I have tried few of the solutions offered in the internet and none have worked. Below couple of what I tried:

var client = new XMLHttpRequest();
client.open('GET', '/foo.txt');
client.onreadystatechange = function() {
    alert(client.responseText);
}
client.send();

var fs = require("fs");
fs.readFile(".esc_jose.txt", function(text){
    var textByLine = text.split("\n")
});

using the below code, I get no data from the alert().

var client = new XMLHttpRequest();
client.open('GET', '/esc_jose.txt');
client.onreadystatechange = function() {
  alert(client.responseText);
}
client.send();