A DAY AT LAGUERRE'S F. HOPKINSON SMITH It is the most delightful of French inns, in the quaintest of French settlements. As you rush by in one of the innumerable trains that pass it daily, you may catch glimpses of tall trees trailing their branches in the still stream,—hardly a dozen yards wide,—of flocks of white ducks paddling together, and of queer punts drawn up on the shelving shore or... more...

THE MUD-LARKS. Our mess was situated on the crest of a ridge, and enjoyed an uninterrupted view of rolling leagues of mud; it had the appearance of a packing-case floating on an ocean of ooze. We and our servants, and our rats and our cockroaches, and our other bosom-companions slept in tents pitched round and about the mess. The whole camp was connected with the outer world by a pathway of ammunition... more...

In 1824 there issued from the press in Philadelphia a 12-page pamphlet bearing the title, Formulae for the preparation of eight patent medicines, adopted by the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. The College was the first professional pharmaceutical organization established in America, having been founded in 1821, and this small publication was its first venture of any general importance. Viewed from... more...

CHAPTER I THE "SPLENDID" WAR CANOE "It's the wreck of one of the grandest enterprises ever conceived by the human mind!" complained Colonel W.P. Grundy, in a voice broken with emotion. A group of small boys grinned, though they offered no audible comment. "Such defeats often—-usually, in fact—-come to those who try to educate the masses and bring popular intelligence to a... more...

OUR NEW NEIGHBORS AT PONKAPOG BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH When I saw the little house building, an eighth of a mile beyond my own, on the Old Bay Road, I wondered who were to be the tenants. The modest structure was set well back from the road, among the trees, as if the inmates were to care nothing whatever for a view of the stylish equipages which sweep by during the summer season. For my part, I like... more...

PROLOGUE. The Bard, when first he gave his mind to write, Thought it his only business, that his Plays Should please the people: but it now falls out, He finds, much otherwise, and wastes, perforce, His time in writing Prologues; not to tell The argument, but to refute the slanders Broach’d by the malice of an older Bard. And mark what vices he is charg’d withal! Menander wrote the Andrian and... more...

JONES It was the first of June, and Victor Jones of Philadelphia was seated in the lounge of the Savoy Hotel, London, defeated in his first really great battle with the thing we call life. Though of Philadelphia, Jones was not an American, nor had he anything of the American accent. Australian born, he had started life in a bank at Melbourne, gone to India for a trading house, started for himself,... more...

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French Measure. “For thy walls a pretty slight drollery.” The Second Part of King Henry IV. “A bad lot. Yes, sir, a thoroughly bad lot.” “You don’t mean it.” “Yes, ma’am, a bad lot is the Uphill people. Good for nothing and ungrateful! I’ve known them these thirty-years, and no one will do anything with them.” The time was the summer of 1822. The place was a garden, somewhat gone... more...

CHAPTER I Yon days! Yon palmy, peaceful days! I go back to them, and they are as a dream. I go back to them again and again, and live them over. Yon days of another age, the age of peace, when no man dared even to dream of such times as have come upon us. It was in November of 1913, and I was setting forth upon a great journey, that was to take me to the other side of the world before I came back again... more...