General Books

"Neque imbellem ferocesProgenerant aquilæ columbam."It is not a pleasant epoch in one's life, the first forty-eight hours at a large public school. I have known strong-minded men of mature age confess that they never thought of it without a shiver. I don't count the home-sickness, which perhaps only affects seriously the most innocent of débutants, but there are other thousand and... more...

PART I I It was eleven o'clock in the morning when Mariano Renovales reached the Museo del Prado. Several years had passed since the famous painter had entered it. The dead did not attract him; very interesting they were, very worthy of respect, under the glorious shroud of the centuries, but art was moving along new paths and he could not study there under the false glare of the skylights, where... more...

I. Little Agnes.    "And she, not seven years old,   A slighted child."—WORDSWORTH. "What is it Lewie wants? Does he want sister's pretty book?" "No!" roared the cross baby boy, pointing with his finger to the side-board. "Well, see here, Lewie! here is a pretty ball; shall we roll it? There! now roll it back to sister." "No-o-o!" still screamed... more...

CHAPTER I "I love Nunsmere," said the Literary Man from London. "It is a spot where faded lives are laid away in lavender." "I'm not a faded life, and I'm not going to be laid away in lavender," retorted Zora Middlemist. She turned from him and handed cakes to the Vicar. She had no desire to pet the Vicar, but he was less unbearable than the Literary Man from London... more...

I had done a few things and earned a few pence—I had perhaps even had time to begin to think I was finer than was perceived by the patronising; but when I take the little measure of my course (a fidgety habit, for it's none of the longest yet) I count my real start from the evening George Corvick, breathless and worried, came in to ask me a service. He had done more things than I, and earned... more...

CHAPTER I "Filth," grunted Trent—"ugh! I tell you what it is, my venerable friend—I have seen some dirty cabins in the west of Ireland and some vile holes in East London. I've been in some places which I can't think of even now without feeling sick. I'm not a particular chap, wasn't brought up to it—no, nor squeamish either, but this is a bit thicker than anything... more...

THE ENCHANTED RING. One of the most imposing buildings in Boston twenty years ago was a granite hotel, whose western windows looked upon a graveyard. Passing up a flight of steps, and beneath a portico of dignified granite columns, and so through an embarrassing pair of swinging-doors to the roomy vestibule,—you would there pause a moment to spit upon the black-and-white tessellated pavement. Having... 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...

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...

"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...