The Canterville Ghost
Oscar Wilde · 26/10/2026
The Canterville Ghost
Oscar Wilde
1887. This text is in the public domain (Project Gutenberg eBook #14522).
I
When Mr. Hiram B. Otis, the American Minister, bought Canterville Chase, every one told him he was doing a very foolish thing, as there was no doubt at all that the place was haunted. Indeed, Lord Canterville himself, who was a man of the most punctilious honour, had felt it his duty to mention the fact to Mr. Otis when they came to discuss terms.
"We have not cared to live in the place ourselves," said Lord Canterville, "since my grandaunt, the Dowager Duchess of Bolton, was frightened into a fit, from which she never really recovered, by two skeleton hands being placed on her shoulders as she was dressing for dinner, and I feel bound to tell you, Mr. Otis, that the ghost has been seen by several living members of my family, as well as by the rector of the parish, the Rev. Augustus Dampier, who is a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. After the unfortunate accident to the Duchess, none of our younger servants would stay with us, and Lady Canterville often got very little sleep at night, in consequence of the mysterious noises that came from the corridor and the library."
"My Lord," answered the Minister, "I will take the furniture and the ghost at a valuation. I have come from a modern country, where we have everything that money can buy; and with all our spry young fellows painting the Old World red, and carrying off your best actors and prima-donnas, I reckon that if there were such a thing as a ghost in Europe, we'd have it at home in a very short time in one of our public museums, or on the road as a show."
Fewer, Better Days
Anna Reitz · 26/10/2026
1 · One thing, finished
Most days do not fail for lack of effort. They fail because the effort went into six things at once, and none of them got the last ten percent that makes a thing done. A finished thing is worth more than three that are nearly there, because it stops asking for your attention.
So pick one. Not the most urgent one, the one that will still matter in a month. Give it the first clean hour of the day, before the phone has had its say. Then stop, and let the rest of the day be the rest of the day.
The trick is not discipline. The trick is a shorter list. Fewer things, done properly, and a day that ends with something you can point at.
Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge and Truth
Mirza Tahir Ahmad · 26/10/2026
Contents
Part I
Introduction with a Historical Perspective
Individual Versus Society
Islamic Schools of Thought
European Philosophy
Greek Philosophy
Part II
The Question of Suffering
Part III
Secular Viewpoints Examined
The Concept of God among the Aborigines of Australia
Part IV
The Nature of Revelation
Divine Revelation and Rationality
Belief in the Unseen
The Quran and Cosmology
Entropy and the Finite Universe
The Quran and Extraterrestrial Life
Part V
Life in the Perspective of Quranic Revelations
Origin of Life
Natural Selection and Survival of the Fittest
The Future of Life on Earth
