CHURCHILL—HIS LIFE AND WRITINGS. In Churchill we find a signal specimen of a considerable class of writers, concerning whom Goldsmith's words are true—   "Who, born for the universe, narrow'd their mind,  And to party gave up what was meant for mankind." Possessed of powers and natural endowments which might have made him, under favourable circumstances, a poet, a hero, a man,... more...

THOMAS HOBBES. This distinguished Freethinker was born on the 5th of April, 1588, at Malmesbury; hence his cognomen of "the philosopher of Malmesbury." In connection with his birth, we are told that his mother, being a loyal Protestant, was so terrified at the rumored approach of the Spanish Armada, that the birth of her son was hastened in consequence. The subsequent timidity of Hobbes is... more...

CHAPTER I HISTORY OF THE BUILDING It is neither possible, nor desirable, within the limits of a book of this size and scope, to go fully into the question, interesting though it be, of the relative claims of Aldred and Serlo to the honour of the first building of the Abbey of Gloucester. Professor Willis, in his lecture addressed to the meeting of the Archæological Institute, held at Gloucester in... more...

CHAPTER I [Difference from European time.] When the clock strikes twelve in Madrid, [1] it is 8 hours, 18 minutes, and 41 seconds past eight in the evening at Manila; that is to say, the latter city lies 124° 40' 15'' to the east of the former (7 hours, 54 minutes, 35 seconds from Paris). Some time ago, however, while the new year was being celebrated in Madrid, it was only New... more...

PROLOGUE At the piano a man sat playing the "Revolutionary Étude" of Chopin. The room was magnificent in its proportions, its furnishings were massive, its paneled oak walls were hung with portraits of men and women in the costumes of a bygone day. Through the lofty windows, the casements of which were open to the evening sky there was a vista of forest and meadow-land stretching interminably... more...

RELIGION, says Noah Webster in his American Dictionary of the English Language, is derived from "Religo, to bind anew;" and, in this History of a False Religion, our author has shown how easily its votaries were insnared, deceived, and mentally bound in a labyrinth of falsehood and error, by a designing knave, who established a new religion and a new order of priesthood by imposing on their... more...

INTRODUCTION The Negro has been in America just about three hundred years and in that time he has become intertwined in all the history of the nation. He has fought in her wars; he has endured hardships with her pioneers; he has toiled in her fields and factories; and the record of some of the nation's greatest heroes is in large part the story of their service and sacrifice for this people. The... more...

Second Fig   Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:  Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand! Recuerdo   We were very tired, we were very merry—  We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.  It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable—  But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,  We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;  And the whistles... more...

PAR AVIUM. Two little birds were sitting on a stone, One flew away and then there was one, T’ other flew away and then there was none, So the poor stone was left all alone. One of the little birds back again flew, In came t’ other and then there were two; Says one bird to t’ other, “How do you do?” “Very well, I thank you; pray how do you?” Fama est par avium venisse insistere saxo,... more...

INDEX. Chapter I.—Introduction—Gordon’s birth, parentage and school—His first experience of warfare in the Crimea—His display of exceptional soldierly qualities—The storming of Sebastopol and its fall. Chapter II.—Gordon assisting to lay down frontiers in Russia, Turkey and Armenia—Gordon in China—Burning of the Summer Palace—Chinese rebellion and its suppression. Chapter... more...