Allan Poe

It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.
Edgar Allan Poe

Man's real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.
Edgar Allan Poe

Read more: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/e/edgar_allan_poe.html#ixzz17e1owzW8

THE ART OF WAR

download here

THE ALCHEMIST

THE ALCHEMIST

The Alchemist (Portuguese: O Alquimista) is an allegorical novel by Paulo Coelho first published in 1988. It has been hailed as a modern classic. The Alchemist was originally written in Portuguese and has since been translated into 67 languages, winning the Guinness World Record for most translated book by a living author. It has sold more than 65 million copies in more than 150 countries, becoming one of the best-selling books in history.



download here

Nostromo

Nostromo

Nostromo is a 1904 novel by Polish-born British novelist Joseph Conrad, set in the fictitious South American republic of "Costaguana." It was originally published serially in two volumes of T.P.'s Weekly.


download here

Hideaway Hospita lMurders

Hideaway Hospita lMurders




download here

Sons and Lovers

Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence









download here

SLOCUM'S RAID

SLOCUM'S RAID by Jake Logan



Download here

Grimms Fairy Tales

Grimms Fairy Tales by The Brothers Grimms




download here

Emma

Emma by Jane Austin


download here

Dracula

Dracula by Bram Stoker



download here

Beyond Good and Evil

Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche

download here

Around_the_World_in_80_Days

Around_the_World_in_80_Days by jules verne



download here

Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy


download here

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

download here

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B1cO2Zzka3HXaFRETklBeUtjWVYrN09NUHVxK20zUHByalEwPQ&revision=true

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

download here

A Young Girl's Diary by sigmund freud

by sigmund freud



download here

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin, a fair-haired young man in his late twenties and a descendant of one of the oldest Russian lines of nobility, arrives in St. Petersburg on a November morning. He has spent the last four years in a Swiss clinic for treatment of his "idiocy" and epilepsy.

Myshkin's only relation in St. Petersburg is the very distant Lizaveta Prokofyevna Yepanchin. Madame Yepanchin is the wife of General Yepanchin, a wealthy and respected man in his late fifties. The prince makes the acquaintance of the Yepanchins, who have three daughters, Alexandra, Adelaida, and Aglaya, the latter being the youngest and the most beautiful.

General Yepanchin has an ambitious and rather vain assistant by the name of Gavril Ardalyonovich Ivolgin (nicknamed Ganya) whom Myshkin also meets during his visit to the household. Ganya, though he is actually in love with Aglaya, is in the midst of trying to marry Anastassya Filippovna Barashkov, an extraordinarily beautiful "fatal woman" who was once the mistress of the aristocrat Totsky. Totsky has promised Ganya 75,000 rubles if he marries the "fallen" Nastassya Filippovna. As Myshkin is so innocent and naïve, Ganya openly discusses the subject of the proposed marriage in front of the prince.

The prince rents a room in the Ivolgin apartment, also occupied by Ganya, his sister, Varvara Ardalyonovna (Varya); his mother, Nina Alexandrovna; teenage brother, Nikolai (Kolya); his father, General Ivolgin; and another lodger by the name of Ferdyshchenko.

Nastassya Filippovna arrives and attempts to insult Ganya's family, which has refused to accept her as a possible wife for Ganya. Myshkin, however, stops her, putting her behavior to shame. Suddenly a rowdy crowd of drunks and rogues arrives, headed by Parfyon Semyonovich Rogozhin, a dark-haired twenty-seven-year-old who is passionately in love with Nastassya Filippovna. Rogozhin promises to bring 100,000 rubles to Nastassya Filippovna's birthday party scheduled for that evening at which she is to announce whether she will marry Ganya or not.

Among the guests at the party are Totsky, General Yepanchin, Ganya, Ferdyshchenko, Ptitsyn—a usurer friend of Ganya's who is a suitor to Varya Ivolgin—and a few others. With the help of Kolya, Prince Myshkin arrives as well, though uninvited. Following the prince's advice, Nastassya Filippovna refuses Ganya's proposal. Rogozhin arrives with the promised 100,000 rubles, but suddenly Myshkin himself offers to marry Nastassya Filippovna, announcing that he has recently learned he has a large inheritance. Though shocked at such a generous offer by an honest and generous heart, Nastassya Filippovna only deems herself worthy of being with Rogozhin, so she leaves the party with Rogozhin and his gang.

