CANADA, 1882. "Are hearts here strong enough to found  A glorious people's sway?"Ask of our rivers as they boundFrom hill to plain, or ocean-sound,  If they are strong to-day?If weakness in their floods be found,  Then may ye answer "Nay!" "Is union yours? may foeman's might  Your love ne'er break or chain?"Go see if o'er our land the flightOf Spring... more...

CHAPTER I. TWO GENERATIONS Why all delights are vain, but that most vainWhich with pain purchased doth inherit pain. "My dear—Madam—what you call heart does not come into the question at all." Sir John Meredith was sitting slightly behind Lady Cantourne, leaning towards her with a somewhat stiffened replica of his former grace. But he was not looking at her—and she knew it. They were both... more...

PREFACE When the late Mr. Arthur Strong asked me to undertake the present volume, I pointed out to him that, to fulfil the advertised programme of the Series he was editing, was more than could be hoped from my attainments. He replied, that in the case of Dürer a book, fulfilling that programme, was not called for, and that what he wished me to attempt, was an appreciation of this great artist in... more...

FIRE QUARTERS. "Four bells, sir!" reported the messenger-boy, to the officer who had charge of the deck of the Storm King. "Very good. Quartermaster, make it so." The silvery tones of the little bell rang through the vessel, and immediately there began a great noise and hubbub on the berth-deck, which, but a moment before, had been so quiet and orderly. Songs, shouts of laughter, and... more...

CHAPTER XXVIII. FREEDOM AT LAST ASSURED. As to the Military situation, a few words are, at this time, necessary: Hood had now marched Northward, with some 50,000 men, toward Nashville, Tenn., while Sherman, leaving Thomas and some 35,000 men behind, to thwart him, had abandoned his base, and was marching Southward from Atlanta, through Georgia, toward the Sea. On the 30th of November, 1864, General... more...

DEDICATION TOTHE OTHER MANMR PHILIP KERSHAW There were once two men. They were men of might and breeding. They were young, they were intolerant, they were hale. Were there for humans as there is for dogs a tribunal to determine excellence; were there judges of anthropoidal points and juries to, give prizes for manly race, vigour, and the rest, undoubtedly these two men would have gained the gold and... more...

I WALKING PAPERS Through the suave, warm radiance of that afternoon of Spring in England a gentleman of modest and commonly amiable deportment bore a rueful countenance down Piccadilly and into Halfmoon street, where presently he introduced it to one whom he found awaiting him in his lodgings, much at ease in his easiest chair, making free with his whiskey and tobacco, and reading a slender brown... more...

LETTER TO A YOUNG CONTRIBUTOR. My dear young gentleman or young lady,—for many are the Cecil Dreemes of literature who superscribe their offered manuscripts with very masculine names in very feminine handwriting,—it seems wrong not to meet your accumulated and urgent epistles with one comprehensive reply, thus condensing many private letters into a printed one. And so large a proportion of... more...

THE COLONIAL MORTUARY BARD A writer in the Sydney Evening News last year gave that journal some amusing extracts from the visitors' book at Longwood, St. Helena. If the extracts are authentic copies of the original entries, they deserve to be placed on the same high plane as the following, which appeared in a Melbourne newspaper some years ago:— "Our Emily was so fairThat the angels envied... more...

THOSE WHO SMILED From the great villa, marble-white amid its yews and cedars, in which the invaders had set up their headquarters, the two officers the stout, formidable German captain and the young Austrian lieutenant went together through the mulberry orchards, where the parched grass underfoot was tiger-striped with alternate sun and shadow. The hush of the afternoon and the benign tyranny of the... more...