Search Results: Authors starting with N from IDB PRoductions

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MP3 Audio CD. A Midsummer Night's Dream (in Poems ) SCENE: Athens, and a wood not far from it. ACT I. SCENE I. Athens. A room in the Palace of THESEUS. [Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and Attendants.] THESEUS Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour Draws on apace; four happy days bring in Another moon; but, oh, methinks, how slow This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires, Like to a step-dame or a dowager, Long withering out a young man's revenue. HIPPOLYTA Four days will quickly steep themselves in nights; Four nights will quickly dream away the time; And then the moon, like to a silver bow New bent in heaven, shall behold the night Of our solemnities. THESEUS Go, Philostrate, Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments; Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth; Turn melancholy forth to funerals-- The pale companion is not for our pomp. -- [Exit PHILOSTRATE.] Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword, And won thy love doing thee injuries; But I will wed thee in another key, With pomp, with… Read More

MP3 Audio CD. Chapter 7 Duels & Ordeals, Part 2 (in Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Vol. 2. ) The clergy, whose dominion was an intellectual one, never approved of a system of jurisprudence which tended so much to bring all things under the rule of the strongest arm. From the first they set their faces against duelling, and endeavoured, as far as the prejudices of their age would allow them, to curb the warlike spirit, so alien from the principles of religion. In the Council of Valentia, and afterwards in the Council of Trent, they excommunicated all persons engaged in duelling; and not only them, but even the assistants and spectators, declaring the custom to be hellish and detestable, and introduced by the devil for the destruction both of body and soul. They added also, that princes who connived at duels should be deprived of all temporal power, jurisdiction, and dominion over the places where they had permitted them to be fought. It will be seen hereafter… Read More

MP3 Audio CD. 16 Head-Measurements of the Trophies at the Madison Square Garden Sportsmen's Exposition (in Hunting In Many Lands ) During the week beginning May 14, 1895, there was held in Madison Square Garden, New York, a Sportsmen's Exhibition. There was a fair exhibit of heads, horns and skins, for which the credit largely belongs to Frederick S. Webster, the taxidermist. At the request of the managers of the Exhibition, three of the members of the Boone and Crockett Club—Messrs. Theodore Roosevelt, George Bird Grinnell and Archibald Rogers—were appointed a Committee on Measurements. There were heads and skins of every kind of North American big game. Many of them were exhibited by amateur sportsmen, including various members of the Boone and Crockett Club, while many others were exhibited by furriers and taxidermists. Some of the measurements are worth recording. For convenience we tabulate, in the case of each animal, the measurements of the specimens exhibited by amateur… Read More

MP3 Audio CD. Budd Wilkins at the Show (in The Wit and Humor of America, Vol 02 ) Since I've got used to city ways and don't scare at the cars, It makes me smile to set and think of years ago.--My stars! How green I was, and how green all them country people be-- Sometimes it seems almost as if this hardly could be me. Well, I was goin' to tell you 'bout Budd Wilkins: I declare He was the durndest, greenest chap that ever breathed the air-- The biggest town on earth, he thought, was our old county seat, With its one two-story brick hotel and dusty bizness street. We'd fairs in fall and now and then a dance or huskin' bee, Which was the most excitin' things Budd Wilkins ever see, Until, one winter, Skigginsville was all turned upside down By a troupe of real play actors a-comin' into town. The court-house it was turned into a theater, that night, And I don't s'pose I'll live to see another sich a sight: I guess that every person who was able fer to go Jest natchelly cut loose fer oncet, and went to… Read More

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MP3 Audio CD. Case of the Dixon Torpedo, Part 2 (in The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Vol. 1 ) The time was half-past one in the afternoon, and Hewitt sat in his inner office examining and comparing the handwriting of two letters by the aid of a large lens. He put down the lens and glanced at the clock on the mantel-piece with a premonition of lunch; and as he did so his clerk quietly entered the room with one of those printed slips which were kept for the announcement of unknown visitors. It was filled up in a hasty and almost illegible hand, thus: Name of visitor: F. Graham Dixon. Address: Chancery Lane. Business: Private and urgent. "Show Mr. Dixon in," said Martin Hewitt. Mr. Dixon was a gaunt, worn-looking man of fifty or so, well, although rather carelessly, dressed, and carrying in his strong, though drawn, face and dullish eyes the look that characterizes the life-long strenuous brain-worker. He leaned forward anxiously in the chair which Hewitt offered him, and told his story… Read More

