Literary Collections Books

PREFACE. HOME! How at the word, a crowd of pleasant thoughts awaken. What sun-bright images are pictured to the imagination. Yet, there is no home without its shadows as well as sunshine. Love makes the home-lights and selfishness the shadows. Ah! how dark the shadow at times—how faint and fleeting the sunshine. How often selfishness towers up to a giant height, barring out from our dwellings every... more...

CHAPTER I. ON LOVE."Love is of man's life a thing apart;'Tis woman's whole existence."So sings the poet, and so agrees the world. Humiliating as it is to make the confession, it is undeniably true. "Men and Dress are all women think about," cry the lords of creation in their unbounded vanity. And again, we must submit—and agree—to the truth of the accusation; at any... more...

CHAPTER I THE COWARD Spring had come. Despite the many wet and gusty days which April had thrust in rude challenge upon reluctant May, in the glory of the triumphant sun which flooded the concave blue of heaven and the myriad shaded green of earth, the whole world knew to-day, the whole world proclaimed that spring had come. The yearly miracle had been performed. The leaves of the maple trees lining... more...

Chapter 1 Many years ago, how many need not be recorded, there lived in his ancestral castle, in the far north of Scotland, the last Earl of Cairnforth. You will not find his name in "Lodge's Peerage," for, as I say, he was the last earl, and with him the title became extinct. It had been borne for centuries by many noble and gallant men, who had lived worthily or died bravely. But I think... more...

CHAPTER I From within the teepee of Charley Whitefish issued the sounds of a family brawl. It was of frequent occurrence in this teepee. Men at the doors of other lodges, engaged in cleaning their guns, or in other light occupations suitable to the manly dignity, shrugged with strong scorn for the man who could not keep his women in order. With the shrugs went warning glances toward their own laborious... more...

PREFACE This book is designed to accompany an introductory study of the history of German literature. It is assumed that the history itself will be learned, so far as necessary, either from lectures or from some other book devoted to the subject. As the selections were made, for the most part, while I was writing my own short history of German literature for the series published under the general... more...

CHAPTER I The summer day in 1874 which closed the annual session of Whitelaw College was marked by a special ceremony, preceding the wonted distribution of academic rewards. At eleven in the morning (just as a heavy shower fell from the smoke-canopy above the roaring streets) the municipal authorities, educational dignitaries, and prominent burgesses of Kingsmill assembled on an open space before the... more...

THE HERO. His name is George, generally speaking. "Call me George!" he says to the heroine. She calls him George (in a very low voice, because she is so young and timid). Then he is happy. The stage hero never has any work to do. He is always hanging about and getting into trouble. His chief aim in life is to be accused of crimes he has never committed, and if he can muddle things up with a... more...

CHAPTER 1—“Uncle Sam” The gentleman who graced the gubernatorial armchair of our state when this century was born happened to be an admirer of classic lore and the sonorous names of antiquity. It is owing to his weakness in bestowing pompous cognomens on our embryo towns and villages that to-day names like Utica, Syracuse, and Ithaca, instead of evoking visions of historic pomp and circumstance,... more...

CHAPTER I MAHON ON THE TRAIL Sergeant Mahon emptied the barracks mail bag on the desk before Inspector Barker and stood awaiting instructions. The Inspector passed his hand over the small pile of letters and let his eye roam from one to another in the speculative way that added zest to the later revelation of their contents. One from headquarters at Regina he set carefully aside. With an "ah!"... more...