Historical Books

VILLAHORRENDA! FIVE MINUTES! When the down train No. 65—of what line it is unnecessary to say—stopped at the little station between kilometres 171 and 172, almost all the second-and third-class passengers remained in the cars, yawning or asleep, for the penetrating cold of the early morning did not invite to a walk on the unsheltered platform. The only first-class passenger on the train alighted... more...

However boldly their warm blood was spilt,Their life was shame, their epitaph was guilt;And this they knew and felt, at least the one,The leader of the hand he had undone—Who, born for better things, had madly setHis life upon a cast, which linger’d yet. Byron. There is perhaps no event in the annals of our history which excited more alarm at the time of its occurrence, or has since been the... more...

CHAPTER I 'Ayah,' the doctor-sahib said in the vernacular, standing beside the bed, 'the fever of the mistress is like fire. Without doubt it cannot go on thus, but all that is in your hand to do you have done. It is necessary now only to be very watchful. And it will be to dress the mistress, and to make everything ready for a journey. Two hours later all the sahib-folk go from this... more...

CHAPTER I. OLD Lady Lydiard sat meditating by the fireside, with three letters lying open on her lap. Time had discolored the paper, and had turned the ink to a brownish hue. The letters were all addressed to the same person—"THE RT. HON. LORD LYDIARD"—and were all signed in the same way—"Your affectionate cousin, James Tollmidge." Judged by these specimens of his correspondence,... more...

CHAPTER I. THE BIRTHPLACE OF ISRAEL. The traveller who at the present day is content to travel in the good old Asiatic style, neither rushed along by a locomotive, nor dragged by a stage-coach; who is willing to enjoy hospitalities at far-scattered farmhouses, instead of paying his bill at an inn; who is not to be frightened by any amount of loneliness, or to be deterred by the roughest roads or the... more...

In the matter of raising canary-birds—at once strong of body and of note, tamed to associate with humanity on rarely friendly terms, and taught to sing with a sweetness nothing short of heavenly—Andreas Stoffel was second to none. And this was not by any means surprising, for he had been born (and for its saintly patron had been christened) close by the small old town of Andreasberg: which stands... more...

CHAPTER I A small, squat and dirty-looking trading steamer, with the name Motutapu painted in yellow letters on her bows and stern, lay at anchor off the native village of Utiroa on Drummond's Island in the Equatorial Pacific. She was about 800 tons burden, and her stained and rusty sides made her appear as if she had been out of port for two years instead of scarcely four months. At this present... more...

Six Hundred Years ago—What things were like. The afternoon service was over in Lincoln Cathedral, and the congregation were slowly filing out of the great west door. But that afternoon service was six hundred years ago, and both the Cathedral and the congregation would look very strange to us if we saw them now. Those days were well called the Dark Ages, and how dark they were we can scarcely realise... more...

Chapter I."There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,There is a rapture on the lonely shore.There is society where none intrudes,By the deep sea, and music in its roar:I love not man the less, but nature more,From these our interviews, in which I stealFrom all I may be, or have been before,To mingle with the universe, and feelWhat I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal" Childe Harold.... more...

Thursday the Nineteenth Splash!... That's me, Matilda Anne! That's me falling plump into the pool of matrimony before I've had time to fall in love! And oh, Matilda Anne, Matilda Anne, I've got to talk to you! You may be six thousand miles away, but still you've got to be my safety-valve. I'd blow up and explode if I didn't express myself to some one. For it's so... more...