CHAPTER I "Chuck at the Y.D. to-night, and a bed under the shingles," shouted Transley, waving to the procession to be off. Linder, foreman and head teamster, straightened up from the half load of new hay in which he had been awaiting the final word, tightened the lines, made an unique sound in his throat, and the horses pressed their shoulders into the collars. Linder glanced back to see each... more...

PREFACE. In the winter of 1873 I spent some weeks in one of the tombs of the Necropolis of Thebes in order to study the monuments of that solemn city of the dead; and during my long rides in the silent desert the germ was developed whence this book has since grown. The leisure of mind and body required to write it was given me through a long but not disabling illness. In the first instance I intended... more...

HISTORICAL NOTE While the popular conception of Lincoln as the Liberator of the Slave is true historically, there is a deeper view of his life and character. He was the savior, if not the real creator, of the American Union of free Democratic States. His proclamation of emancipation was purely an incident of war. The first policy of his administration was to save the Union. To this fact we owe a united... more...

PREFACE. The present publication is intended to supply a recognised deficiency in our literature—a library edition of the Essays of Montaigne. This great French writer deserves to be regarded as a classic, not only in the land of his birth, but in all countries and in all literatures. His Essays, which are at once the most celebrated and the most permanent of his productions, form a magazine out of... more...

CHAPTER I EARLY CHURCH DRAMA ON THE CONTINENT The old Classical Drama of Greece and Rome died, surfeited with horror and uncleanness. Centuries rolled by, and then, when the Old Drama was no more remembered save by the scholarly few, there was born into the world the New Drama. By a curious circumstance its nurse was the same Christian Church that had thrust its predecessor into the grave. A man may... more...

CHAPTER I TWO SCHOOL FRIENDS Two boys were walking in the campus of the Bridgeville Academy. They were apparently of about the same age—somewhere from fifteen to sixteen—but there was a considerable difference in their attire. Herbert Grant was neatly but coarsely dressed, and his shoes were of cowhide, but his face indicated a frank, sincere nature, and was expressive of intelligence. His... more...

CHAPTER I."Soon is the echo and the shadow o'er,Soon, soon we lie with lid-encumbered eyesAnd the great fabrics that we reared beforeCrumble to make a dust to hide who dies." In the year 18—, Mr. and Mrs. John Woods and Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Posey lived as one family in the State of Illinois. Living with Mrs. Posey was a little negro girl, named Polly Crocket, who had made it her home... more...

Jean de Marselait, Inquisitor Extraordinary of the King of France, raised his head from the parchments that littered the crude desk at which he sat. His glance shifted along the long stone-walled, torchlit room to the file of mail-clad soldiers who stood like steel statues by its door. A word from him and two of them sprang forward. "You may bring in the prisoner," he said. The two disappeared... more...

THE FIRST ACT The scene is a drawing-room, prettily but somewhat showily decorated. The walls are papered with a design representing large clusters of white and purple lilac. The furniture is covered with a chintz of similar pattern, and the curtains, carpet, and lamp-shades correspond. In the wall facing the spectator are two windows, and midway between the windows there is the entrance to a... more...

BACH. I. The growth and development of German music are eminently noteworthy facts in the history of the fine arts. In little more than a century and a half it reached its present high and brilliant place, its progress being so consecutive and regular that the composers who illustrated its well-defined epochs might fairly have linked hands in one connected series. To Johann Sebastian Bach must be... more...