THE GOLDEN AGE LIES ONWARD. "The Golden Age lies onward, not behind.The pathway through the past has led us up:The pathway through the future will lead on,And higher." The Life Radiant is that transfiguration of the ordinary daily events and circumstances which lifts them to the spiritual plane and sees them as the signs and the indications of the divine leading. Every circumstance thus becomes... more...

CHAPTER I. EARLY RECOLLECTIONS—"COMING OVER" FROM IRELAND. I owe both the title of this book and the existence of the book itself to the suggestion of friends. I suppose a man of 76 may be called "old," although I have by no means given up the idea that I can still be of use to my country. And a Rebel? Yes! Anything of the nature of injustice or oppression has always stirred me to... more...

Among the manifold operations of living creatures few have more strongly impressed the casual observer or more deeply interested the thoughtful student than the transformations of insects. The schoolboy watches the tiny green caterpillars hatched from eggs laid on a cabbage leaf by the common white butterfly, or maybe rears successfully a batch of silkworms through the changes and chances of their... more...

FLAUBERT I Balzac in one of his novels gives utterance to the following thought: "Genius is a terrible disease. Every writer of genius cherishes in his heart a monster which devours all his emotions as soon as he gives birth to them. Which is to be the conqueror? Will the disease vanquish the man, or the man the disease? He must be a great man who can establish a perfect equilibrium between his... more...

PREFACE That all Defoe's novels, with the exception of "Robinson Crusoe," should have been covered with the dust of neglect for many generations, is a plain proof of how much fashions in taste affect the popularity of the British classics. It is true that three generations or so ago, Defoe's works were edited by both Sir Walter Scott and Hazlitt, and that this masterly piece of... more...

LETTER I. THE MURDER. Washington, April 17. Some very deliberate and extraordinary movements were made by a handsome and extremely well-dressed young man in the city of Washington last Friday. At about half-past eleven o'clock A. M., this person, whose name is J. Wilkes Booth, by profession an actor, and recently engaged in oil speculations, sauntered into Ford's Theater, on Tenth, between E... more...

ANCESTRY. Line of Descent—Family Tradition—Indian Fighters—Grandfather Rutherford—Chloe Smith Hayes—Father and Mother—Characteristics—Tributes to a Sister—General Character of Ancestors. George Hayes, of Scotland, came to America by the way of England, and settled at Windsor, in the Colony of Connecticut, in 1682. He married, in 1683, Abigail Dibble, who was born on Long Island in 1666.... more...

The result of the Artist's experiment to discover the methods by which Titian produced his splendid colouring.--He returns to Rome.--Reflections suggested by inspecting the Egyptian Obelisk.--Considerations of the Author on the same subject; an anecdote of a Mohawk Indian who became an Actor at New York.--Anecdote of a Scottish Fanatic who arrived in Rome, to convert the Pope.--Sequel of the... more...

The Beginning—in which Several Important Personages are Introduced. There existed, not many years ago, a certain street near the banks of old Father Thames which may be described as being one of the most modest and retiring little streets in London. The neighbourhood around that street was emphatically dirty and noisy. There were powerful smells of tallow and tar in the atmosphere, suggestive of... more...

THE LIFTED BANDAGE The man let himself into his front door and, staggering lightly, like a drunken man, as he closed it, walked to the hall table, and mechanically laid down his hat, but still wearing his overcoat turned and went into his library, and dropped on the edge of a divan and stared out through the leaded panes of glass across the room facing him. The grayish skin of his face seemed to fall... more...