MP3 Audio CD. An Old Christmas Carol (in Rainbow Gold: Poems Old and New Selected for Boys and Girls ) Poetry (the term derives from a variant of the Greek term, poiesis, "making") is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of language—such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre—to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, the prosaic ostensible meaning. Poetry has a long history, dating back to prehistorical times with the creation of hunting poetry in Africa, and panegyric and elegiac court poetry were developed extensively throughout the history of the empires of the Nile, Niger and Volta river valleys. Some of the earliest written poetry in Africa can be found among the Pyramid Texts written during the 25th century BCE, while the Epic of Sundiata is one of the most well-known examples of griot court poetry. The earliest Western Asian epic poetry, the Epic of Gilgamesh, was written in Sumerian. Early poems in the Eurasian continent evolved… Read More

MP3 Audio CD. Andrew Jackson, December 6, 1830, part 3 (in State of the Union Addresses by United States Presidents (1829 - 1836) ) State of the Union Address Andrew Jackson December 6, 1830 Fellow Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives: The pleasure I have in congratulating you upon your return to your constitutional duties is much heightened by the satisfaction which the condition of our beloved country at this period justly inspires. The beneficent Author of All Good has granted to us during the present year health, peace, and plenty, and numerous causes for joy in the wonderful success which attends the progress of our free institutions. With a population unparalleled in its increase, and possessing a character which combines the hardihood of enterprise with the considerateness of wisdom, we see in every section of our happy country a steady improvement in the means of social intercourse, and correspondent effects upon the genius and laws of our extended Republic. The… Read More

MP3 Audio CD. Bannockburn (Robert Bruce's Address to His Army) (in Rainbow Gold: Poems Old and New Selected for Boys and Girls ) Scots, wha hae wi’ Wallace bled, Scots, wham Bruce has aften led, Welcome to your gory bed,— Or to victorie.— Now ’s the day, and now’s the hour; See the front o’ battle lour; See approach proud Edward’s power, Chains and Slaverie.— Wha will be a traitor-knave? Wha can fill a cowards’ grave? Wha sae base as be a Slave? —Let him turn and flie.— Wha for Scotland’s king and law, Freedom’s sword will strongly draw, Free-Man stand, or Free-Man fa’, Let him follow me.— By Oppression’s woes and pains! By your Sons in servile chains! We will drain our dearest veins, But they shall be free! Lay the proud Usurpers low! Tyrants fall in every foe! Liberty ’s in every blow! Let us Do—or Die!!!

MP3 Audio CD. 04 - When Doctors Disagree (in Selected Short Stories. ) It is possible that, at about the time at which this story opens, you may have gone into the Hotel Belvoir for a hair-cut. Many people did; for the young man behind the scissors, though of a singularly gloomy countenance, was undoubtedly an artist in his line. He clipped judiciously. He left no ridges. He never talked about the weather. And he allowed you to go away unburdened by any bottle of hair-food. It is possible, too, that, being there, you decided that you might as well go the whole hog and be manicured at the same time. It is not unlikely, moreover, that when you had got over the first shock of finding your hands so unexpectedly large and red, you felt disposed to chat with the young lady who looked after that branch of the business. In your genial way you may have permitted a note of gay (but gentlemanly) badinage to creep into your end of the dialogue. In which case, if you had raised your eyes to the mirror, you… Read More

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MP3 Audio CD. Chapter 1 The Crusades, Part 6 (in Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Vol. 2. ) Every age has its peculiar folly; some scheme, project, or phantasy into which it plunges, spurred on either by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the mere force of imitation. Failing in these, it has some madness, to which it is goaded by political or religious causes, or both combined. Every one of these causes influenced the Crusades, and conspired to render them the most extraordinary instance upon record of the extent to which popular enthusiasm can be carried. History in her solemn page informs us, that the Crusaders were but ignorant and savage men, that their motives were those of bigotry unmitigated, and that their pathway was one of blood and tears. Romance, on the other hand, dilates upon their piety and heroism, and portrays, in her most glowing and impassioned hues, their virtue and magnanimity, the imperishable honour they acquired for… Read More