Prince Myshkin spends the next six months following Nastassya Filippovna as she runs from Rogozhin to the prince and back. Myshkin's inheritance turns out to be smaller than expected, and it shrinks further as he satisfies the claims of creditors and alleged relatives, many of which are fraudulent. Finally, the Prince returns to St. Petersburg and visits Rogozhin's house, which is a dark and dreary place. They discuss religion and exchange crosses.

However, later that day, Rogozhin attempts to stab Myshkin in the hall of the prince's hotel, but the prince is saved when he has a sudden epileptic fit. Several days later, Myshkin leaves for Pavlovsk, a nearby town popular for summer residence among St. Petersburg nobility. The prince rents several rooms from Lebedev, a rogue functionary. Most of the novel's characters—the Yepanchins, the Ivolgins, Varya and her husband Ptitsyn, and Nastassya Filippovna—spend the summer in Pavlovsk as well.

Burdovsky, a young man who claims himself to be the son of Myshkin's late benefactor, Pavlishchev, comes to the prince and demands money from him as a "just" reimbursement for Pavlishchev's support of the Prince. Burdovsky is supported by a group of insolent young men who include the consumptive seventeen-year old Hippolite Terentyev, a friend of Kolya Ivolgin. Although Burdovsky's claim is obviously fraudulent—he is not Pavlishchev's son at all—Myshkin is ready and willing to help Burdovsky financially.

The prince spends much of his time at the Yepanchins'. Soon, those around him realize that he is in love with Aglaya and that she most likely returns his feelings. However, a haughty, willful, and capricious girl, she refuses to admit her love for Prince Myshkin, and often even openly mocks him. Aglaya's family begins to treat him as her fiancé, and they even hold a dinner party with many renowned guests who are members of Russian high society.

Myshkin, during the course of an agitated and ardent speech on religion and the future of aristocracy, accidentally breaks a beautiful Chinese vase. Later in the evening he has a mild epileptic fit. The guests and the family are convinced that the seemingly sickly prince is not a good match for Aglaya.

Aglaya, however, does not renounce Myshkin, and even arranges a meeting between herself and Nastassya Filippovna, who has been writing letters to Aglaya to convince her to marry Myshkin. During this meeting, the two women force the Prince to choose between his romantic love for Aglaya and his compassionate pity-love for Nastassya Filippovna. Myshkin hesitates briefly, which prompts Aglaya to run off, breaking all hope of an engagement between them. Nastassya Filippovna wishes to marry the Prince again, but in the end she proves unable to bring herself to do so, instead running off with Rogozhin at the last minute.

The Prince follows the two to St. Petersburg the next day and finds that Rogozhin has stabbed Nastassya Filippovna during the night. The two men keep vigil over her body, which Rogozhin has laid out in his study. The epilogue relates that Rogozhin is sentenced to fifteen years of hard labor in Siberia, that Prince Myshkin loses his mind and returns to the Swiss sanitarium, and that Aglaya leaves Russia with a Polish count who lies to her and soon abandons her.


download here

The Iliad by homer

download here

The Metamorphosis by Franz kafka

download here

The Prince by nicolo machiavelli

Google Map

kalo mo jalan jalan enaknya pake ini dulu gan. biar agan2 sekalian gak nyasar nantinya..


Lihat Peta Lebih Besar

Jarak Matahari ke Bumi

Jarak matahari ke bumi adalah 149.669.000 kilometer (atau 93.000.000 mil). Jarak ini dikenal sebagai satuan astronomi dan biasa dibulatkan (untuk penyederhanaan hitungan) menjadi 148 juta km. Dibandingkan dengan bumi, diameter matahari kira-kira 112 kalinya. Gaya tarik matahari kira-kira 30 kali gaya tarik bumi. Sinar matahari menempuh masa delapan menit untuk sampai ke Bumi. Kuatnya pancaran sinar matahari dapat mengakibatkan kerusakan pada jaringan sensor mata dan mengakibatkan kebutaan.

Three Ghost Stories by charles dickens

WITHOUT YOU

download here

The Works of Edgar Allan Poe

The Works of Edgar Allan Poe

Civil Affairs

download here