THE LITTLE TEACHER. I know of a little girl, who, like Mozart, shows a great talent for music, though she is not yet ten years old. Before she could walk, it seemed to be her delight to creep along the floor to the piano, draw herself up so as to touch the key-board, and then strike the different keys. Some of the sounds were pleasing to her, and from some she would start and draw back, as if she were... more...

(BOOK 52, BOISSEVAIN) [-1-] My record has so far stated what the Romans both did and endured for seven hundred and twenty-five years under the monarchy, as a democracy, and beneath the rule of a few. After this they reverted to nothing more nor less than a state of monarchy again, although Cæsar had a plan to lay down his arms and entrust affairs to the senate and the populace. He held a consultation... more...

CHAPTER I DAY DREAMS "Come out of your day dream, Janie, and guess what I have for you." Hands behind him, Henry Allen stood looking amusedly down at his daughter. Stretched full length in a gaily striped hammock swung between two great trees, her gray eyes dreamily turned toward the distant mountain peaks, Jane Allen had not heard her father's noiseless approach over the closely clipped... more...

HYMEN As from a temple service, tall and dignified, with slow pace, each a queen, the sixteen matrons from the temple of Hera pass before the curtain—a dark purple hung between Ionic columns—of the porch or open hall of a palace. Their hair is bound as the marble hair of the temple Hera. Each wears a crown or diadem of gold. They sing—the music is temple music, deep, simple, chanting notes:From... more...

CHAPTER I. The years have come and gone at Beechhurst as elsewhere, but the results of time and change seem to have almost passed it by. Every way out of the scattered forest-town is still through beautiful forest-roads—roads that cleave grand avenues, traverse black barren heaths, ford shallow rivers, and climb over ferny knolls whence the sea is visible. The church is unrestored, the parsonage is... more...

Wagner Wagner's music, more than any other, is the sign and symbol of the nineteenth century. The men to whom it was disclosed, and who first sought to refuse, and then accepted it, passionately, without reservations, found in it their truth. It came to their ears as the sound of their own voices. It was the common, the universal tongue. Not alone on Germany, not alone on Europe, but on every... more...

PRELIMINARY: MRS. GASKELL In the whole of English biographical literature there is no book that can compare in widespread interest with the Life of Charlotte Brontë by Mrs. Gaskell.  It has held a position of singular popularity for forty years; and while biography after biography has come and gone, it still commands a place side by side with Boswell’s Johnson and Lockhart’s Scott.  As far as... more...

CHAPTER I THE BETROTHAL OF OLAF Of my childhood in this Olaf life I can regain but little. There come to me, however, recollections of a house, surrounded by a moat, situated in a great plain near to seas or inland lakes, on which plain stood mounds that I connected with the dead. What the dead were I did not quite understand, but I gathered that they were people who, having once walked about and been... more...

FIELD MOUSE.   “What is my little Alfred crying for?” asked his mother, Mrs. Clifford, as she entered the room where Alfred stood weeping by the table. Come here, and tell me what is the matter with you.” Alfred slowly advanced towards his mother, and wiped away his tears with her apron. Alfred was but a little boy, or he would not have cried for such a simple thing as he did. “Well, Alfred,... more...

Chapter I "The consequences of folly seldom end with its originator," said Lord Earle to his son. "Rely upon it, Ronald, if you were to take this most foolish and unadvisable step, you would bring misery upon yourself and every one connected with you. Listen to reason." "There is no reason in prejudice," replied the young man haughtily. "You can not bring forward one valid... more...