He waits musing. Herein the dearness of her is:The thirty perfect days of JuneMade one, in beauty and in blissWere not more white to have to kiss,To love not more in tune.And oft I think she is too true,Too innocent for our day;For in her eyes her soul looks new—Two crowfoot-blossoms watchet-blueAre not more soft than they.So good, so kind is she to me,In darling ways and happy words,Sometimes my... more...

CHAPTER I The vague and hazy ideals which the white light of an English upbringing relegates to dreamland and dismisses as idle fancies, rise up in the glare of African sunlight, alive, tangible, unashamed; the things that are, not the things that might be:—the vivid colouring, the hot crowding, the stately men and veiled women, the despotism and stoicism, the unchanging picturesqueness of the... more...

CHAPTER I. MY YOUTHFUL CREED. I first began to read religious books at school, and especially the Bible, when I was eleven years old; and almost immediately commenced a habit of secret prayer. But it was not until I was fourteen that I gained any definite idea of a "scheme of doctrine," or could have been called a "converted person" by one of the Evangelical School. My religion then... more...

CHAPTER I ACOUSTICS Telephony is the art of reproducing at a distant point, usually by the agency of electricity, sounds produced at a sending point. In this art the elements of two general divisions of physical science are concerned, sound and electricity. Sound is the effect of vibrations of matter upon the ear. The vibrations may be those of air or other matter. Various forms of matter transmit... more...

Chapter I. At Home.   Long Branch, one of America’s most famous watering-places, in midsummer, its softly-wooded hills dotted here and there with picturesque “frame” villas of dazzling white, and below the purple Atlantic sweeping in restlessly on to the New Jersey shore. The sultry day has been one of summer storm, and the waves are tipped still with crests of snowy foam, though now the sun is... more...

THE FUR-TRADER'S SON The son of the merchant Lecour was a handsome youth, and there was great joy in the family at his coming home to St. Elphège. For he was going to France on the morrow; it was with that object that his father had sent to town for him—the little walled town of Montreal. It was evening, early in May, of the year 1786. According to an old custom of the French-Canadians, the... more...

THE QUEEN’S ANIMALS.ByG. B.Burgin and E. M. Jessop. Illustrations by E. M. Jessop.The February wind blows keenly, as we lean from the window of our railway carriage, and watch dismantled house-boats, drawn up on the river bank just outside Windsor, being prepared for the forthcoming season. Some Eton boys—it is evidently a holiday—stand looking on with lively interest. Several people get out of... more...

CHAPTER I. The sun of an August afternoon, 1782, was yet blazing upon the rude palisades and equally rude cabins of one of the principal stations in Lincoln county, when a long train of emigrants, issuing from the southern forest, wound its way over the clearings, and among the waving maize-fields that surrounded the settlement, and approached the chief gate of its enclosure. The party was numerous,... more...

CHAPTER I. THE HEGIRA OF THE WESTS FROM EDINBURGH I John Fothergill West, student of law in the University of St. Andrews, have endeavoured in the ensuing pages to lay my statement before the public in a concise and business-like fashion. It is not my wish to achieve literary success, nor have I any desire by the graces of my style, or by the artistic ordering of my incidents, to throw a deeper shadow... more...

eorge," Clara said with restrained fury, "the least you could do is ask him. Are you a mouse or a worm?" "Well, I have gone out there and moved it every night," George protested, trying to reason with her without success. "Yes, and every morning he puts it back. George, so long as that trap is outside of our front door, I can never have a moment's peace, worrying about the... more...