Historical Books

CHAPTER I. The turf shall be my fragrant shrine;My temple, Lord! that arch of thine;My censer's breath the mountain airs,And silent thoughts my only prayers.MOORE The sublimity connected with vastness is familiar to every eye. The most abstruse, the most far-reaching, perhaps the most chastened of the poet's thoughts, crowd on the imagination as he gazes into the depths of the illimitable... more...

A NEST OF NINNIES "A song, sweet Jacqueline!" "No, no—" "Jacqueline!—Jacqueline!—" "No more, I say—" A jingle of tinkling bells mingled with the squeak of a viola; the guffaws of a rompish company blended with the tuneless chanting of discordant minstrels, and the gray parrot in its golden cage, suspended from one of the oaken beams of the ceiling, shook its... more...

CHAPTER I.THE AVENGER. "Bill! Wild Bill! Is this you, or your ghost? What, in great Creation's name, are you doing here?" "Gettin' toward sunset, old pard–gettin' toward sunset, before I pass in my checks!" The first speaker was an old scout and plainsman, Sam Chichester by name, and he spoke to a passenger who had just left the west-ward-bound express train at Laramie,... more...

CHAPTER I A PERILOUS MISSION Several of us had remained rather late that evening about the cheerful fire in front of my hut,—for the nights were still chilly, although it was May, and the dreadful winter passed,—discussing the improved condition of our troops, the rigid discipline of Baron de Steuben, and speculating on what would probably be attempted now that Sir Henry Clinton had succeeded to... more...

variste Gamelin, painter, pupil of David, member of the Section du Pont-Neuf, formerly Section Henri IV, had betaken himself at an early hour in the morning to the old church of the Barnabites, which for three years, since 21st May 1790, had served as meeting-place for the General Assembly of the Section. The church stood in a narrow, gloomy square, not far from the gates of the Palais de Justice. On... more...

“Come in!” said Peter Hope. Peter Hope was tall and thin, clean-shaven but for a pair of side whiskers close-cropped and terminating just below the ear, with hair of the kind referred to by sympathetic barbers as “getting a little thin on the top, sir,” but arranged with economy, that everywhere is poverty’s true helpmate.  About Mr. Peter Hope’s linen, which was white though somewhat... more...

CHAPTER I. Squire Thorndyke, of the Manor House of Crawley, was, on the 1st of September; 1782, walking up and down the little terrace in front of the quaint old house in an unusually disturbed mood. He was a man of forty three or four, stoutly and strongly built, and inclined to be portly. Save the loss of his wife four years before, there had been but little to ruffle the easy tenor of his life. A... more...

I This Indenture Wittnesseth, That I Margaret Burjust of Boston, in the County of Suffolk and Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England. Have placed, and by these presents do place and bind out my only Daughter whose name is Ann Ginnins to be an Apprentice unto Samuel Wales and his wife of Braintree in the County afores:, Blacksmith. To them and their Heirs and with them the s: Samuel Wales, his... more...

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. Abate the edge of Traitors, gracious Lord, That would reduce these bloody days again, And make poor England weep in streams of blood! Shakspeare. Those who have but an indifferent banquet to offer, are not usually inclined to discourage their guests, by a repulsive bill of fare; yet surely, when a public invitation is given, there is honesty, and prudence too, in simply stating... more...

CHAPTER I The landlord, the lady, and Mr. Charles Wogan were all three, it seemed, in luck's way that September morning of the year 1719. Wogan was not surprised, his luck for the moment was altogether in, so that even when his horse stumbled and went lame at a desolate part of the road from Florence to Bologna, he had no doubt but that somehow fortune would serve him. His horse stepped gingerly... more...