General Books

CHAPTER I The first time I met her I was a reporter in the embryonic state and she was a girl in short dresses. It was in a garden, surrounded by high red brick walls which were half hidden by clusters of green vines, and at the base of which nestled earth-beds, radiant with roses and poppies and peonies and bushes of lavender lilacs, all spilling their delicate ambrosia on the mild air of passing May.... more...

OH, the Beautiful Mud! I always leave it on my boots. It is sacred to me. Because in it are the souls of lilies! The Hog should be a sacred beast. Hogs are Beautiful! They are close to the Mire! Oh, to be a Swine! What is more eloquent than a Sneeze? TheSneeze is the protest of the Free Spirit against theSmug Citizen who never exposes himself to a cold.Oh, Beautiful Sneezes! Oh, to make my life oneloud... more...

MY FIRST STAGE At last the tea came up, and soWith that our tongues began to go.Now in that house you’re sure of knowingThe smallest scrap of news that’s going.We find it there the wisest wayTo take some care of what we say. Recreation.  Jane Taylor. I was born on the 2nd September, 1886, in a small, dull, country town.  When I say the town was dull, I mean, of course, that the inhabitants were... more...

CHAPTER I In the dusk of an October evening, a sensible looking woman of forty came out through an oaken door to a broad landing on the first floor of an old English country-house. A braid of her hair had fallen forward as if she had been stooping over book or pen; and she stood for a moment to smooth it, and to gaze contemplatively—not in the least sentimentally—through the tall, narrow window.... more...

CHAPTER I Toward four o'clock in the afternoon Fred Starratt remembered that he had been commissioned by his wife to bring home oyster cocktails for dinner. Of course, it went without saying that he was expected to attend to the cigars. That meant he must touch old Wetherbee for money. Five dollars would do the trick, but, while he was about it, he decided that he might as well ask for... more...

"Pshaw! pshaw! child," he would reply, "that's nothing. It does almost as well to walk on, and that's all legs are for. I'd have had forty legs shot off rather than not have helped drive out those damned British rascals." Not even for sake of Hetty's young ears could the old Squire mention the British rascals without his favorite expletive. Here, also, came in... more...

CHAPTER IMARY LOUISE MAKES AN INVESTMENT Mary Louise had stood the test of being rich and beloved, and envied by all the daughters of Dorfield; and then of being poor and bereft, pitied by all who had formerly envied her. Soon after the death of her grandfather, Colonel Hathaway, had come the news of her husband's shipwreck. Hope of Danny Dexter's survival was finally abandoned by his... more...

Castle Barfield, Heydon Hey, and Beacon Hargate form the three points of a triangle. Barfield is a parish of some pretensions; Heydon Hey is a village; Beacon Hargate is no more than a hamlet. There is not much that is picturesque in Beacon Hargate, or its neighbourhood. The Beacon Hill itself is as little like a hill as it well can be, and acquires what prominence it has by virtue of the extreme... more...

CHAPTER I THE BLAKE FAMILY ARE DISCUSSED 'There is nothing, sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.'—Dr. Johnson. Everyone in Rutherford knew that Mrs. Ross was ruled by her eldest daughter; it was an acknowledged fact, obvious not only to a keen-witted person... more...

HOW SIR TOM BECAME A GREAT PERSONAGE. Sir Thomas Randolph had lived a somewhat stormy life during the earliest half of his career. He had gone through what the French called a jeunesse orageuse; nothing very bad had ever been laid to his charge; but he had been adventurous, unsettled, a roamer about the world even after the period at which youthful extravagances cease. Nobody ever knew when or where he... more...