LETTER I. Occasion of Visit to the United States—First Impressions of theMississippi—Magnitude of that River—Impediment at its Entrance—TheNew Harbour—The "Great" and "Fat" Valley—High-Pressure Steam-TugFrolics—Slave-Auction Facetiae. The ill health of my wife, occasioned by long residence amid the sultry swamps of Guiana, compelled me a few months ago to accompany her on... more...

CHAPTER I A fast train drew into Albany, on the New York Central, from the West. It was three-thirty of a chill March morning in the first year of peace. A pall of fog lay over the world so heavy that it beaded the face and hands and deposited a fairy diamond dust upon wool. The station lights had the visibility of stars, and like the stars were without refulgence—a pale golden aureola, perhaps three... more...

CHAPTER I. ON THE ERIE ROAD. "Papers, magazines, all the popular novels! Can't I sell you something this morning?" Joshua Bascom turned as the train boy addressed him, and revealed an honest, sunburned face, lighted up with pleasurable excitement, for he was a farmer's son and was making his first visit to the city of New York. "I ain't much on story readin'," he... more...

THE BROWNIES AT SCHOOL. S Brownies rambled 'round one night,A country schoolhouse came in sight;And there they paused awhile to speakAbout the place, where through the weekThe scholars came, with smile or whine,Each morning at the stroke of nine."This is," said one, "the place, indeed,Where children come to write and read.'T is here, through rules and rods to suit,The young idea... more...

CHAPTER I. Christopher was a fiddler and a man of genius. Educated people do not deny the possibility of such a combination; but it was Christopher's misfortune to live amongst a dull and bovine-seeming race, who had little sympathy with art and no knowledge of an artist's longings. They contented themselves, for the most part, with the belief that Christopher was queer. Perhaps he was. My... more...

IT was an occasion, I felt—the prospect of a large party—to look out at the station for others, possible friends and even possible enemies, who might be going. Such premonitions, it was true, bred fears when they failed to breed hopes, though it was to be added that there were sometimes, in the case, rather happy ambiguities. One was glowered at, in the compartment, by people who on the morrow,... more...

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MY FAVORITE MURDER Having murdered my mother under circumstances of singular atrocity, I was arrested and put upon my trial, which lasted seven years. In charging the jury, the judge of the Court of Acquittal remarked that it was one of the most ghastly crimes that he had ever been called upon to explain away. At this, my attorney rose and said: "May it please your Honor, crimes are ghastly or... more...

CHAPTER ITHE FORMER ABUNDANCE OF WILD LIFE"By my labors my vineyard flourished. But Ahab came. Alas! for Naboth." In order that the American people may correctly understand and judge the question of the extinction or preservation of our wild life, it is necessary to recall the near past. It is not necessary, however, to go far into the details of history; for a few quick glances at a few high... more...

CHAPTER THE FIRST A BOLT FROM THE BLUE Those who were in Dublin on Easter Monday 1916 were privileged to witness a scene which for dramatic setting and for paradoxical conception is certainly the most extraordinary of any of the long line of rebellions in Irish history, for at a time when it seemed almost universally admitted that "Separatism" was from an economic, racial, and military point of... more...