Preface Important events and changes occur during the four years included in the scope of this volume. The Audiencia is suppressed, and in its place is sent a royal governor; the instructions given to him embody many of the reforms demanded by the people through their envoy Sánchez. Extensive and dangerous conspiracies among the natives against the Spaniards are discovered, and severely punished.... more...

Chapter I. Of Cornet Joseph Clarke of the Ironsides It may be, my dear grandchildren, that at one time or another I have told you nearly all the incidents which have occurred during my adventurous life. To your father and to your mother, at least, I know that none of them are unfamiliar. Yet when I consider that time wears on, and that a grey head is apt to contain a failing memory, I am prompted to... more...

CHAPTER I. Mistress O’Hara lives down by the sea, A skittish and beautiful widow is she; She has black shiny tresses, and curly buff toes, And a heavenly tilt to the tip of her nose! She has three little children, the eldest is four (Nurse says he is naughty enough to be more); The Twins are dear dumplings, and they and their brother Are always in scrapes—Of one kind, or another.   This morning... more...

I Marcus Gard sat at his library table apparently in rapt contemplation of a pair of sixteenth century bronze inkwells, strange twisted shapes, half man, half beast, bearing in their breasts twin black pools. But his thoughts were far from their grotesque beauty--centered on vast schemes of destruction and reconstruction. The room was still, so quiet, in spite of its proximity to the crowded life of... more...

1. Bicycle Ride—Walden After I left Rama's inner circle in 1985, I occasionally bicycled to Walden Pond, where I read about Thoreau's experiment with self-reliance. My seven years in the cult of Rama—Dr. Frederick Lenz, who was known early on as Atmananda—had deeply shaken my confidence. Atmananda often assured me that I was possessed by Negative Forces, that I was barely able to... more...

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.Nature chose the spring of the year for the time of John Burroughs's birth. A little before the day when the wake-robin shows itself, that the observer might be on hand for the sight, he was born in Roxbury, Delaware County, New York, on the western borders of the Catskill Mountains; the precise date was April 3, 1837. Until 1863 he remained in the country about his native... more...

INTRODUCTION. This book is intended for those who, though ignorant on the subject, desire to know something about mushrooms. The first question which such an one asks upon finding a mushroom is, “What is its name?” If there is no one near to tell him, then follows the second inquiry, “How can I find it out for myself?” If wild flowers were concerned, Gray’s little book, “How the Plants... more...

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AT THE EDGE OF THE FIRE A pall of smoke, dark, ugly, threatening, hung over a wood in which the Thirty-ninth Troop of the Boy Scouts had been spending a Saturday afternoon in camp. They had been hard at work at signal practice, semaphoring, and acquiring speed in Morse signaling with flags, which makes wireless unnecessary when there are enough signalers, covering enough ground. The Scout camp was near... more...

PREFACE During 1910, 1911, and 1912, as a part of a general plan to write a book on education, I reread a great deal of the classical educational literature, and carefully perused most of the current material in magazine and book form. An interest aroused by undergraduate and graduate work in the department of pedagogy had been whetted by the revolutionary activity in every field of educational... more...