Historical Books

CHAPTER 1 If the dollar Quinby Graham tossed up on New Year's eve had not elected to slip through his fingers and roll down the sewer grating, there might have been no story to write. Quin had said, "Tails, yes"; and who knows but that down there under the pavement that coin of fate was registering "Heads, no"? It was useless to suggest trying it over, however, for neither of the... more...

CHAPTER I. AT FIRST SIGHT.   There is a spirit brooding o'er these walls  That tells the record of a bygone day,  When 'mid the splendour of these courtly halls,  A pageant shone, whose gorgeous array  Like pleasure's dream has passed away. ANON.   Where both deliberate the love is slight;  Who ever loved that love not at first sight? MARLOWE. Amid the hills of Derbyshire... more...

CHAPTER I. THE SPORT OF FOOLS. The death of the Prince of Conde, which occurred in the spring of 1588, by depriving me of my only patron, reduced me to such straits that the winter of that year, which saw the King of Navarre come to spend his Christmas at St. Jean d'Angely, saw also the nadir of my fortunes. I did not know at this time—I may confess it to-day without shame—wither to turn for a... more...

To begin, I am a Frenchman, a teacher of languages, and a poor man,—necessarily a poor man, as the great world would say, or I should not be a teacher of languages, and my wife a copyist of great pictures, selling her copies at small prices. In our own eyes, it is true, we are not so poor—my Clélie and I. Looking back upon our past we congratulate ourselves upon our prosperous condition. There was... more...

CHAPTER I. The night passed away without further event on board the schooner, yet in all the anxiety that might be supposed incident to men so perilously situated. Habits of long-since acquired superstition, too powerful to be easily shaken off, moreover contributed to the dejection of the mariners, among whom there were not wanting those who believed the silent steersman was in reality what their... more...

CHAPTER I. POCKET ISLAND. In the year 185- a Polish Jew peddler named Wolf and a roving Micmac Indian met at a small village on Annapolis Bay, in Nova Scotia, and there and then formed a partnership. It was one of those chance meetings between two atoms tossed hither and thither in the whirligig of life; for the peddler, shrewd, calculating and unscrupulous, was wandering along the Acadian shores... more...

It is well known to every man conversant with the earlier history of this country that, shortly subsequent to the cession of the Canadas to England by France, Ponteac, the great head of the Indian race of that period, had formed a federation of the various tribes, threatening extermination to the British posts established along the Western frontier. These were nine in number, and the following... more...

CHAPTER ONE IT is within my memory that Melville Clarendon, a lad of sixteen years, was riding through Southern Minnesota, in company with his sister Dorothy, a sweet little miss not quite half his own age. They were mounted on Saladin, a high-spirited, fleet, and good-tempered pony of coal-black color. Melville, who claimed the steed as his own special property, had given him his Arabian name because... more...

CHAPTER I. THE SCEPTER WHICH WAS A STICK The king sat in his private garden in the shade of a potted orange tree, the leaves of which were splashed with brilliant yellow. It was high noon of one of those last warm sighs of passing summer which now and then lovingly steal in between the chill breaths of September. The velvet hush of the mid-day hour had fallen. There was an endless horizon of turquoise... more...

ORRAIN CHAPTER I THE CRY IN THE RUE DES LAVANDIERES My father, René, Vidame d'Orrain, was twice married. By his first wife he had one son, Simon, who subsequently succeeded to his title and estates, and was through his life my bitter enemy. By his second wife, whom he married somewhat late in life, he had two sons—the elder, Anne, known as the Chevalier de St. Martin from his mother's... more...