"They say Miss Morton is engaged to Robert Hazlewood," said Augusta Lenox. "So I hear," replied Angila Mervale, to whom this piece of news had been communicated. "How can she?" "How can she, indeed?" replied Augusta. "He's an ugly fellow." "Ugly! yes," continued Angila, "and a disagreeable ugliness, too. I don't care about a man's being... more...

HINTS ON THE USEFUL-KNOWLEDGE MOVEMENT.   The advocates of the diffusion of useful knowledge among the great body of the people, found one of their greatest difficulties to lie in an inability on the part of the people themselves to see what benefit they were to derive from the knowledge proposed to be imparted. This knowledge consisted of such a huge mass of facts of all kinds, that few could... more...

INTRODUCTION TOTHE FIRST AND SECOND CANTOS OF CHILDE HAROLD. The First Canto of Childe Harold was begun at Janina, in Albania, October 31, 1809, and the Second Canto was finished at Smyrna, March 28, 1810. The dates were duly recorded on the MS.; but in none of the letters which Byron wrote to his mother and his friends from the East does he mention or allude to the composition or existence of such a... more...

'ARRY AT 'ARRYGATE. (Second Letter.) DEAR CHARLIE,—The post-mark, no doubt, will surprise you. I'm still at the "Crown," Though I said in my last—wot wos true—I was jest on the mizzle for town. 'Ad a letter from nunky, old man, with another small cheque. Good old nunk! So I'm in for a fortnit' more sulphur and slosh, afore doing a bunk. Ah! I've worked... more...

CHAPTER I. "What time is it?" inquired Dame Hansen, shaking the ashes from her pipe, the last curling rings from which were slowly disappearing between the stained rafters overhead. "Eight o'clock, mother," replied Hulda. "It isn't likely that any travelers will come to-night. The weather is too stormy." "I agree with you. At all events, the rooms are in readiness,... more...

NEW YORK, Saturday, October 12, 1878. Bang! click! the desk closes, the key turns, and good-bye for a year to my wards—that goodly cluster over which I have watched with parental solicitude for many a day; their several cribs full of records and labelled Union Iron Mills, Lucy Furnaces, Keystone Bridge Works, Union Forge, Cokevale Works, and last, but not least, that infant Hercules, the Edgar... more...

DURHAM THE DICTATOR And let him be dictatorFor six months and no more. The curious sightseer in modern Toronto, conducted through the well-kept, endless avenues of handsome dwellings which are that city's pride, might be surprised to learn that at the northern end of the street which cuts the city in two halves, east and west, bands of armed Canadians met in battle less than a century ago. If he... more...

TRANSGRESSION It was strange to think that if, on finishing her coffee in her room, she had looked in on the children, as she generally did, instead of going down to the drawing-room to write a note, her whole life might have been different. "Why didn't I?" was the question she often asked herself in the succeeding years, only to follow it with the reflection: "But perhaps it would... more...

CHAPTER I FOUR LIVELY BOYS "Boys, I'm going swimming. Who is going along?" "Count me in, Snap," answered Shep Reed. "Swimming?" came from a third youth of the crowd of four. "Why, you couldn't keep me away if you tried. I've been waiting for a swim for about eleven years——-" "And a day," broke in a small, stout youth. "Don't forget the... more...

I. “I have not read this author’s books, and if I have read them I have forgotten what they were about.” These words are reported as having been uttered in our midst not a hundred years ago, publicly, from the seat of justice, by a civic magistrate.  The words of our municipal rulers have a solemnity and importance far above the words of other mortals, because our municipal rulers more than any... more...