Chapter I The New City When Frank Algernon Cowperwood emerged from the Eastern District Penitentiary in Philadelphia he realized that the old life he had lived in that city since boyhood was ended. His youth was gone, and with it had been lost the great business prospects of his earlier manhood. He must begin again. It would be useless to repeat how a second panic following upon a tremendous... more...

Introduction Many years have passed by since, delivering the Inaugural Lecture of the Irish Literary Society in London, I advocated as one of its chief aims the recasting into modern form and in literary English of the old Irish legends, preserving the atmosphere of the original tales as much as possible, but clearing them from repetitions, redundant expressions, idioms interesting in Irish but... more...

PHILOSOPHY. learer proofs, in the discovery of secrets, and in the investigation of the hidden causes of things, being afforded by trustworthy experiments and by demonstrated arguments, than by the probable guesses and opinions of the ordinary professors of philosophy: so, therefore, that the noble substance of that great magnet, our common mother (the earth), hitherto quite unknown, and the... more...

LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. Probably some of the readers of this volume will feel an interest in the author's life. Although there are but few works, in which the mind of the author is more clearly and purely reflected than in this; yet it is natural that the reader should feel some interest in the outward circumstances of one, who has become dear to him; and those friends of Novalis, who have never known... more...

CHAPTER ONE. HOW LITTLE JACKET WOULD GO TO SEA. I dare say there are not many of my young readers who have heard about Jacky Cable, the sailor-boy, and of his wonderful adventures on Huggermugger's Island. Jacky was a smart Yankee lad, and was always remarkable for his dislike of staying at home, and a love of lounging upon the wharves, where the sailors used to tell him stories about sea-life.... more...

MY EXCUSE My sixtieth birthday is a thing of yesterday, and I have, therefore, more than half descended the western slope. I have no quarrel with life or with time, for both have been polite to me; and I wish to give an account of the past seven years to prove the politeness of life, and to show how time has made amends to me for the forced resignation of my professional ambitions. For twenty-five... more...

INTRODUCTION. One evening, when all the children, after the usual frolic with Crocus the cat and the tremendous dog, had settled themselves for their "nightcaps," (their meaning of which word, of course, you all know,) the little mother cleared her throat, and paused, for she was feeling for a letter that was in her pocket. "Something particularly good is coming to-night," whispered... more...

The puffing, panting engine that dragged the long train of heavy cars into the busy little city of Bradford, in the State of Pennsylvania, one day last summer, witnessed through its one white, staring eye, sometimes called the head-light, many happy meetings between waiting and coming friends; but none was more hearty than that between two college mates—one who had graduated the year previous, and... more...

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE PARISIAN INSURRECTION. The desire of appreciating de visu the results of a five month's siege in a town of two million inhabitants, unexampled in the annals of humanity, made me leave London on the twentieth of March. Hardly landed in the Capital of France which I thought of finding tranquil and occupied in exercising its genius in repairing the disasters caused by the enemy,... more...

CHAPTER I WHY I QUIT First off, let me state the object of the meeting: This is to be a record of sundry experiences centering round a stern resolve to get on the waterwagon and a sterner attempt to stay there. It is an entirely personal narrative of a strictly personal set of circumstances. It is not a temperance lecture, or a temperance tract, or a chunk of advice, or a shuddering recital of the woes... more...