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...

EDITOR’S PREFACE. Having been requested by Messrs. Gould and Lincoln to examine the work entitled “A Narrative of some of the Lord’s Dealings with George Müller,” the Editor was convinced that its republication in this country would greatly promote the piety of American Christians. But to reproduce the work in its original form was attended with difficulty. The “Narrative,” in four parts,... more...

MARLEY'S GHOST. Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was dead as a door-nail. Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it... more...

Psychism and Spirituality Our subject to-night consists of two words: psychism—spirituality. I am going to speak to you on the subjects denoted by these two words, because there is so much confusion about them in ordinary conversation, in ordinary literature, and out of that confusion much of harm arises. People think of one thing and use the name of the other, and so continually fall into blunders... more...

THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH'S COTTAGE, WINDSOR. They who draw their notions of royal enjoyment from the tinsel of its external trappings, will scarcely believe the above cottage to have been the residence of an English princess. Yet such was the rank of its occupant but a few years since, distant as may be the contrast of courts and cottages, and the natural enjoyment of rural life from the artificial... more...

UNCONSCIOUS COMEDIANS Leon de Lora, our celebrated landscape painter, belongs to one of the noblest families of the Roussillon (Spanish originally) which, although distinguished for the antiquity of its race, has been doomed for a century to the proverbial poverty of hidalgos. Coming, light-footed, to Paris from the department of the Eastern Pyrenees, with the sum of eleven francs in his pocket for all... more...

The Novel or Romance of Waverley made its way to the public slowly, of course, at first, but afterwards with such accumulating popularity as to encourage the Author to a second attempt. He looked about for a name and a subject; and the manner in which the novels were composed cannot be better illustrated than by reciting the simple narrative on which Guy Mannering was originally founded; but to which,... more...

SCENE I A room in the Ministry of War in the capital of Iberia. Evening. The minister of war, a tall, stern, bearded man with deep-set eyes and many furrows, is sitting at a large, mahogany desk-table, Left. The chief of staff, silent, motionless and watchful, stands beside him with his hands resting on the table-top. He is thin, old and emaciated, clean-shaven, firm-lipped, and looks startlingly like... more...

CHAPTER I. THE CHASE. At noon, on the first Saturday of March, 1796, there was an unusual stir at the old Barton farm-house, just across the creek to the eastward, as you leave Kennett Square by the Philadelphia stage-road. Any gathering of the people at Barton's was a most rare occurrence; yet, on that day and at that hour, whoever stood upon the porch of the corner house, in the village, could... more...