TO A FRIEND. I have not asked your consent, my dear General, to the foregoing inscription, because it would have been no inconsiderable disappointment to me had you withheld it; for I have long desired to connect your name with some book of mine, in commemoration of an early friendship that has grown old between two individuals of widely dissimilar pursuits and fortunes. I only wish that the offering... more...

OUR PETS. This is Pol-ly's own cat, Top-sy. She looks ve-ry prim and quiet; but if you play with her, you will find she is a ve-ry mer-ry lit-tle cat. She will jump up-on the ta-ble at break-fast, and run off with Pol-ly's toast; and if mam-ma be wri-ting a let-ter, Top-sy will steal soft-ly a-long the arm of the so-fa, and rub her paw o-ver the last word mam-ma has writ-ten, and make a great... more...

CHAPTER I A BOMBING AIR RAID The scene in the valley was striking in one respect. Low ranges of gently sloping hills had widened out, enclosing broad levels with what in America would be termed a creek but was here poetically named a river. By here I mean eastern France, not so many miles from No-Man's-Land. The "striking" feature was the "Flying Camp" spread out over a dead level... more...

My great-great-great-uncle was one of the many sturdy, honest, high-spirited men to whom the early years of the last century gave birth. He was a brave man and a ready fighter, yet was he ever controlled in his actions by so nice a regard for the feelings of others, and through the strong fibre of his hardy nature ran a strain of such almost womanly gentleness and tenderness, that throughout the rather... more...

INVOCATION TO THE MUSE.Didactic muse Calliope,Expand thy soothing silent wings,Touch chords of measured harmonyWherein the soul ecstatic sings,Let language fraught with living truthFind such expression by thy art,As shall assist the guides of youthTo fire the soul and win the heart.Remove the barriers which so longHave held in thraldom many a mind,Sing to the deaf a ransom-song,Be eyes to those whose... more...

Our Sailors. “Let fall the topsails, hoist away—up anchor, round goes the capstan—sheet home—haul taut the braces! and away we glide, to prove to our countrymen that British sailors have not been sleeping on beds of roses for the last quarter of a century since her gracious Majesty Queen Victoria came to the throne.” So wrote our author some forty years ago. “Up anchor, full speed ahead,”... more...

Our Saviour. Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ had been quietly living for many years at His father's home in Nazareth when John the Baptist began to preach and prepare the people for His coming, as it had been foretold by an Angel before His birth that he should do, and we are told that all the land of Judea, and the people of Jerusalem, roused by his preaching, went to be baptized by him in the... more...

Chapter One. “You, Tom Jones, let that pot-lid alone.” It was a big brown-faced woman who said that crossly, and a big rough-looking bugler, in the uniform of the 200th Fusiliers, with belts, buttons and facings looking very clean and bright, but the scarlet cloth ragged and stained from the rain and mud, and sleeping in it anywhere, often without shelter, who dropped the lid as if it were hot and... more...

The Afghan Campaigns—1839-42. In 1809 the reigning Ameer of Afghanistan, Shah Soojah-ul-Moolk, was dispossessed of his throne and an exile. Runjeet Singh, the Sikh ruler of Punjaub, plundered and imprisoned him at Lahore, and obtained from him the famous Koh-i-noor, the great diamond which is now among the crown jewels of Great Britain. Eventually Soojah escaped from Lahore and became a pensioner of... more...

CHAPTER I “SOMETHING HIDDEN; GO AND FIND IT” In one of Poe’s minor tales, written in 1845, there is a vague allusion to wild mountains in western Virginia “tenanted by fierce and uncouth races of men.” This, so far as I know, was the first reference in literature to our Southern mountaineers, and it stood as their only characterization until Miss Murfree (“Charles Egbert Craddock”) began... more...