Marieby H. Rider HaggardAN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF THE LATE ALLAN QUATERMAINDEDICATIONDitchingham, 1912.My dear Sir Henry,Nearly thirty-seven years have gone by, more than a generation, sincefirst we saw the shores of Southern Africa rising from the sea. Sincethen how much has happened: the Annexation of the Transvaal, the ZuluWar, the first Boer War, the discovery of the Rand, the taking ofRhodesia, the second Boer War, and many other matters which in thesequick-moving times are now reckoned as ancient history.Alas! I fear that were we to re-visit that country we should find butfew faces which we knew. Yet of one thing we may be glad. Those...
A Thief in the Nightby E. W. HornungOut of ParadiseIf I must tell more tales of Raffles, I can but back to our earliest days together, and fill in the blanks left by discretion in existing annals. In so doing I may indeed fill some small part of an infinitely greater blank, across which you may conceive me to have stretched my canvas for the first frank portrait of my friend. The whole truth cannot harm him now. I shall paint in every wart. Raffles was a villain, when all is written; it is no service to his memory to glaze the fact; yet I have done so myself before to-day. I have omitted whole heinous episodes. I have dwelt unduly on the redeeming side. And this I may do again, blind
OF SUPERSTITION AND ENTHUSIASMDavid Hume1741,is grown into a maxim, and is commonly proved, among otherinstances, by the pernicious effects of and, the corruptions of true religion.These two species of false religion, though both pernicious,are yet of a very different, and even of a contrary nature. Themind of man is subject to certain unaccountable terrors and...
A UNITARIAN CREED_To Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse__Monticello, June 26, 1822_DEAR SIR, I have received and read with thankfulness andpleasure your denunciation of the abuses of tobacco and wine. Yet,however sound in its principles, I expect it will be but a sermon tothe wind. You will find it as difficult to inculcate these sanativeprecepts on the sensualities of the present day, as to convince anAthanasian that there is but one God. I wish success to bothattempts, and am happy to learn from you that the latter, at least,is making progress, and the more rapidly in proportion as ourPlatonizing Christians make more stir and noise about it. The...
THE WITCH [28][28] From the Russian.Once upon a time there was a peasant whose wife died, leaving himwith two childrentwinsa boy and a girl. For some years thepoor man lived on alone with the children, caring for them asbest he could; but everything in the house seemed to go wrongwithout a woman to look after it, and at last he made up his mindto marry again, feeling that a wife would bring peace and orderto his household and take care of his motherless children. So hemarried, and in the following years several children were born tohim; but peace and order did not come to the household. For thestep-mother was very cruel to the twins, and beat them, and...
Vailima Lettersby Robert Louis StevensonCHAPTER IIN THE MOUNTAIN, APIA, SAMOA,MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2ND, 1890MY DEAR COLVIN, - This is a hard and interesting andbeautiful life that we lead now. Our place is in a deepcleft of Vaea Mountain, some six hundred feet above the sea,embowered in forest, which is our strangling enemy, and whichwe combat with axes and dollars. I went crazy over outdoorwork, and had at last to confine myself to the house, orliterature must have gone by the board. NOTHING is sointeresting as weeding, clearing, and path-making; theoversight of labourers becomes a disease; it is quite an...
Chronicles of the Canongateby Sir Walter ScottCONTENTS.Introduction to Chronicles of the Canongate. Appendix to IntroductionThe Theatrical Fund Dinner. IntroductoryMr. Chrystal Croftangry. The Highland Widow. The Two Drovers. Notes.INTRODUCTION TO CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE.The preceding volume of this Collection concluded the last of the pieces originally published under the NOMINIS UMBRA of The Author of Waverley; and the circumstances which rendered it impossible for the writer to continue longer in the possession of his incognito were communicated in 1827, in the Introduction to the first series of Chronicles of the Canongate, consisting (besides a biographical sketch of the
The Sleeping-Car - A Farceby William D. HowellsI.SCENE: One side of a sleeping-car on the Boston and Albany Road.The curtains are drawn before most of the berths; from the hooks androds hang hats, bonnets, bags, bandboxes, umbrellas, and othertravelling gear; on the floor are boots of both sexes, set out forTHE PORTER to black. THE PORTER is making up the beds in the upperand lower berths adjoining the seats on which a young mother, slenderand pretty, with a baby asleep on the seat beside her, and a stoutold lady, sit confronting each otherMRS. AGNES ROBERTS and her auntMARY.MRS. ROBERTS. Do you always take down your back hair, aunty?...
A LETTER FROM CAPTAIN GULLIVER TO HIS COUSIN SYMPSON.WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1727.I hope you will be ready to own publicly, whenever you shall becalled to it, that by your great and frequent urgency youprevailed on me to publish a very loose and uncorrect account ofmy travels, with directions to hire some young gentleman ofeither university to put them in order, and correct the style, asmy cousin Dampier did, by my advice, in his book called "A Voyageround the world." But I do not remember I gave you power toconsent that any thing should be omitted, and much less that anything should be inserted; therefore, as to the latter, I do here...
Seraphitaby Honore de BalzacTranslated by Katharine Prescott WormeleyDEDICATIONTo Madame Eveline de Hanska, nee Comtesse Rzewuska.Madame,Here is the work which you asked of me. I am happy, inthus dedicating it, to offer you a proof of the respectfulaffection you allow me to bear you. If I am reproached forimpotence in this attempt to draw from the depths of mysticism abook which seeks to give, in the lucid transparency of ourbeautiful language, the luminous poesy of the Orient, to you theblame! Did you not command this struggle (resembling that ofJacob) by telling me that the most imperfect sketch of this...
The VillageAfter hoeing, or perhaps reading and writing, in the forenoon, Iusually bathed again in the pond, swimming across one of its covesfor a stint, and washed the dust of labor from my person, orsmoothed out the last wrinkle which study had made, and for theafternoon was absolutely free. Every day or two I strolled to thevillage to hear some of the gossip which is incessantly going onthere, circulating either from mouth to mouth, or from newspaper tonewspaper, and which, taken in homoeopathic doses, was really asrefreshing in its way as the rustle of leaves and the peeping offrogs. As I walked in the woods to see the birds and squirrels, so...
The Psychology of RevolutionGustave le BonCONTENTSINTRODUCTION. THE REVISION OF HISTORYPART ITHE PSYCHOLOGICAL ELEMENTS OF REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTSBOOK IGENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF REVOLUTIONSCHAPTER I. SCIENTIFIC AND POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS1. Classification of Revolutions2. Scientific Revolutions3. Political Revolutions4. The results of Political RevolutionsCHAPTER II. RELIGIOUS REVOLUTIONS1. The importance of the study of Religious Revolutions inrespect of the comprehension of the great Political...