CHAPTER I. IN THE SPRING OF 1857. All through India, with its fanatical population five times as great as that of England, the rumblings of the coming uprising had been heard for months. The disaffection had been spreading and taking root. The emissaries of the arch-plotters had passed back and forth almost from end to end of the vast empire, with their messages of hatred and appeal. The people were... more...

CHAPTER I. THE WITCH OF BUTE. "Ah, if only Kenric were here!" It was on the evening of a bright day in June, in the year 1262, and a girl, clasping her hands in distress, walked restlessly to and fro on the bank of a stream that tinkled merrily along its gravelly bed towards the sea. She, in her loose gown of gray woollen homespun and girdle of crimson silk, was then the only figure to be seen... more...

HOW THE RESERVES CAME UP From a seat in the paymaster's office of the depôt barracks at Bury one afternoon in November, 1899, I could look either into the barrack yard or out along the Bolton Road. A four-wheeler clove its way through the crowd surrounding the gates, and the sentries presented arms to it. It contained my friend, the paymaster, who presently came upstairs carrying a bag in which... more...

INTRODUCTION The following chapters are the outgrowth of an enthusiasm for the work of voice training, together with a deep personal interest in a large number of conscientious young men and women who have gone out of my studio into the world to engage in the responsible work of voice teaching. The desire to be of service to them has prompted me to put in permanent form the principles on which I... more...

INTRODUCTION Wherever English literature is studied, John Dryden is recognized as the author of some of the greatest political satires in the language. Until recently the fact has been overlooked that before he wrote the first of these satires, Absalom and Achitophel, he had entered the political arena with the prose tract here reproduced. The proof that the Historiographer Royal contributed to the... more...

CHAPTER I ETHEL'S PLANS The morning after Ethel had declared herself her mother came up to her room. She could see that Mrs. Hollister had not slept and her eyes were red from weeping. Ethel kissed her, saying: "Mamma, we are going to be very happy together—you and I. I don't want to disappoint you, dear, nor would I do so willingly; but I simply can not live as I've been living.... more...

PART ONE "How beautiful the revolution!Even in its most barbarous aspect it is beautiful,"Solis said with deep feeling. I "That's no animal, I tell you! Listen to the dog barking! It must be a human being." The woman stared into the darkness of the sierra. "What if they're soldiers?" said a man, who sat Indian-fashion, eating, a coarse earthenware plate in his right... more...

POLYNESIAN ISLANDS.TUCOPIA.PIERCY ISLANDS.Mr. George Bennett, whose "Journals" and "Researches" denote him to be a shrewd and ingenious observer, has favoured us with the original sketches of the above cuts. They represent three of the spots that stud the Southern Pacific Ocean. The first beams with lovely luxuriance in its wood-crowned heights; while the second and third rise from the... more...

RANDOM FLIGHTS. By Marcus Macleod. (With renewed acknowledgments to "The Skittish Weekly.") It was with inexpressible relief that I heard of the narrow escape of the Rev. Urijah Basham. Presiding at a jumble sale at Sidcup he described how he had been within an ace of partaking of rhubarb leaves at luncheon on the previous day, but, having read in the morning's paper of their fatal... more...

The Plains Country. Seventy years ago, when some of the events here recounted took place, Indians were Indians, and the plains were the plains indeed. Those plains stretched out in limitless rolling swells of prairie until they met the blue sky that on every hand bent down to touch them. In spring brightly green, and spangled with wild flowers, by midsummer this prairie had grown sere and yellow.... more...