PREFACE. The following speech has been much the subject of conversation, and the desire of having it printed was last summer very general. The means of gratifying the public curiosity were obligingly furnished from the notes of some gentlemen, members of the last Parliament. This piece has been for some months ready for the press. But a delicacy, possibly over-scrupulous, has delayed the publication to... more...

Of the Rolling Stone Once upon a time in a small village in Bruce County, Province of Ontario, Dominion of Canada, there lived a man who was destined to establish a precedent. He was to prove to the world that a rolling stone is capable at times of gathering as much moss as a stationary one, and how it is possible for the rock with St. Vitus dance to become more coated than the one that is confined to... more...

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice BowdenPerson interviewed: Lizzie McCloud     1203 Short 13th Street, Pine Bluff, ArkansasAge: 120? "I was one of 'em bless your heart. Yes ma'm, Yes ma'm, I wouldn't tell you a lie 'bout that. If I can't tell you the truth I'm not goin' tell you nothin'! "Oh yes, I was a young lady in slavery times—bred and born in... more...

Queen Elizabeth being dead about ten o'clock in the morning, March 24, 1603, Sir Robert Cary posted away, unsent, to King James of Scotland to inform him of the "accident," and got made a baron of the realm for his ride. On his way down to take possession of his new kingdom the king distributed the honor of knighthood right and left liberally; at Theobald's he created eight-and-twenty... more...

FIFTY YEARS & OTHER POEMS FIFTY YEARSO brothers mine, to-day we standWhere half a century sweeps our ken,Since God, through Lincoln's ready hand,Struck off our bonds and made us men.Just fifty years—a winter's day—As runs the history of a race;Yet, as we look back o'er the way,How distant seems our starting place!Look farther back! Three centuries!To where a naked, shivering... more...

I Liverpool does not remind him of this so much as the good and true Baedeker professes, in the dockside run on the overhead railway (as the place unambitiously calls its elevated road); but then, as I noted in my account of Southampton, docks have a fancy of taking themselves in, and eluding the tourist eye, and even when they "flank the Mersey for a distance of 6-7 M." they do not respond to... more...

CHAPTER I. THE INVITATIONS ARE SENT. Down the long avenue that led from the house to the great entrance gate came the Little Colonel on her pony. It was a sweet, white way that morning, filled with the breath of the locusts; white overhead where the giant trees locked branches to make an arch of bloom nearly a quarter of a mile in length, and white underneath where the fallen blossoms lay like... more...

As soon as the Elder left the supper-table his daughter and the new schoolmaster went out on the stoop or verandah which ran round the frame-house. The day had been warm, but the chilliness of the evening air betokened the near approach of the Indian summer. The house stood upon the crest of what had been a roll in the prairie, and as the two leant together on the railing of the stoop, they looked out... more...

Murray’s Highland Home—A Visit from Admiral Triton—Adair and his Nephew appear—Murray appointed to the Opal, Adair First Lieutenant—Preparations for Departure—Admiral Triton and Mrs Deborah invite Mrs Murray to stay at Southsea—The Opal and her Crew—A Poetical Lieutenant—Parting between Miss Rogers and Adair—The Opal sails for the East Coast of Africa. Alick Murray had not... more...

CHAPTER I.—The Old House YOU may still see the old Scotch house where Randal was born, so long ago. Nobody lives there now. Most of the roof has fallen in, there is no glass in the windows, and all the doors are open. They were open in the days of Randal's father—nearly four hundred years have passed since then—and everyone who came was welcome to his share of beef and broth and ale. But now... more...