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MP3 Audio CD. ALEX ROGERS (in The Book of American Negro Poetry ) The Book of American Negro Poetry is one of the earliest and most essential anthologies of African-American verse ever brought to print. Edited by writer and diplomat James Weldon Johnson, this collection was published with the hope of bringing to the public a greater awareness of the art and literature created by Black writers. This is the first edition of this long-republished anthology and collects seminal works by Paul Dunbar, W.E.B. Du Bois, Claude McKay, Leslie Hill, James Corrothers, and many more.

MP3 Audio CD. Art and Ritual (in Short Nonfiction Collection Vol. 020 ) CHAPTER I ART AND RITUAL The title of this book may strike the reader as strange and even dissonant. What have art and ritual to do together? The ritualist is, to the modern mind, a man concerned perhaps unduly with fixed forms and ceremonies, with carrying out the rigidly prescribed ordinances of a church or sect. The artist, on the other hand, we think of as free in thought and untrammelled by convention in practice; his tendency is towards licence. Art and ritual, it is quite true, have diverged to-day; but the title of this book is chosen advisedly. Its object is to show that these two divergent developments have a common root, and that neither can be understood without the other. It is at the outset one and the same impulse that sends a man to church and to the theatre. Such a statement may sound to-day paradoxical, even irreverent. But to the Greek of the sixth, fifth, and even fourth century B.C., it would have been a… Read More

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MP3 Audio CD. 17 National Park Protective Act (in Hunting In Many Lands ) An Act to protect the birds and animals in Yellowstone National Park, and to punish crimes in said Park, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Yellowstone National Park, as its boundaries now are defined, or as they may be hereafter defined or extended, shall be under the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States; and that all the laws applicable to places under the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States shall have force and effect in said Park: Provided, however, That nothing in this Act shall be construed to forbid the service in the Park of any civil or criminal process of any court having jurisdiction in the States of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. All fugitives from justice taking refuge in said Park shall be subject to the same laws as refugees from justice found in the State of Wyoming. SEC.… Read More

MP3 Audio CD. Chapter VIII (in The Man-Wolf ) CHAPTER VIII. On the countenance of Sperver was an expression of suppressed wrath, on that of his companion bitter irony. This worthy sportsman, whose woeful physiognomy had struck me on my first arrival at Nideck, was as thin and dry as a lath. His hunting-jacket was girded tightly about him by his belt, from which hung a hunting-knife with a horn handle; long leathern gaiters came above his knees; the horn went over his shoulder from right to left, the wide-expanded opening under his arm; on his head a wide-brimmed hat, with a heron's plume in the buckle. His profile, coming to a point in a reddish tuft, looked not unlike a goat's. "Yes," cried Sperver, "I have got strange things to tell you." He threw himself in a chair, seizing his head between his clenched hands, while dismal Sébalt calmly drew his horn over his head and laid it on the table. "Now, Sébalt," cried Gideon, "speak out."… Read More

MP3 Audio CD. Chapter 2 The Witch Mania, Part 7 (in Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Vol. 2. ) The belief that disembodied spirits may be permitted to revisit this world has its foundation upon that sublime hope of immortality which is at once the chief solace and greatest triumph of our reason. Even if revelation did not teach us, we feel that we have that within us which shall never die; and all our experience of this life but makes us cling the more fondly to that one repaying hope. But in the early days of "little knowledge" this grand belief became the source of a whole train of superstitions, which, in their turn, became the fount from whence flowed a deluge of blood and horror. Europe, for a period of two centuries and a half, brooded upon the idea, not only that parted spirits walked the earth to meddle in the affairs of men, but that men had power to summon evil spirits to their aid to work woe upon their fellows. An epidemic terror seized upon… Read More