Historical Books

CHAPTER I.         The mountain's sidesAre flecked with gleams of light and spots of shade;Here, golden sunshine spreads in mellow rays, and there,Stretching across its hoary breast, deep shadows lurk.A stream, with many a turn, now lost to sight,And then, again revealed, winds through the vale,Shimmering in the early morning sun.A few white clouds float in the blue expanse,Their forms... more...

CHAPTER I. The Culm, which rises in Somersetshire, and hastening into a fairer land (as the border waters wisely do) falls into the Exe near Killerton, formerly was a lovely trout stream, such as perverts the Devonshire angler from due respect toward Father Thames and the other canals round London. In the Devonshire valleys it is sweet to see how soon a spring becomes a rill, and a rill runs on into a... more...

CHAPTER I. DEATH AND BURIAL OF A SLAVE'S INFANT. "The small and great are there, and the servant is free from his master." A Southern gentleman, who was visiting in New York, sent me, with his reply to my inquiries for the welfare of his family at home, the following letter which he had just received from one of his married daughters in the South. The reader will be so kind as to take the... more...

WITH THE ARMIES OF THE WEST We are at Memphis,—for a while,—and the Christmas season is approaching once more. And yet we must remember that war recognizes no Christmas, nor Sunday, nor holiday. The brown river, excited by rains, whirled seaward between his banks of yellow clay. Now the weather was crisp and cold, now hazy and depressing, and again a downpour. Memphis had never seen such activity.... more...

This is the story, among others, of Henry the waiter—or, as he now prefers to call himself, Henri—told to me in the long dining-room of the Riffel Alp Hotel, where I once stayed for a melancholy week “between seasons,” sharing the echoing emptiness of the place with two maiden ladies, who talked all day to one another in frightened whispers.  Henry’s construction I have discarded for its... more...

INTRODUCTION—-(1829) When the author projected this further encroachment on the patience of an indulgent public, he was at some loss for a title; a good name being very nearly of as much consequence in literature as in life. The title of Rob Roy was suggested by the late Mr. Constable, whose sagacity and experience foresaw the germ of popularity which it included. No introduction can be more... more...

Chapter I. THE BEACH. A coach-and-six, as a rule, may be called an impressive Object.But something depends on where you see it. Viewed from the tall cliffs—along the base of which, on a strip of beach two hundred feet below, it crawled between the American continent and the Atlantic Ocean—Captain Oliver Vyell's coach-and-six resembled nothing so nearly as a black-beetle. For that matter the... more...

BY THE CAMP-FIRE That afternoon a strange thing had happened to the camp of the Prince of Orange, which was pitched near Nivelle in Brabant, for the Prince was then challenging Condé, who stuck behind his trenches at Charleroi and would not come out to fight. A dusty-colored cloud came racing along the sky so swiftly––yet there was no wind to be felt––that it was above the camp almost as soon... more...

Chapter 1 My name's Dick Marston, Sydney-side native. I'm twenty-nine years old, six feet in my stocking soles, and thirteen stone weight. Pretty strong and active with it, so they say. I don't want to blow—not here, any road—but it takes a good man to put me on my back, or stand up to me with the gloves, or the naked mauleys. I can ride anything—anything that ever was lapped in... more...

CHAPTER XVIII Month by month the Fair Emily crept down south. The Great Bear and other constellations gave way to the stars of the southern skies, and Mr. Chalk tried hard not to feel disappointed with the arrangement of those in the Southern Cross. Pressed by the triumphant Brisket, to whom he voiced his views, he had to admit that it was at least as much like a cross as the other was a bear. As they... more...