If one can just lie close enough to the breast of the wilderness, he can't help but be imbued with some of the life that pulses therein.—From a Frontiersman's Diary. Long ago, when the great city of Gitcheapolis was a rather small, untidy hamlet in the middle of a plain, it used to be that a pool of water, possibly two hundred feet square, gathered every spring immediately back of the... more...

I I Matthew Lanfear had stopped off, between Genoa and Nice, at San Remo in the interest of a friend who had come over on the steamer with him, and who wished him to test the air before settling there for the winter with an invalid wife. She was one of those neurasthenics who really carry their climate—always a bad one—with them, but she had set her mind on San Remo; and Lanfear was willing to pass... more...

MADAME:—I lay it down as a maxim, that men who enter the service of the State should make it their chief study to set out in the world with some notable act which may strike the imagination of the people, and cause themselves to be discussed. Thus I preached first upon All Saints' Day, before an audience which could not but be numerous in a populous city, where it is a wonder to see the... more...

THE RULING PASSION. "Norman is coming to the dance," said my wife. "He would prefer to be shot," I answered. "You are coming too, and I want you to look after him." "I also would prefer to stop one." "It will do him all the good in the world. He wants bringing out." When Norman is alone with me he is natural and even interesting at times, but in company he is shy... more...

CHAPTER I. You are fond (said my aunt) of sketches of the society which has passed away. I wish I could describe to you Sir Philip Forester, the "chartered libertine" of Scottish good company, about the end of the last century. I never saw him indeed; but my mother's traditions were full of his wit, gallantry, and dissipation. This gay knight flourished about the end of the seventeenth and... more...

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PART ONE: MAKING THE MOULD I The company stood at attention, each man looking straight before him at the empty parade ground, where the cinder piles showed purple with evening. On the wind that smelt of barracks and disinfectant there was a faint greasiness of food cooking. At the other side of the wide field long lines of men shuffled slowly into the narrow wooden shanty that was the mess hall. Chins... more...

AN ODD FREAK "Speaking o' money," said the night-watchman thoughtfully, as he selected an empty soapbox on the wharf for a seat, "the whole world would be different if we all 'ad more of it. It would be a brighter and a 'appier place for everybody." He broke off to open a small brass tobacco-box and place a little quid of tobacco tenderly into a pouch in his left cheek,... more...

A wide plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on between its green banks to the sea, and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its passage with an impetuous embrace. On this mighty tide the black ships–laden with the fresh-scented fir-planks, with rounded sacks of oil-bearing seed, or with the dark glitter of coal–are borne along to the town of St. Ogg's, which shows its aged,... more...

THE STOCKING OF PRIVATE PARKS. As I came out on to the convalescents' verandah my brother James looked up from his paper. "Did I ever tell you about a certain Private Parks?" he asked. "He was with me in Flanders in the early days. He came out with a draft and lasted about two months. Rather a curious type. Very superstitious. If a shell narrowly missed him he must have a small piece... more...