INTRODUCTION Michael Drayton was born in 1563, at Hartshill, near Atherstone, in Warwickshire, where a cottage, said to have been his, is still shown. He early became a page to Sir Henry Goodere, at Polesworth Hall: his own words give the best picture of his early years here. His education would seem to have been good, but ordinary; and it is very doubtful if he ever went to a university. Besides the... more...

Mrs. Reginald Norman walked into Sherry's and sank down at a small table with the calm assurance of one conscious of being both beautiful and perfectly gowned. There were no defects for the critical world to take up and magnify. Her gown fitted flawlessly, was built by the highest court of appeal on Parisian fashions, and suited her to perfection. There is nothing like such a latent consciousness... more...

APPRECIATION AND INTRODUCTION With a view to the work of my classes this session, I took old Abraham Woodhead’s two black-letter quartos with me to the Engadine last July.  And I spent every rainy morning and every tired evening of that memorable holiday month in the society of Santa Teresa and her excellent old-English translator.  Till, ever, as I crossed the Morteratch and the Roseg, and climbed... more...

CHAPTER I. Arrival of the Colonists in Nuevitas Harbor. Just after noon on January 4, 1900, the ancient city of Nuevitas, Cuba, lazily basking in the midday sunshine, witnessed a sight which had not been paralleled in the four hundred years of its existence. A steamer was dropping anchor in the placid water of the harbor a mile off shore, and her decks were thronged with a crowd of more than two... more...

CHAPTER I ON THE BIG WOODS TRAIL Hippy Wingate stepped from the train that had just pulled into the little Red River Valley station and turned to observe Tom Gray and the others of the Overland Riders detrain. In one hand Hippy carried a suitcase, in the other a disconsolate-looking bull pup done up in a shawl strap. "Be you Gray?" Hippy turned to look at the owner of the voice, not certain... more...

Nahum 1:1 An oracle about Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite. 1:2 Yahweh is a jealous God and avenges. Yahweh avenges and is full of wrath. Yahweh takes vengeance on his adversaries, and he maintains wrath against his enemies. 1:3 Yahweh is slow to anger, and great in power, and will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. Yahweh has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and... more...

PRELIMINARY I The writing of this preliminary chapter, and the final survey and revision of my Whitman essay, I am making at a rustic house I have built at a wild place a mile or more from my home upon the river. I call this place Whitman Land, because in many ways it is typical of my poet,—an amphitheatre of precipitous rock, slightly veiled with a delicate growth of verdure, enclosing a few acres... more...

Introduction. know not when I first planned this work, so inextricably is the idea interwoven with a fading recollection of my earliest aims and ambitions. However, had I not been resolutely determined to conclude it at any cost—mental, physical, or pecuniary—the difficulties that I have experienced at every stage might have led to its early abandonment. The greatest difficulty lay in procuring... more...

CHAPTER I BIRTHPLACE AND YOUTH   This is the life story of one who was born on a farm, and died on a farm, yet who achieved a world-wide fame through his military exploits. It has been told many times, it will be told for centuries yet to come; for the world loves a man of high emprise, and such was Israel Putnam, the hero of this story. He was born January 7, 1718, in Danvers, then known as Salem... more...

CHAPTER I. THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER. The simple story which is told in this little book treats of things which happened a long time ago in a foreign country, where the manners and customs are widely different from our own. It is necessary to explain this at the beginning, because the reader will meet with incidents in the narrative which would otherwise seem strange and inconsistent. Two lessons... more...