Literary Collections Books

CHAPTER XLIX Singular Personage—A Large Sum—Papa of Rome—We are Christians—Degenerate Armenians—Roots of Ararat—Regular Features. The Armenian!  I frequently saw this individual, availing myself of the permission which he had given me to call upon him.  A truly singular personage was he, with his love of amassing money, and his nationality so strong as to be akin to poetry.  Many an... more...

The Declaration of Independence opens with the statement of a great and fruitful political truth. But if it had said:—"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created unequal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," it would also have stated the truth; and if it had added,... more...

CHAPTER I. DEPARTING PARIS The tourniquet Saint-Jean, the narrow passage entered through a turnstile, a description of which was said to be so wearisome in the study entitled "A Double Life" (Scenes from Private Life), that naive relic of old Paris, has at the present moment no existence except in our said typography. The building of the Hotel-de-Ville, such as we now see it, swept away a whole... more...

THE CEREMONY OF THE INTERVIEW OF PRINCES There is no subject so frivolous that does not merit a place in this rhapsody. According to our common rule of civility, it would be a notable affront to an equal, and much more to a superior, to fail being at home when he has given you notice he will come to visit you. Nay, Queen Margaret of Navarre—[Marguerite de Valois, authoress of the... more...

FIRST PART. LIFE'S JOYS AND SORROWS.1783 TO 1815. 1.TO THE ELECTOR OF COLOGNE, FREDERICK MAXIMILIAN. ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE,-- Music from my fourth year has ever been my favorite pursuit. Thus early introduced to the sweet Muse, who attuned my soul to pure harmony, I loved her, and sometimes ventured to think that I was beloved by her in return. I have now attained my eleventh year, and my Muse often... more...

FRANCIS ATTERBURY. (December 1853.) Francis Atterbury, a man who holds a conspicuous place in the political, ecclesiastical, and literary history of England, was born in the year 1662, at Middleton in Buckinghamshire, a parish of which his father was rector. Francis was educated at Westminster School, and carried thence to Christchurch a stock of learning which, though really scanty, he through life... more...

PREFACE As the reader, if he wishes, may discover without undue delay, the little volume of modern prose selections that he has before him is the result of no ambitious or pretentious design. It is not a collection of the best things that have lately been known and thought in the American world; it is not an anthology in which "all our best authors" are represented by striking or celebrated... more...

CHAPTER I THE GAME "Forty-Love." "Game! and Set. Six to two." A ripple of cheers ran round the court, followed by a buzz of excited conversation. The young men smiled at each other and at their friends on the side lines and proceeded to change courts for the next set, pausing for refreshments on the way. "Much too lazy, Captain Jack. I am quite out of patience with you," cried a... more...

INTRODUCTION William Beckford, born in 1759, the year before the accession of King George the Third, was the son of an Alderman who became twice Lord Mayor of London.  His family, originally of Gloucestershire, had thriven by the plantations in Jamaica; and his father, sent to school in England, and forming a school friendship at Westminster with Lord Mansfield, began the world in this country as a... more...

When we judge of another's assurance in death, which, without doubt, is the most remarkable action of human life, we are to take heed of one thing, which is that men very hardly believe themselves to have arrived to that period. Few men come to die in the opinion that it is their latest hour; and there is nothing wherein the flattery of hope more deludes us; It never ceases to whisper in our ears,... more...