Historical Books

THE OVERTURE. Day of the month and year, November the thirtieth, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-five.  London Time by the great clock of Saint Paul’s, ten at night.  All the lesser London churches strain their metallic throats.  Some, flippantly begin before the heavy bell of the great cathedral; some, tardily begin three, four, half a dozen, strokes behind it; all are in sufficiently near... more...

CHAPTER I LIONEL CARVEL, OF CARVEL HALL Lionel Carvel, Esq., of Carvel Hall, in the county of Queen Anne, was no inconsiderable man in his Lordship's province of Maryland, and indeed he was not unknown in the colonial capitals from Williamsburg to Boston. When his ships arrived out, in May or June, they made a goodly showing at the wharves, and his captains were ever shrewd men of judgment who... more...

My dearest Mate: Behold a soldier on the eve of battle! I am writing this in a stuffy little hotel room and I don't dare stop whistling for a minute. You could cover my courage with a postage stamp. In the morning I sail for the Flowery Kingdom, and if the roses are waiting to strew my path it is more than they have done here for the past few years. When the train pulled out from home and I saw... more...

A NEGLECTED MASTERPIECE There have, of course, been many men of genius who have united with great laxity and waywardness in their lives a high and perfect respect for their art; but instances of the directly contrary practice are much rarer, and among these there is probably none more prominent than that of the author of Ringan Gilhaize. Gifted by nature with a faculty which was at once brilliant,... more...

CHAPTER I A BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK The 25th day of August, 1751, about two in the afternoon, I, David Balfour, came forth of the British Linen Company, a porter attending me with a bag of money, and some of the chief of these merchants bowing me from their doors. Two days before, and even so late as yestermorning, I was like a beggarman by the wayside, clad in rags, brought down to my last shillings, my... more...

CHAPTER I. A pretty girl stood alone on the jetty of an old-fashioned wharf at Wapping, looking down upon the silent deck of a schooner below. No smoke issued from the soot-stained cowl of the galley, and the fore-scuttle and the companion were both inhospitably closed. The quiet of evening was over everything, broken only by the whirr of the paddles of a passenger steamer as it passed carefully up the... more...

A BIRTHDAY EVE. In spite of my English name—Jack Crawford—and my English blood, I have never set foot on that famous little island in the North Sea, and now it is quite unlikely that I ever shall do so. I was born in Peru, on the outskirts of beautiful Lima, where, until the year 1819, on the very eve of my fourteenth birthday, the days of my childhood were passed. I expect you know that in ancient... more...

A DAY OF SPLEEN. Five o'clock in the afternoon. Rain ever since the morning, a gray sky, so low that one can touch it with one's umbrella, dirty weather, puddles, mud, nothing but mud, in thick pools, in gleaming streaks along the edge of the sidewalks, driven back in vain by automatic sweepers, sweepers with handkerchiefs tied over their heads, and carted away on enormous tumbrils which... more...

THE ETHICS OF GEORGE ELIOT’S WORKS. “There is in man a higher than love of happiness: he can do without happiness, and instead thereof find blessedness.” Such may be regarded as the fundamental lesson which one of the great teachers of our time has been labouring to impress upon the age.  The truth, and the practical corollary from it, are not now first enunciated.  Representing, as we believe... more...

EXTRACTS FROM ADAM'S DIARY Translated from the original MS. by Mark Twain [NOTE.—I translated a portion of this diary some years ago, and a friend of mine printed a few copies in an incomplete form, but the public never got them. Since then I have deciphered some more of Adam's hieroglyphics, and think he has now become sufficiently important as a public character to justify this... more...