CHAPTER FIRST CULTURE: ITS NECESSITY TO A YOUNG PRIEST If you question any priest of experience and observation who has lived on the foreign mission, and ask him what constitutes the greatest drawbacks, what seriously impedes the efficiency of our young priests abroad, without hesitation he will answer—First, want of social culture; and, secondly, a defective English education. To the first of these... more...

CHAPTER I THE OVERLAND TELEGRAPH LINE TO RUSSIA—SAILING OF THE FIRST SIBERIAN EXPLORING PARTY FROM SAN FRANCISCO. The Russian-American Telegraph Company, otherwise known as the "Western Union Extension," was organised at New York in the summer of 1864. The idea of a line from America to Europe, by way of Bering Strait, had existed for many years in the minds of several prominent telegraphers,... more...

PART I.Formation.The London Rifle Brigade, formerly the 1st London Volunteer Rifle Corps (City of London Rifle Volunteer Brigade), and now, officially, the 5th (City of London) London Regiment, London Rifle Brigade, familiarly known to its members and the public generally by the sub-title or the abbreviation "L.R.B.," was founded July 23rd, 1859, at a meeting convened by the Lord Mayor. It has... more...

A law-student of the present day finds it difficult to realize the brightness and domestic decency which characterized the Inns of Court in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Under existing circumstances, women of character and social position avoid the gardens and terraces of Gray's Inn and the Temple. Attended by men, or protected by circumstances that guard them from... more...

Kofirans. fter all the Labours and Attention of our best Academicians to form just Plans, and draw complete Maps of the whole Terraqueous Globe, there are many large Empires and powerful Nations, which their Enquiries have not reached; so that they are not only ignorant of their Position, but even of their Existence. Of this Number are the vast Dominions of the King of the Kofirans, of which hitherto... more...

CERARGYRITE, a mineral species consisting of silver chloride; an important ore of silver. The name cerargyrite is a Greek form (from κέρας, horn, and ἄργυρος, silver) of the older name hornsilver, which was used by K. Gesner as far back as 1565. The chloro-bromide and bromide of silver were also included under this term until they were distinguished chemically in 1841 and... more...

THE CONFESSIONS OF A DUFFER These papers do not boast of great sport.  They are truthful, not like the tales some fishers tell.  They should appeal to many sympathies.  There is no false modesty in the confidence with which I esteem myself a duffer, at fishing.  Some men are born duffers; others, unlike persons of genius, become so by an infinite capacity for not taking pains.  Others, again,... more...

Chapter I When I was a boy I strongly desired to be a pirate, and the reason for this was the absolute independence of that sort of life. Restrictions of all sorts had become onerous to me, and in my reading of the adventures of the bold sea-rovers of the main, I had unconsciously selected those portions of a pirate's life which were attractive to me, and had totally disregarded all the rest. In... more...

MICHELANGELO How can that be, lady, which all men learnBy long experience? Shapes that seem alive,Wrought in hard mountain marble, will surviveTheir maker, whom the years to dust return!Thus to effect, cause yields. Art hath her turn,And triumphs over Nature. I, who strive with sculpture,Know this well: her wonders liveIn spite of time and death, those tyrants stern.So I can give long life to both of... more...

CHAPTER I. HOW LODBROK THE DANE CAME TO REEDHAM. Elfric, my father, and I stood on our little watch tower at Reedham, and looked out over the wide sea mouth of Yare and Waveney, to the old gray walls of the Roman Burgh on the further shore, and the white gulls cried round us, and the water sparkled in the fresh sea breeze from the north and east, and the bright May-time sun shone warmly on us, and our... more...