Literary Collections Books

There is, peradventure, no more manifest vanity than to write of it so vainly. That which divinity has so divinely expressed to us—["Vanity of vanities: all is vanity."—Eccles., i. 2.]—ought to be carefully and continually meditated by men of understanding. Who does not see that I have taken a road, in which, incessantly and without labour, I shall proceed so long as there shall be ink... more...

INTRODUCTION. I. The last century was yet in its infancy when the author of The Romany Rye first saw the light in the sleepy little East Anglian township of East Dereham, in the county distinguished by Borrow as the one in which the people eat the best dumplings in the world and speak the purest English.  “Pretty quiet D[ereham]” was the retreat in those days of a Lady Bountiful in the person of... more...

THE MYSTERY OF JUSTICE 1 I speak, for those who do not believe in the existence of a unique, all-powerful, infallible Judge, for ever intent on our thoughts, our feelings and actions, maintaining justice in this world and completing it in the next. And if there be no Judge, what justice is there? None other than that which men have made for themselves by their laws and tribunals, as also in the social... more...

   Delivered before the Alumni of Hamilton College, Clinton, N. Y.,   Wednesday, June 26, 1872 Twenty-one years ago in this house I heard a voice calling me to ascend the platform, and there to stand and deliver. The voice was the voice of President North; the language was an excellent imitation of that used by Cicero and Julius Caesar. I remember the flattering invitation—it is the classic tag... more...

CHAPTER I It was a beautiful summer morning, and Rodney was out of his bed at six o'clock. He usually went for a walk before going to his studio, and this morning his walk had been a very pleasant one, for yesterday's work had gone well with him. But as he turned into the mews in which his studio was situated he saw the woman whom he employed to light his fire standing in the middle of the... more...

PREFACE The object of this book is to give the English-speaking public, in a convenient form, as faithful and readable a copy as the translator was capable of making of a document unique in the literature of antiquity. Whether we regard the correspondence of Cicero from the point of view of the biographer and observer of character, the historian, or the lover of belles lettres, it is equally worthy of... more...

Here, if I cut my coat according to my cloth, t should have a garment which this whole volume would hardly stuff out with its form; and I have a fancy that if I begin by answering, as I have sometimes rather too succinctly done, that we have no more a single literary centre than Italy or than Germany has (or had before their unification), I shall not be taken at my word. I shall be right, all the same,... more...

THE HEDGE SCHOOL. There never was a more unfounded calumny, than that which would impute to the Irish peasantry an indifference to education. I may, on the contrary, fearlessly assert that the lower orders of no country ever manifested such a positive inclination for literary acquirements, and that, too, under circumstances strongly calculated to produce carelessness and apathy on this particular... more...

ROB, JOHN, AND JESSE IN CAMP “ Well, here we are, fellows,” said Jesse Wilcox, as he threw down an armful of wood at the side of the camp-fire. “For my part, I believe this is going to be about the best trip we ever had.” “That’s what I was telling Rob to-day,” said John Hardy, setting down a pail of water near by. “But I hope I won’t have to carry water up a bank a hundred feet high... more...

CHAPTER I. WHEREIN AN EXCURSION IS MADE IN A CELTIC MIND A young Irish gentleman of the numerous clan O'Donnells, and a Patrick, hardly a distinction of him until we know him, had bound himself, by purchase of a railway-ticket, to travel direct to the borders of North Wales, on a visit to a notable landowner of those marches, the Squire Adister, whose family-seat was where the hills begin to lift... more...