Historical Books

In the old times of religious gloom and intolerance lived Richard Digby, the gloomiest and most intolerant of a stern brotherhood. His plan of salvation was so narrow, that, like a plank in a tempestuous sea, it could avail no sinner but himself, who bestrode it triumphantly, and hurled anathemas against the wretches whom he saw struggling with the billows of eternal death. In his view of the matter,... more...

HOW THREE PERSONS IN THIS HISTORY CAME BY THEIR NAMES. On a fine May morning in the year 1764,—that is to say, between the peace at Fontainebleau and the stamp act agitation, which great events have fortunately no connection with the present narrative,—a young man mounted on an elegant horse, and covered from head to foot with lace, velvet, and embroidery, stopped before a small house in the town... more...

Throughout the whole of the habitable globe there nowhere is to be found more delightful or more invigorating air than that which every traveller through New Mexico, from Albuquerque, past Las Vegas, to the Raton Mountains, is free to breathe. Miss Grace Winthrop, of Boston, and also Miss Winthrop, her paternal aunt, and also Mr. Hutchinson Port, of Philadelphia, her maternal uncle—all of whom were... more...

CHAPTER I.O that Decay were always beautiful!How soft the exit of the dying day,The dying season too, its disarrayIs gold and scarlet, hues of gay misrule,So it in festive cheer may pass away;Fading is excellent in earth or air,With it no budding April may compare,Nor fragrant June with long love-laden hours;Sweet is decadence in the quiet bowersWhere summer songs and mirth are fallen asleep,And sweet... more...

Nobody’s Child. “Oh, how full of briars is this working-day world!”                 Shakspere. “It is so cold, Mother!” The woman addressed languidly roused herself from the half-sheltered nook of the forest in which she and her child had taken refuge. She was leaning with her back supported by a giant oak, and the child was in her arms. The age of the child was about eight.... more...

CHAPTER I THE POLKINGTONS The Polkingtons were of those people who do not dine. They lunched, though few besides Johnny Gillat, who did not count, had been invited to share that meal with them. They took tea, the daintiest, pleasantest, most charming of teas, as the élite of Marbridge knew; everybody—or, rather, a selection of everybody, had had tea with them one time or another. After that there... more...

TALES OF THE CALIPH. That stories such as those in the "Arabian Nights," and fairy tales of every kind, should delight us all, men and women no less than boys and girls, is very natural. We find it charming to escape for a period, however brief, from all the familiar surroundings of modern life, and on opening a volume to pass at once into another region, where all is strange, and where the... more...

Kate Lancaster's Plan I had been spending the winter in Boston, and Kate Lancaster and I had been together a great deal, for we are the best of friends. It happened that the morning when this story begins I had waked up feeling sorry, and as if something dreadful were going to happen. There did not seem to be any good reason for it, so I undertook to discourage myself more by thinking that it... more...

THE BOTETOURT RESOLUTIONS On this wintry day, cold and sunny, the small town breathed hard in its excitement. It might have climbed rapidly from a lower land, so heightened now were its pulses, so light and rare the air it drank, so raised its mood, so wide, so very wide the opening prospect. Old red-brick houses, old box-planted gardens, old high, leafless trees, out it looked from its place between... more...

No. I'SANTA CLAUS' Nobody knew where Teddy Pegram came from or why the man ordained to settle down in Little Silver. He had no relations round about and couldn't, or wouldn't, tell his new neighbours what had brought him along. But he bided a bit with Mrs. Ford, the policeman's wife, as a lodger, and then, when he'd sized up the place and found it suited him, he took a... more...