CHAPTER I THE CASTOR AND POLLUX OF ELIZABETHAN DRAMA "Among those of our dramatists who either were contemporaries of Shakespeare or came after him, it would be impossible to name more than three to whom the predilection or the literary judgment of any period of our national life has attempted to assign an equal rank by his side. In the Argo of the Elizabethan drama—as it presents itself to the... more...

Scenes In Switzerland. Time flies swiftly when we are sightseeing; and it was late in the autumn of 18— when I reached Lindau. Lake Constance lay before me, a pale, green sheet of water, hemmed in on the south by bold mountain ranges, filling the interim between the Rhine valley and the long undulating ridges of the Canton Thurgau. These heights, cleft at intervals by green smiling valleys and deep... more...

THE KING OF PERSIA AND THE PRINCESS OF THE SEA. There once was a king of Persia, who at the beginning of his reign had distinguished himself by many glorious and successful conquests, and had afterwards enjoyed such profound peace and tranquillity as rendered him the happiest of monarchs. His only occasion for regret was that he had no heir to succeed him in the kingdom after his death. One day,... more...

CHAPTER I. GENERAL REMARKS My dear children—When I was a little boy, my dear mother taught me, with the exception of the last line, the following prayer:"Now I lay me down to sleep,I pray the Lord my soul to keep;If I should die before I wake,I pray the Lord my soul to take;And this I ask for Jesus' sake." Though I am now more than fifty years old, I often like to say this prayer before... more...

JAMES PRESCOTT JOULE. James Prescott Joule was born at Salford, on Christmas Eve of the year 1818. His father and his grandfather before him were brewers, and the business, in due course, descended to Mr. Joule and his elder brother, and by them was carried on with success till it was sold, in 1854. Mr. Joule's grandfather came from Elton, in Derbyshire, settled near Manchester, where he founded... more...

"SHE HAS NO SETTLEMENT, DAMN IT." "She can't come." "But, father——" "She shan't come, then—if you like that better." "But, father——" "Aye, of course, it's 'But father'—I might have known it would be that. However, you may 'But father' me to the end of my time, you don't move me. I tell you, Sukey,... more...

OUR generation already is overpast,And thy lov'd legacy, Gerard, hath lainCoy in my home; as once thy heart was fainOf shelter, when God's terror held thee fastIn life's wild wood at Beauty and Sorrow aghast;Thy sainted sense tramme'd in ghostly pain,Thy rare ill-broker'd talent in disdain:Yet love of Christ will win man's love at last.  Hell wars without; but, dear, the... more...

INTRODUCTION In the year 1843, two new books took the American public by storm: one was Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico, and the other Life in Mexico by Madame Calderon de la Barca. William Hickling Prescott was already known as an able historian on account of his scholarly Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain which had appeared four years before and elicited praise from all... more...

CHAPTER ONE The churchyard in which Arthur Lawford found himself wandering that mild and golden September afternoon was old, green, and refreshingly still. The silence in which it lay seemed as keen and mellow as the light—the pale, almost heatless, sunlight that filled the air. Here and there robins sang across the stones, elvishly shrill in the quiet of harvest. The only other living creature there... more...

VANNA IS BID FOR Not easily would you have found a girl more winning in a tender sort than Giovanna Scarpa of Verona at one and twenty, fair-haired and flushed, delicately shaped, tall and pliant, as she then was. She had to suffer her hours of ill report, but passes for near a saint now, in consequence of certain miracles and theophanies done on her account, which it is my business to declare; before... more...