Of all love stories that are known to human history, the love story of Antony and Cleopatra has been for nineteen centuries the most remarkable. It has tasked the resources of the plastic and the graphic arts. It has been made the theme of poets and of prose narrators. It has appeared and reappeared in a thousand forms, and it appeals as much to the imagination to-day as it did when Antony deserted his... more...

INTRODUCTION Phillips Brooks once told the boys at Exeter that in reading biography three men meet one another in close intimacy—the subject of the biography, the author, and the reader. Of the three the most interesting is, of course, the man about whom the book is written. The most privileged is the reader, who is thus allowed to live familiarly with an eminent man. Least regarded of the three is... more...

The Magister Udal sat in the room of his inn in Paris, where customarily the King of France lodged such envoys as came at his expense. He had been sent there to Latinise the letters that passed between Sir Thomas Wyatt and the King's Ministers of France, for he was esteemed the most learned man in these islands. He had groaned much at being sent there, for he must leave in England so many... more...

Captain Cook—His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries. Early Training. Among all those Englishmen who, from a humble origin, have risen to an honourable position, Captain James Cook is especially worthy of record. His parents were of the peasant class—his father having commenced life as a farm-labourer, and his mother being a cottager’s daughter. Probably, however, they were both superior to others of... more...

CHAPTER I THE AGE OF ELECTRICITY THE year 1847 marked a period of great territorial acquisition by the American people, with incalculable additions to their actual and potential wealth. By the rational compromise with England in the dispute over the Oregon region, President Polk had secured during 1846, for undisturbed settlement, three hundred thousand square miles of forest, fertile land, and... more...

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCING TO THE READER THE CHIEF PERSONAGE OF THIS NARRATIVE. At that famous period of history, when the seventeenth century (after a deal of quarrelling, king-killing, reforming, republicanising, restoring, re-restoring, play-writing, sermon-writing, Oliver-Cromwellising, Stuartising, and Orangising, to be sure) had sunk into its grave, giving place to the lusty eighteenth; when Mr.... more...

CHAPTER I 'Grandfather! I want to speak to you; please listen.' 'Well, who said I would not listen? But speak up, Biddy.' The old man put his hand to his ear, and his granddaughter leaned over the back of his chair. 'Don't call me Biddy, grandfather. I am Bryda.' 'Bryda! Phew! Your poor mother was called Biddy, and you ain't better than she was that I know... more...

I unpacked my things and went down to await luncheon. It was good to be here again in this little old sleepy hostel by the sea. Hostel I say, though it spelt itself without an "s" and even placed a circumflex above the "o." It made no other pretension. It was very cozy indeed. I had been here just a year before, in mid-February, after an attack of influenza. And now I had returned,... more...

Treats of the Engine-Driver’s House and Household. Talk of earthquakes! not all the earthquakes that have rumbled in Ecuador or toppled over the spires and dwellings of Peru could compare, in the matter of dogged pertinacity, with that earthquake which diurnally and hourly shocked little Gertie’s dwelling, quivered the white dimity curtains of little Gertie’s bed and shook little Gertie’s... more...

CHAPTER I. FAITHFUL TO THE DEATH. The sun was setting gloriously over the hills which encompass Jerusalem, pouring its streams of golden light on the valleys clothed with the vine, pomegranate, and olive, sparkling on the brook Kedron, casting a rich glow on flat-roofed dwellings, parapets, and walls, and throwing into bold relief from the crimson sky the pinnacles of the Temple, which, at the period... more...