CHAPTER I JACKSON THE FRONTIERSMAN Among the thousands of stout-hearted British subjects who decided to try their fortune in the Western World after the signing of the Peace of Paris in 1763 was one Andrew Jackson, a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian of the tenant class, sprung from a family long resident in or near the quaint town of Carrickfergus, on the northern coast of Ireland, close by the newer and more... more...

On the Upper DeckSic itur ad astra.One morning in December the steamer Tabo was laboriously ascending the tortuous course of the Pasig, carrying a large crowd of passengers toward the province of La Laguna. She was a heavily built steamer, almost round, like the tabú from which she derived her name, quite dirty in spite of her pretensions to whiteness, majestic and grave from her leisurely motion.... more...

WHAT IS POETRY?      If you were to ask twenty intelligent people, "What is the Thames?" the answer due to you from each would be—"a river." And yet this would hardly be matter to satisfy your enquiring mind. You would more probably say, "What do you know of the Thames?" or, "Describe the Thames to me." This would bring you a great variety of opinions, many... more...

CHAPTER I THE WOLF AND THE BADGER The time was in or about the year 1544, when the Emperor Charles V. ruled the Netherlands, and our scene the city of Leyden. Any one who has visited this pleasant town knows that it lies in the midst of wide, flat meadows, and is intersected by many canals filled with Rhine water. But now, as it was winter, near to Christmas indeed, the meadows and the quaint gabled... more...

PREFACE This book of verse for boys is, I believe, the first of its kind in English. Plainly, it were labour lost to go gleaning where so many experts have gone harvesting; and for what is rarest and best in English Poetry the world must turn, as heretofore, to the several ‘Golden Treasuries’ of Professor Palgrave and Mr. Coventry Patmore, and to the excellent ‘Poets' Walk’ of Mr. Mowbray... more...

When General Rosecrans took command of the Army of the Ohio there were in that army five battalions of regular infantry in two different divisions; when he reorganized this army he determined to bring these battalions together, to give them a regular battery, and form of them a Regular Brigade. The 15th, 16th and 19th were already at Nashville; the orders organizing the brigade found the two battalions... more...

Conan, the warrior king, lies stricken deadBeneath a sky of cryptic stars; the luteThat was his laughter stilled, and sadly muteUpon the chilling earth his youthful head.There sounds for him no more the clamorous fray,But dirges now, where once the trumpet loud:About him press old memories for shroud,And ended is the conflict of the day.Death spilled the blood of him who loved the fightAs men love... more...

CHAPTER I. The palace of the Élysée-Bourbon,—the old hôtel of the Marquise de Pompadour,—situated in the middle of the Faubourg St. Honoré, was, previous to the last revolution, furnished, as every one knows, for the occupancy of foreign royal highnesses,—Roman Catholic, Protestant, or Mussulman, from the princes of the German confederation to Ibrahim Pacha. About the end of the month of... more...

AFTER HORACE   What asks the Bard? He prays for nought    But what the truly virtuous crave:  That is, the things he plainly ought        To have.   'Tis not for wealth, with all the shocks    That vex distracted millionaires,  Plagued by their fluctuating stocks        And shares:   While plutocrats their millions new    Expend upon each costly whim,  A... more...

CHAPTER I THE TOY BALLOON "I am the last of my kind. This is the very peak of loneliness."—TheMurmuring Pine. There is a State in the North Mississippi Valley unexcelled for its quiet beauty. To the casual traveler there may be a certain monotony in the unending miles of rolling green hills, stretching on and on into distant, pale skies. But the native of the State knows that the monotony is... more...