Historical Books

CHAPTER I In this modern industrial civilization of which we are sometimes wont to boast, a certain glacier-like process may be observed. The bewildered, the helpless—and there are many—are torn from the parent rock, crushed, rolled smooth, and left stranded in strange places. Thus was Edward Bumpus severed and rolled from the ancestral ledge, from the firm granite of seemingly stable and lasting... more...

The Sand-hills of Jutland. his is a story from the Jutland sand-hills, but it does not commence there; on the contrary, it commences far away towards the south, in Spain. The sea is the highway between the two countries. Fancy yourself there. The scenery is beautiful; the climate is warm. There blooms the scarlet pomegranate amidst the dark laurel trees; from the hills a refreshing breeze is wafted... more...

CHAPTER I: THE FUGITIVES A low hut built of turf roughly thatched with rushes and standing on the highest spot of some slightly raised ground. It was surrounded by a tangled growth of bushes and low trees, through which a narrow and winding path gave admission to the narrow space on which the hut stood. The ground sloped rapidly. Twenty yards from the house the trees ceased, and a rank vegetation of... more...

The New-Comer. Curiosity was on tiptoe in the small country-town of Franchope and the neighbourhood when it was settled without a doubt that Riverton Park was to be occupied once more. Park House, which was the name of the mansion belonging to the Riverton estate, was a fine, old, substantial structure, which stood upon a rising ground, and looked out upon a richly undulating country, a considerable... more...

CHAPTER I On a bright autumn day, as long ago as the year 943, there was a great bustle in the Castle of Bayeux in Normandy. The hall was large and low, the roof arched, and supported on thick short columns, almost like the crypt of a Cathedral; the walls were thick, and the windows, which had no glass, were very small, set in such a depth of wall that there was a wide deep window seat, upon which the... more...

AT first the two yards were as much alike as the two houses, each house being the exact copy of the other. They were just two of those little red brick dwellings that one is always seeing side by side in the outskirts of a city, and looking as if the occupants must be alike too. But these two families were quite different. Mr. Gilton, who lived in one, was a pretty cross sort of man, and was quite... more...

INTRODUCTION TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF MY WORKS This is not the first occasion upon which it has been my good fortune to win appreciation and approval for my works from the reading public of the United States. Up to the present, however, it has often been under difficulties; for many of my works which have been published in the English tongue were not translated from the original Hungarian text,... more...

BELLEGARDE Miss Virginia Carvel came down the steps in her riding-habit. And Ned, who had been waiting in the street with the horses, obsequiously held his hand while his young mistress leaped into Vixen's saddle. Leaving the darkey to follow upon black Calhoun, she cantered off up the street, greatly to the admiration of the neighbor. They threw open their windows to wave at her, but Virginia... more...

CHAPTER I. THE ENCHANTER AND THE WARRIOR. It was the summer of the year 1491, and the armies of Ferdinand and Isabel invested the city of Granada. The night was not far advanced; and the moon, which broke through the transparent air of Andalusia, shone calmly over the immense and murmuring encampment of the Spanish foe, and touched with a hazy light the snow-capped summits of the Sierra Nevada,... more...

THE COOK'S WEDDING GRISHA, a fat, solemn little person of seven, was standing by the kitchen door listening and peeping through the keyhole. In the kitchen something extraordinary, and in his opinion never seen before, was taking place. A big, thick-set, red-haired peasant, with a beard, and a drop of perspiration on his nose, wearing a cabman's full coat, was sitting at the kitchen table on... more...