Historical Books

Chapter I “We,” said Mrs. Solomon Black with weighty emphasis, “are going to get up a church fair and raise that money, and we are going to pay your salary. We can't stand it another minute. We had better run in debt to the butcher and baker than to the Lord.” Wesley Elliot regarded her gloomily. “I never liked the idea of church fairs very well,” he returned hesitatingly. “It has... more...

CHAPTER I. THE BOHEMIANS. Early one morning in the month of March, 1770, a woman bearing in her arms a new-born infant, was hastening along the left bank of the Garden, a small river that rises in the Cevennes, traverses the department of the Gard, and empties into the Rhone, not far from Beaucaire. It would be difficult to find more varied and picturesque scenery than that which borders this stream... more...

CHAPTER I THE SISTERS'She was right faire and fresh as morning rose,But somewhat sad and solemne eke in sight,As if some pensive thought constrained her gentle spright.'Spenser. 1581.—'There is time yet ere sunset; let me, I pray you, go down to the lych gate with the wheaten cake for Goody Salter.' 'Nay, Lucy; methinks there are reasons for your desire to go down to the... more...

A HAUNTED HOUSE Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting. From room to room they went, hand in hand, lifting here, opening there, making sure—a ghostly couple. "Here we left it," she said. And he added, "Oh, but here too!" "It's upstairs," she murmured. "And in the garden," he whispered. "Quietly," they said, "or we shall wake them." But it... more...

CHAPTER I. I AM going to try if I can't write something about myself. My life has been rather a strange one. It may not seem particularly useful or respectable; but it has been, in some respects, adventurous; and that may give it claims to be read, even in the most prejudiced circles. I am an example of some of the workings of the social system of this illustrious country on the individual native,... more...

INTRODUCTION. The conte is a form of fiction in which the French have always delighted and in which they have always excelled, from the days of the jongleurs and the trouvères, past the periods of La Fontaine and Voltaire, down to the present. The conte is a tale, something more than a sketch, it may be, and something less than a short story. In verse it is at times but a mere rhymed anecdote, or it... more...

THE MAN FROM THE RIVER The man in the canoe was lean and hardy, and wielded the paddle against the slow-moving current of the wide river with a dexterity that proclaimed long practice. His bronzed face was that of a quite young man, but his brown hair was interspersed with grey; and his blue eyes had a gravity incompatible with youth, as if already he had experience of the seriousness of life, and had... more...

CHAPTER 1. I AM BORN Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously. In... more...

All day Sunday they had raised the devil from attic to cellar; Mrs. Farren was in tears, Howker desperate. Not one out of the fifteen servants considered necessary to embellish the Seagrave establishment could do anything with them after Kathleen Severn's sudden departure the week before. When the telegram announcing her mother's sudden illness summoned young Mrs. Severn to Staten Island,... 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...